WINGED WARFARE
[Illustration: Major W. A. Bishop, V.C., D.S.O., M.C.]
WINGED WARFARE
HUNTING THE HUNS IN THE AIR
BY
MAJOR BISHOP, V.C., D.S.O., M.C.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
1918
_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury._
CHAPTER I
It was the mud, I think, that made me take to flying. I had fully
expected that going into battle would mean for me the saddle of a
galloping charger, instead of the snug little cock-pit of a modern
aeroplane. The mud, on a certain day in July 1915, changed my whole
career in the war.
We were in England. I had gone over as an officer of the Missisauga
Horse, of Toronto, a cavalry detachment of the Second Canadian
Division. It had rained for days in torrents, and there was still a
drizzle coming down as I set out for a tour of the horse-lines.
Ordinary mud is bad enough, when you have to make your home in it, but
the particular brand of mud that infests a cavalry camp has a meanness
all its own. Everything was dank, and slimy, and boggy. I had succeeded
in getting myself mired to the knees when suddenly, from somewhere out
of the storm, appeared a trim little aeroplane.
It landed hesitatingly in a near-by field as if scorning to brush its
wings against so sordid a landscape; then away again up into the clean
grey mists.
How long I stood there gazing into the distance I do not know, but when
I turned to slog my way back through the mud my mind was made up. I
knew there was only one place to be on such a day--up above the clouds
and in the summer sunshine. I was going into the battle that way. I was
going to meet the enemy in the air.
I had never given much thought to being a soldier, even after my
parents had sent me to the Royal Military College at Kingston, when I
was seventeen years of age. I will say for my parents that they had
not thought much of me as a professional soldier either. But they did
think, for some reason or other, that a little military discipline at
the Royal Military College would do me a lot of good--and I suppose it
did.
In any event, those three years at the R.M.C. stood me in good stead
when the rush came in Canada, when everywhere, everybody was doing his
best to get taken on in some capacity in order to get to the front
quickly.
We Canadians will never forget the thrill of those first days of the
war, and then the terrible waiting before most of us could get to the
other side. Our great fear was that the fighting would all be over
before we could give a hand in it. How little we knew then of the glory
that was to be Canada’s in the story of the Western Front, of the
sacrifices that were to reach to nearly every fireside in the Dominion!
For many months my bit seemed to consist of training, more training,
delays and more delays. But at last we got over. We crossed in an
old-time cattle-boat. Oh, what a trip! Fifteen days to reach England!
We had 700 horses on board, and 700 seasick horses are not the most
congenial steamer company.
We were very proud to be in England. We felt we were really in the
war-zone, and soon would be in the fighting. But it is a great mistake
to think that when you sail from America you are going to burst right
up to the front and go over the top at day-break in the morning. The
way to the war is long. There was more work and more training for us in
England. At first we were sent to a very sandy camp on the coast, and
from there to a very muddy camp somewhere else in the British Isles.
It was to this camp that the aeroplane came that stormy day in July. A
week later my plans were in motion. I met a friend in the Royal Flying
Corps and confided in him my ambition to fly. He assured me it would
be easy to arrange a transfer, and instructed me as to what I should
do. If I wanted to get to the front quickly I would have to go as an
observer, meaning that when I flew over the German lines I would be
the “passenger” in a two-seated plane and would do just what my title
indicated--observe.
If one has a stomach for flying, it doesn’t take long to become a
fairly competent observer. There are observer schools where they teach
you just what to observe and what not to observe. This is not a joke.
If an observer lets his gaze wander to too many non-essentials he
cannot do the real observing that is expected of him.
A few more days of cavalry mud and I was convinced that to be an
observer in the air was better far than commanding a division on the
ground. So I applied for my transfer, got it, and went to an observing
school. I loved those first few flights in an old training “bus.” I
don’t think she could make more than fifty miles an hour; and as for
climbing, she struggled and shook and gasped like a freight train going
up a mountain grade. But it was thrilling enough for me in those days,
despite the fact that I soon began to envy the pilot who had all the
fun of running the machine and could make it do a few lame and decrepit
stunts.
After a few months I was graduated as an observer and was awarded my
first insignia of the Flying Corps---an O, with one outstretched wing
attached to it, to be worn on the left breast of the tunic. I was
rather proud of that one wing, but more determined than ever to win the
double wings of a full-fledged pilot, and some day have a machine of
my own.
In a very short time I was in France and ready for my first trip over
the enemy lines. As I look back upon it now my life as an observer
seems very tame. The work of the reconnaissance and artillery machines,
as well as the photography and bombing planes, is very important. It
goes on day and night, in good weather and bad, but all the times I was
observing I wanted to be fighting. Whenever I saw one of the small,
swift, single-seater machines, which were just coming into vogue then
for fighting purposes, my resolves to become a fighting pilot would
grow stronger and stronger.
But far be it from me to detract one iota from the work of the
observers. They take enormous risks and seldom get any of the glory.
The men in the Corps recognize and appreciate the quality of their
work, but the public at large rarely hears of them. The feats of the
fighting planes form the spectacular and fascinating side of flying,
but in a sense the daily drudgery of the bombers, the photographers,
and the observers is of even greater value to the fighting men of the
ground.
It is no child’s play to circle above a German battery observing for
half an hour or more, with your machine tossing about in air, tortured
by exploding shells and black shrapnel puffballs coming nearer and
nearer to you like the ever-extending finger-tips of some giant hand
of death. But it is just a part of the never-ceasing war. In the air
service this work is never done. Everywhere along the line the big guns
wait daily for the wireless touch of aeroplanes to set them booming
at targets carefully selected from a previous day of observation. Big
shells cannot be wasted. The human effort involved in creating them
and placing them beside the well-screened guns at the front is far too
great for that.
Every shell must be watched. It is a startling thing, but true. When
we possess the high ground and the ridges, it is not always necessary
for the aeroplanes or the balloons to do the observing; the artillery
observing officers can go forward on the ground and from a convenient
tree-top, a bit of trench, or a sheltering shell-hole see exactly what
his guns are doing.
Every day there are hundreds of photographs to be taken, so that the
British map-makers can trace each detail of the German trench positions
and can check any changes in the enemy zone. Information is to be
gained at all times by all manner of reconnaissances--some of them
carrying you fifty to sixty miles in the enemy country. Then, there is
the fighting patrol work which goes on all hours. The patrol is not on
our side of the line. It is far over the German lines to keep the enemy
machines from coming too close even to their own front trenches. Of
course they do slip over occasionally, but more than often have to pay
for their temerity.
The British infantryman--Mr. Tommy Atkins--takes it as a personal
insult to have a Hun machine flying over him. It shouldn’t be done, he
says, and he grouses about it for weeks. How different with the German
infantryman! Our planes are on top of them most of the time. The Huns
used to write wrathful letters home about it. Sometimes our infantry
has captured these letters before they were posted, and they used to
amuse us when we got them in the daily army reports. I remember one
particularly peevish old Boche who wrote last May:
“The air activity where we are is very great. The English will soon be
taking the very caps off our heads.”
It is great fun to fly very low along the German trenches and give
them a burst of machine-gun bullets as a greeting in the morning, or a
good-night salute in the evening. They don’t like it a bit. But we love
it; we love to see the Kaiser’s proud Prussians running for cover like
so many rats.
Whatever your mission, whether it is to direct artillery fire, to
photograph, to bomb an ammunition-dump or supply-train, or just to
look old Fritz over and see in a general way what he is up to, your
first journey into Hunland is a memorable event in your life. I may
say here, in passing, that in the Flying Corps a German is seldom
anything but a Hun, and the territory back of his lines is seldom
anything but Hunland. Our general orders tell us to designate a Hun
plane as an “enemy aircraft” in our reports, or “E. A.” for short, but,
nevertheless, we always think of both the machine and the pilot as a
Hun, and they will ever be.
If it is artillery work you are on, you have learned to send down
signals to your battery by means of a wireless buzzer, and you are
equipped with intricate zone maps that enable you to pick out all
manner of fixed objects in the enemy’s domain. You can locate his
dugouts, his dumps, his lines of communication, his battery positions,
his shelters behind the trees, and, in a general way, keep tab on his
“ways that are dark, and tricks that are vain.”
The day for your trip over happens to be one of wondrous sunshine and
the clearest possible visibility. At every aerodrome behind the long
British war-line the aeroplanes are out of their hangars, and are being
tested with such a babel of noisy explosions that in moving about with
a companion you have fairly to shout to make yourself heard. With your
pilot you climb into the waiting two-seater. It has been groomed for
the day and fussed over with as much care as a mother might bestow upon
her only offspring starting for Sunday school.
“Contact, sir?” questions a mechanic standing at the propeller.
“Contact,” repeats the pilot.
There is a click of the electric ignition switch, the propeller is
given a sharp swing over, and the engine starts with a roar. Once or
twice there is a cough, but pretty soon she is “hitting” just right
on every one of her multiple cylinders. It is all the mechanics can
do to hold her back. Then the pilot throttles down to a very quiet
little purr and signals to the attendants to draw away the chocks from
under the wheels. Slowly you move forward under your own “steam” and
“taxi” across the field rather bumpily, to head her into the wind.
This accomplished, the throttle is opened wide, you rush forward with
increasing speed, you feel the tail of the machine leave the ground,
and then you go leaping into space.
You climb in great wide circles above the aerodrome, rig up the
wireless, send a few test signals, get back the correct responses, and
arrange your maps, while the pilot, with one eye on his instruments
and the other on familiar landmarks, sets sail for the German lines,
gaining height all the while. On the way to the lines you pass over
your battery and send wireless word that you are ready to “carry on.”
It is to be a day of “counter-battery” work, which means that some
of our batteries are going to “do in” some of the Hun batteries. The
modern guns of war are very temperamental and restless. They get tired
of firing at infantry trenches and roads and things, and more often go
to shooting at each other. In this you help them all you can.
And now you come to make the acquaintance of “Archie,” who will
pursue you through all your flying-days at the front. “Archie” is a
presumptuous person and takes the liberty of speaking first.
“Woof! Woof!” he barks out. Then--“Hiss-s-s. Bang! Bang!” Two flashes
of crimson fire, and two swirling patches of black smoke jump out of
the air a hundred yards or so in front of you.
The experienced pilot swerves a little neatly and avoids the next
volley, which breaks far to your right. “Archie” keeps barking at you
for quite a while and you seem to be leaving a perfect trail of the
diffusing black smoke-balls in your wake. The pilot looks back at you
and grins; he wonders if you have the “wind up”--army talk for being
scared to death. It isn’t any disgrace to get the “wind up” at the
war, and there are few of us who can truthfully say we haven’t had a
queerish sort of feeling every now and then.
“Archie,” of course, is an anti-aircraft cannon. How the airmen first
happened to name him “Archibald” I do not know; it was when we got to
know him better, and fear him less, that we began to call him “Archie.”
With “Archie” it is the old story of familiarity breeding contempt, but
of late the German “Archie” family has multiplied to such an extent as
almost to make it dangerous to go visiting across the Hun lines. The
German shrapnel shells are nearly always mixed with high-explosive.
They are very noisy, but most of the time your engine is making
such clatter the explosive efforts to wing you in flight go entirely
unnoticed.
Leaving the border-guarding “Archies” far behind, you fly on until you
pick up the four mounds that indicate the German battery position.
You fly rather low to get a good look at it. The Huns generally know
what your coming means and they prepare to take cover. You return a
little way toward your own lines and signal to your battery to fire.
In a moment you see the flash of a big gun. Then nothing seems to
happen for an eternity. As a matter of fact twenty to thirty seconds
elapse and then fifty yards beyond the German battery you see a spurt
of grey-black earth spring from the ground. You signal a correction of
the range. The next shot goes fifty yards short. In artillery language
you have “bracketed” your target. You again signal a correction, giving
a range just in between the first two shots. The next shell that goes
over explodes in a gunpit.
“Good shooting,” you signal to the battery, “carry on”--particular
battery is silenced for good and all. “Archie” tries for you again as
you return across the lines, but his range-finding is very bad to-day.
You salute your battery as you sail over, then land a few minutes later
at the aerodrome well satisfied with your three hours’ work.
You have been to Hunland, and you feel your career in the air has
really begun.