On March 25th came my first real fight in the air, and, as luck would
have it, my first victory. The German retreat was continuing. Four
of us were detailed to invade the enemy country, to fly low over the
trenches, and in general to see what the Boche troops were doing and
where they were located.
Those were very queer days. For a time it seemed that both
armies--German and British alike--had simply dissolved. Skirmishes were
the order of the day on the ground and in the air. The grim, fixed
lines of battle had vanished for the time being, and the Germans were
falling back to their famous Hindenburg positions.
The clouds had been hanging low as usual, but after we had gotten well
in advance of our old lines and into what had been so recently Hunland,
the weather suddenly cleared. So we began to climb to more comfortable
altitudes and finally reached about 9,000 feet. We flew about for a
long while without seeing anything, and then from the corner of my
eye I spied what I believed to be three enemy machines. They were
some distance to the east of us, and evidently were on patrol duty to
prevent any of our pilots or observers getting too near the rapidly
changing German positions. The three strange machines approached us,
but our leader continued to fly straight ahead without altering his
course in the slightest degree. Soon there was no longer any doubt as
to the identity of the three aircraft--they were Huns, with the big,
distinguishing black iron crosses on their planes. They evidently were
trying to surprise us, and we allowed them to approach, trying all the
time to appear as if we had not seen them.
Like nearly all other pilots who come face to face with a Hun in the
air for the first time, I could hardly realize that these were real,
live, hostile machines. I was fascinated by them and wanted to circle
about and have a good look at them. The German Albatross machines are
perfect beauties to look upon. Their swept-back planes give them more
of a birdlike appearance than any other machines flying on the western
front. Their splendid, graceful lines lend to them an effect of power
and flying ability far beyond what they really possess. After your
first few experiences with enemy machines at fairly close quarters you
have very little trouble distinguishing them in the future. You learn
to sense their presence, and to know their nationality long before you
can make out the crosses on the planes.
Finally, the three enemy machines got behind us, and we slowed down so
that they would overtake us all the sooner. When they had approached
to about 400 yards, we opened out our engines and turned. One of the
other pilots, as well as myself, had never been in a fight before,
and we were naturally slower to act than the other two. My first real
impression of the engagement was that one of the enemy machines dived
down, then suddenly came up again and began to shoot at one of our
people from the rear.
I had a quick impulse and followed it. I flew straight at the attacking
machine from a position where he could not see me and opened fire. My
“tracer” bullets--bullets that show a spark and a thin little trail of
smoke as they speed through the air--began at once to hit the enemy
machine. A moment later the Hun turned over on his back and seemed to
fall out of control. This was just at the time that the Germans were
doing some of their famous falling stunts. Their machines seemed to be
built to stand extraordinary strains in that respect. They would go
spinning down from great heights, and just when you thought they were
sure to crash, they would suddenly come under control, flatten out into
correct flying position, and streak for the rear of their lines with
every ounce of horse-power imprisoned in their engines.
When my man fell from his upside-down position into a spinning
nose-dive, I dived after him. Down he went for a full thousand feet
and then regained control. I had forgotten caution and everything else
in my wild and overwhelming desire to destroy this thing that for the
time being represented all of Germany to me. I could not have been
more than forty yards behind the Hun when he flattened out, and again
I opened fire. It made my heart leap to see my smoking bullets hitting
the machine just where the closely hooded pilot was sitting. Again the
Hun went into a dive and shot away from me vertically toward the earth.
Suspecting another ruse, and still unmindful of what might be happening
to my companions in their set-to with the other Huns, I went into a
wild dive after my particular opponent with my engine full on. With a
machine capable of doing 110 to 120 miles an hour on the level, I must
have attained 180 to 200 miles in that wrathful plunge. Meteor-like
as was my descent, however, the Hun seemed to be falling faster still
and got farther and farther away from me. When I was still about 1,500
feet up, he crashed into the ground below me. For a long time I had
heard pilots speaking of “crashing” enemy machines, but I never fully
appreciated the full significance of “crashed” until now. There is no
other word for it.
I have not to this day fully analysed my feelings in those moments of
my first victory. I don’t think I fully realized what it all meant.
When I pulled my machine out of its own somewhat dangerous dive, I
suddenly became conscious of the fact that I had not the slightest
idea in the world where I was. I had lost all sense of direction and
distance; nothing had mattered to me except the shooting down of that
enemy scout with the big black crosses that I shall never forget. Now
I began to fear that I was well within the enemy country and that it
was up to me to find some way of getting home. Then, to my dismay,
I discovered that during our long dive my engine had filled up with
lubricating oil and had stopped dead still. I tried every little trick
I knew to coax a fresh start, but it was no use. I had no choice.
I must land in the country directly beneath me, be it hostile or
friendly. I turned in what seemed to me by instinct to be the way
toward our own lines, and glided as far as I could without any help
from the engine.
I saw beneath me a destroyed village, and my heart sank. I must be
behind the German lines. Was my real flying career, just begun, to be
ended so soon? Was I to suffer the fate the flying man most abhors--the
helpless descent in Hunland and the meek submission to being taken
prisoner? A hundred thoughts were racing through my head, but in a
moment they were dispersed. It was that always ghastly rattle of a
machine gun, firing at me from the ground. This left no doubt but
that I was over enemy territory. I continued to glide, listlessly,
toward the ground, not caring much now what the machine gun might do.
My plight couldn’t be much worse. I was convinced, in fact, that it
couldn’t possibly be worse. Mechanically, little realizing just what
I was doing, but all the time following that first great instinct of
self-preservation, I remember carefully picking out a clear path in the
rough terrain beneath me, and making a last turn, I glided into it and
landed.
[Illustration:
Canadian Official Photograph
Pilot’s Seat of Nieuport Scout.]
Some hostile spirit within me made me seize the rocket pistol we used
to fire signals with in the air--“Very” lights, they are called.
What I expected to do with such an impotent weapon of offence or
defence, I don’t know, but it gave me a sort of armed feeling as I
jumped out of the machine. I ran to a near-by ditch, following the
irresistible battlefield impulse to “take cover.” I lay for some time
in the ditch waiting--waiting for my fate, whatever it was to be. Then
I saw some people crawling toward me. They were anxious moments, and I
had to rub my eyes two or three times before finally convincing myself
that the oncoming uniforms were of muddy-brown and homely, if you will,
but to me that day, khaki was the most wonderful, the most inspiring,
the most soul-satisfying colour scheme ever beheld by the eyes of man.
In an instant my whole life-outlook changed; literally it seemed to me
that by some miracle I had come back from the land of the “missing.”
The British “Tommies” had seen me land and had bravely crawled out
to help me. They told me I had just barely crossed over into our own
country; the last 150 yards of my glide had landed me clear of the
Germans. The soldiers also said we had better try to move the machine,
as the Germans could see it from the hill opposite and would be sure to
shell it in a very little while.
With the help of several other men from a field artillery battery we
hauled the machine into a little valley just before the German shells
began to arrive. One dropped with a noisy bang some 200 yards away from
us, and I fell flat on my stomach. I hadn’t seen much land fighting up
to this time, but I had been told that that was the proper thing to do.
The Tommies, however, looked at me with amazement. The idea of anybody
dropping for a shell 200 yards away! They told me there was nothing
to worry about for the moment, and added, cheerfully, that in a few
minutes the Huns would be doing a little better shooting.
But I had my own back with the Tommies sooner than I could ever have
hoped for. This time a shell landed about twenty yards from us, and
down went everybody but me. I stood up--out of sheer ignorance! I
didn’t know by the sound of the shell how close it was going to land,
but the others did and acted accordingly. The joke of the whole thing
was that the shell was a “dud.” It didn’t explode, and I had the laugh
on the wise artillerymen.
Eventually we got the machine behind a clump of trees where the Germans
couldn’t see it, and they decided to waste no more ammunition hunting
us out. Although it was already 6 o’clock in the evening, I started
to work on the engine, but after an hour and a half had not succeeded
in getting a single cough out of any one of the many cylinders. So I
decided to let matters rest and accept a very cordial invitation to
spend the night with a battery near by.
It would have been a very interesting night indeed if I could have had
some real place to sleep, or if I had not been wearing loose, heavy
flying-clothes, with fleece-lined boots up to my hips, or if it had not
commenced to rain about 9 o’clock, or if in the middle of the night a
heavy artillery battle had not started. But in spite of the discomfort
and the drizzle it was all very interesting and exciting, and seemed to
me a sort of fitting sequel to my wonderful first day of combat in the
air.
The next day it continued to rain, and as I received no word from my
squadron in answer to several telegrams, I borrowed some tools from
the gunners and again got to work on my choked-up engines. Within a
few hours she was running beautifully. Now the problem was to find a
place from which to fly off. The ground was rough and very muddy, but
I decided to try to “taxi” over it. We had not bumped very far alone,
however, the machine and I, when a big piece of mud flew up and split
the propeller. That ended it. There was nothing to do but wait for
help to come from the squadron. It came the next afternoon, after I
had spent a terrible night trying to get to the squadron, and rescue
parties from the squadron had spent an equally terrible night trying
to get to me. I had landed at a point which had been well behind
the German lines a few days ago, where the roads had been mined and
blocked in all manner of ways, and where the German spirit of wanton
destruction had held high carnival. I had even tried to get through in
a Ford, but it was no use.
It was about 3 o’clock the second afternoon after I landed that one
of the rescue parties arrived. They had travelled about 90 miles to
get to me, although the aerodrome was only 15 miles away. By the third
afternoon we had succeeded in taking my machine to pieces, and having
safely loaded it into a motor lorry, began our return journey about
7 o’clock in the evening. We arrived at the aerodrome at 6.30 the
next morning. I slept part of the way, but never was so worn out and
tired in all my life, for many times during the night it was necessary
to get out and help our car out of the mud. Finally, when about six
miles from the aerodrome, we went into a mud-hole and stuck. It was
absolutely impossible to move in any direction, so with one of the men
I set out afoot to an aerodrome about three miles away. There I pulled
some sleepy mechanics out of bed and got them to drive me to my own
aerodrome a little farther along.
Now for the first time I learned exactly what had happened in the fight
on the 25th. The patrol leader had also destroyed one of the enemy
machines, while the third Hun had escaped. All of us were perfectly
safe and none of our machines damaged except my own, which showed a few
tears from shell fragments.
It seemed to me it had been ages since the fight. But at last I was
back among my companions--and I had the large total of one machine to
my credit. There were fellows in the squadron who did not have any,
however, and I was very proud--so proud and excited over the whole
episode that, despite my intense weariness, I couldn’t go to sleep
until late in the afternoon.