The second day after my return I began another three months of
strenuous battles. The squadron had been assigned a new kind of work
to do, in addition to regular patrol. This lasted throughout a great
part of the month of June, and gave us some very strenuous mornings,
although the afternoons were generally easier.
My first fight occurred in the early morning, about 7 o’clock, when I
was leading a patrol. The clouds were very low, being about 4,000 feet,
the lower part of each cloud having a thin hanging mist about it. This
made it possible to fly just in the mist, without being seen at more
than 200 yards.
I had been gazing far into enemy territory, and suddenly saw five enemy
scouts dive out of the clouds, then, after coming in our direction for
a moment or two, dive back into the mist. I thought they were trying
to surprise us, and crawled up as close to the clouds as I could,
heading in their direction. Suddenly they loomed up just in front of
us, and evidently were more surprised than we were. I only managed to
get in a short burst, when my machine gun jammed hopelessly; but the
remainder of the patrol gave chase to the Huns as they turned to run
and scattered them helter-skelter. One man appeared to be hit, and one
of my men went after him in a vertical dive to 1,000 feet from the
ground, when the enemy suddenly regained control, and darted across his
own lines, escaping.
Later in the day I went out by myself, and, flying over Vimy Ridge and
Lens, was watching a ground battle taking place there, when suddenly I
saw a single scout of the enemy underneath me. He did not see me, and
I dived at him and managed to fall into the much-desired position just
behind his tail. I opened fire, and my tracer bullets could be seen
going all around the pilot’s seat. I had considerable speed from my
dive, and was going much faster than he was, so whirled past him. Then,
to avoid getting him behind me, I “zoomed” up and, after reaching 500
feet above, made a quick turn to see what had happened. To this day I
have not the faintest idea what happened. My enemy entirely disappeared
from view. I looked all around underneath, and everywhere else, but
could not see him. Later, I telephoned to the anti-aircraft batteries
and infantry stations near the front-line trenches, but they could give
no information. That particular Hun must have dissolved.
Ten minutes later I had another fight. I had seen, some distance away,
two of the enemy. They were fighting machines, so I reconnoitred
carefully, and a little later discovered two more Huns were flying
2,000 feet above them. I climbed up, and looked carefully from a
distance at these; then climbed a little higher, with the idea of
attacking them, when I suddenly saw two more Huns 3,000 feet above the
second pair. It was a layer formation, and a favourite trap of the
Huns, their idea being that our machines would come along and attack
the lower pair, in which case the middle pair would come down on top
of them, leaving the highest pair in reserve. This had been tried
innumerable times, and had been more or less successful, but, long
since, our people had become wise and always watched for anything of
that sort. By pure luck, that morning, I saw the top pair, and, flying
away off to one side, climbed as fast as I could until 2,000 feet above
them; then followed along. I was quite certain there was no fourth
pair, and also knew that the third pair would be very keen on watching
underneath them to see that their comrades were not attacked. It was a
case of the trappers trapped; and, successful on this occasion, I was
always on the look-out for the same sort of thing after that day, and
succeeded in bringing down some of the top-side people on several other
occasions.
This day I dived down at the top pair, one of which was flying directly
behind the other. I did not touch my trigger until I was fifty yards
from him; then opened a stiff fire. This machine, as on the previous
time I had used a similar trick, knew nothing of what was coming to
him at all. He also probably never knew what hit him, because, slipping
to one side, his machine went into a spin and fell completely out of
control. I did not wait to attack the other man, as I was underneath
him; and by the time he had turned to see what was happening, I was a
quarter of a mile away, and going for home as fast as possible. It was
the first machine to my credit since my return from England, and I was
greatly pleased.
By this time I had become very ambitious, and was hoping to get a large
number of machines officially credited to me before I left France. With
this object in view, I planned many little expeditions of my own, and,
with the use of great patience, I was very successful in one or two.
The next day I was out with my patrol again in the morning, and met six
enemy scouts. There were six of us as well, but in the earlier part
of the “scrap” which immediately followed, my gun, which seemed to
be causing me a lot of trouble, again jammed, and I signalled to the
others that I had to leave the fight. I dived away, and landed on an
aerodrome near by to correct the jam.
Three-quarters of an hour later I was again in the air, but could not
find the patrol, so I flew up over Vimy Ridge. There was one of my old
friends, a big, fat two-seater, and I went after him with joy in my
soul. Three times I managed to get in a burst of fire, diving once from
straight above and once from either side, but I did not seem to be able
to hit him at all.
Glancing suddenly over my shoulder, I saw two enemy scouts coming to
the rescue from above. They had been sitting away up in the blue sky,
in order to protect this machine, and, luckily for me, had not seen
me sooner. I cleared off, and carefully thought how I was to get my
revenge. Nothing in the world but that fat two-seater attracted my
attention. I was annoyed at having missed him, after such good chances,
and was determined I was at least going to have another good go at him
before giving up. The only trouble was the two enemy scouts above, and
I did not know how to get rid of them. They had seen me, and probably
had their eye on me at the moment.
I flew away, and came back in five minutes. Luck was with me; another
one of our machines had flown slightly above the two enemy scouts, who
had turned and fled from him. He had chased them, and they had made a
detour, evading him. All this I took in at a glance, and saw that they
were trying to get back to protect their two-seater comrade, and had no
desire to fight, themselves. Seeing my opportunity, as the two-seater
did not seem to know that the scouts had temporarily deserted him, I
dived at him again, and this time closed up to within 50 yards before
opening fire. Then, taking an accurate aim, I pulled the trigger. I
can remember to this day how carefully I aimed that time. I was dead
behind him, and I picked out the finest point in the pilot’s body where
I wanted my bullets to hit. The observer in the two-seater ceased
firing at me a moment before I opened, and began to work frantically
at his gun. It had the jamming habit, too. A few rounds were enough.
The machine put its nose down, dived vertically a short distance,
then went into an uncontrolled spinning dive, and I watched it as it
fell racing down towards the ground, with the engine full on. As is
always the case, it seemed to take an age before it reached the ground.
Finally, it crashed into the centre of a village, striking between two
houses.
Ten minutes later I had climbed up and was above the two scouts, so
decided to give them at least a scare. I opened fire at long range,
and, for a moment, thought I had hit one of them. He went into a spin,
but 2,000 feet below flattened out and flew away. The other one climbed
and I could not catch him, so turned and flew north.
Another two-seater, who had been flying along the lines, was now 3,000
feet above me. I opened fire at him from underneath, at very long
range, but, of course, could not hit, the range being too long.
Many exciting fights occurred with the machines doing artillery
observation. They were a very difficult proposition. They knew for a
certainty they would be attacked, and would fly in threes and fours,
or more, going about on their beat all together, and helping their own
lines, and at a height of 3,000 feet. It made it very difficult for
us to attack, as, the height being low, we would have to make a dash
across the lines at them, and then back again. Over and over again
one would carefully figure out where they would be nearest the lines,
then, at that moment, dash across at full speed. The enemy, immediately
upon seeing the anti-aircraft shells burst around you, would turn east
and fly towards home, going as fast as they could, and at the same
time losing height. It meant that really to destroy or damage them,
one had to fly ten or twelve miles in to catch them; then they would
only be at a height of some 500 or 1,000 feet. This was our task. The
anti-aircraft fire was terrific, going in not as bad as coming back;
but the moment we turned to come home all the guns in the neighbourhood
would open at us, and, if we were low enough, we would also be
subjected to the most intense machine-gun fire from the ground.
This did not occur once a week; it was a thing that happened to each
one of us three and four times, or even more, in the course of a
morning’s work, and was the most trying job we had to do. Most of
the fights followed the same lines, three or four of us crossing at
full speed, zigzagging slightly in our course to upset the aim of the
“Archies,” and then following closely the enemy machines, which were
all the time directing a steady machine-gun fire at us. Our object was
more to frighten them away than really to bring them down. Then would
come a quick turn, and a dash back home. This would be very hard to
do. One would turn suddenly to the right or left, trying to evade the
bursting shells, but they were cracking on all sides. It would seem
that one could not possibly get through them, and the thought that one
little bit of shell in the engine would put the whole machine out of
business was enough to give anybody nerves. As it was, we were nearly
always hit by small fragments, but this was considered nothing, and, of
course, no reason for not liking the job. My previous experience in
escorting the photography machines had taught me that other people have
to stand anti-aircraft fire as well as ourselves, and for them, being
larger and slower, it is a thousand times worse.