SOME METHODS OF THE WAR IN THE AIR
The fighting tactics of the airmen with the various armies were
developed as the war ran its course. As happens so often in the
utilization of a new device, either of war or peace, the manner of
its use was by no means what was expected at the outset. For the
first year of the war the activities of the airmen fell far short of
realizing Tennyson's conception of
The nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue.
The grappling was only incidental. The flyers seemed destined to be
scouts and rangefinders, rather than fighters. Such pitched combats
as there were took rather the form of duels, conducted with
something of the formality of the days of chivalry. The aviator
intent upon a fight would take his machine over the enemy's line and
in various ways convey a challenge to a rival--often a hostile
aviator of fame for his daring and skill in combat. If the duel was
to the death it would be watched usually from the ground by the
comrades of the two duellists, and if the one who fell left his body
in the enemy's lines, the victor would gather up his identification
disk and other personal belongings and drop them the next day in the
camp of the dead man's comrades with a note of polite regret.
It was all very daring and chivalric, but it was not war according
to twentieth century standards and was not long continued.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_A Caproni Triplane._]
When at first the aviators of one side flew over the enemy's
territory diligently mapping out his trenches, observing the
movements of his troops, or indicating, by dropping bunches of
tinsel for the sun to shine upon or breaking smoke bombs, the
position of his hidden battery, the foe thus menaced sought to drive
them away with anti-aircraft guns. These proved to be ineffective
and it may be said here that throughout the war the swift airplanes
proved themselves more than a match for the best anti-aircraft
artillery that had been devised. They could complete their
reconnaissances or give their signals at a height out of range of
these guns, or at least so great that the chances of their being hit
were but slight. It was amazing the manner in which an airplane
could navigate a stretch of air full of bursting shrapnel and yet
escape serious injury. The mere puncture, even the repeated
puncture, of the wings did no damage. Only lucky shots that might
pierce the fuel tank, hit the engine, touch an aileron or an
important stay or strut, could affect the machine, while in due
course of time a light armour on the bottom of the fusillage or body
of the machine in which the pilot sat, protected the operator to
some degree. Other considerations, however, finally led to the
rejection of armour.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_A Caproni Triplane_ (_Showing Propellers and Fuselage_).]
Accordingly it soon became the custom of the commanders who saw
their works being spied out by an enemy soaring above to send up one
or more aircraft to challenge the invader and drive him away. This
led to the second step in the development in aërial strategy. It was
perfectly evident that a man could not observe critically a position
and draw maps of it, or seek out the hiding place of massed
batteries and indicate them to his own artillerists, and at the same
time protect himself from assaults. Accordingly the flying corps of
every army gradually became differentiated into observation machines
and fighting machines--or _avions de réglage_, _avions de
bombardement_, and _avions de chasse_, as the French call them. In
their order these titles were applied to heavy slow-moving machines
used for taking photographs and directing artillery fire, more
heavily armed machines of greater weight used in raids and bombing
attacks, and the swift fighting machines, quick to rise high, and
swift to manoeuvre which would protect the former from the enemy, or
drive away the enemy's observation machines as the case might be. In
the form which the belligerents finally adopted as most
advantageous the fighting airplanes were mainly biplanes equipped
with powerful motors seldom of less than 140 horse-power, and
carrying often but one man who is not merely the pilot, but the
operator of the machine gun with which each was equipped. Still
planes carrying two men, and even three of whom one was the pilot,
the other two the operators of the machine guns were widely adopted.
They had indeed their disadvantages. They were slower to rise and
clumsier in the turns. The added weight of the two gunmen cut down
the amount of fuel that could be carried and limited the radius of
action. But one curious disadvantage which would not at first
suggest itself to the lay mind was the fact that the roar of the
propeller was so great that no possible communication could pass
between the pilot and the gunner. Their co-operation must be
entirely instinctive or there could be no unity of action--and in
practice it was found that there was little indeed. The smaller
machine, carrying but one man, was quicker in the get-away and could
rise higher in less time--a most vital consideration, for in the
tactics of aërial warfare it is as desirable to get above your enemy
as in the days of the old line of battleships it was advantageous to
secure a position off the stern of your enemy so that you might rake
him fore and aft.
The machines ultimately found to best meet the needs of aërial
fighting were for the Germans always the Fokker, and the Taube--so
called from its resemblance to a flying dove, though it was far from
being the dove of peace. The wings are shaped like those of a bird
and the tail adds to the resemblance. The Allies after testing the
Taube design contemptuously rejected it, and indeed the Germans
themselves substituted the Fokker for it in the war's later days.
The English used the "Vickers Scout," built of aluminum and steel
and until late in the war usually designed to carry two aviators.
This machine unlike most of the others has the propeller at the
stern, called a "pusher" in contradistinction to the "tractor,"
acting as the screw of a ship and avoiding the interference with the
rifle fire which the pulling, or tractor propeller mounted before
the pilot to a certain degree presents. The Vickers machine is
lightly armoured. The English also use what was known as the "D. H.
5," a machine carrying a motor of very high horse-power, while the
Sopwith and Bristol biplane were popular as fighting craft.
The French pinned their faith mainly to the Farman, the Caudron, the
Voisin, and the Moraine-Saulnier machines. The Bleriot and the
Nieuport, which were for some reason ruled out at the beginning of
the war, were afterwards re-adopted and employed in great numbers.
It would be gratifying to an American author to be able to describe,
or at least to mention, the favourite machine of the American
aviators who flocked to France immediately upon the declaration of
war, but the mortifying fact is that having no airplanes of our own,
our gallant volunteer soldiers of the air had to be equipped
throughout by the French with machines of their favourite types.
After we entered the war we adopted a 'plane of American design to
which was given the name "Liberty plane."
It may be worth while to revert for a moment to the distinction
drawn in a preceding paragraph between the pusher propeller and the
tractor which revolved in front of the aviator and of his machine
gun. It would seem almost incredible that two heavy blades of hard
wood revolving at a speed not less that twelve hundred times a
minute, a speed so rapid that their passage in front of the eyes of
the aviator interfered in no way with his vision, should not have
blocked a stream of bullets falling from a gun at the rate of more
than six hundred a minute. Nevertheless it was claimed during the
earlier days of the war that these bullets were not appreciably
diverted by the whirling propellers nor were the latter apparently
injured by the missiles. The latter assertion, however, must have
been to some extent disproved because it came about that the
propellers of the later machines were rimmed with a thin coating of
steel lest the blades be cut by the bullets. But the amazing ability
of modern science to cope with what seemed to be an insoluble
problem was demonstrated by the invention of a device light and
compact enough to be carried in an airplane, which applied to the
machine gun and timed in accordance with the revolutions of the
propeller so synchronized the shots with those revolutions that the
stream of lead passed between the whirling blades never once
striking. The machine was entirely automatic, requiring no attention
on the part of the operator after the gun was once started on its
discharge. This device was originally used by the Germans who
applied it to their Fokker machines. It was claimed for it that by
doing away with the wastage caused by the diversion of the course of
bullets, which struck the revolving propellers, it actually saved
for effective use about thirty per cent. of the ammunition employed.
As the amount of ammunition which can be carried by an airplane is
rigidly limited this gave to the appliance a positive value.
[Illustration: _The Terror that Flieth by Night._
_Painting by William J. Wilson._]
Reference has been made to the extraordinary immunity of flying
airplanes to the attacks of anti-aircraft guns. The number of wounds
they could sustain without being brought to earth was amazing.
Grahame-White tells of a comparison made in one of the airdromes of
the wounds sustained by the machines after a day's hard scouting and
fighting. One was found to have been hit no less than thirty-seven
times. Curiously enough the man who navigated it escaped unscathed.
Wounds in the wings are harmless. But the puncture of the fuel tank
almost certainly means an explosion and the death of the aviator in
the flame thousands of feet in the air. During an air battle before
Arras, a British aviator encountered this fate. When his tank was
struck and the fusillage, or body, of his machine burst into flames,
he knew that he was lost. By no possibility could he reach the
ground before he should be burned to death. A neighbouring aviator
flying not far from him told the story afterwards:
Jack was not in the thick of this fight [said he]. He was rather
on the outskirts striving to get in when I suddenly saw his whole
machine enveloped in a sheet of flame. Instantly he turned
towards the nearest German and made at him with the obvious
intention of running him down and carrying him to earth in the
same cloud of fire. The man thus threatened, twisted and turned
in a vain effort to escape the red terror bearing down upon him.
But suffering acutely as he must have been, Jack followed his
every move until the two machines crashed, and whirling over and
over each other like two birds in an aërial combat fell to earth
and to destruction. They landed inside the German lines so we
heard no more about them. But we could see the smoke from the
burning débris for some time.
As the range of anti-aircraft guns increased the flyers were driven
higher and higher into the air to escape their missiles. At one time
4500 feet was looked upon as a reasonably safe height, but when the
war had been under way about two years the weapons designed to
combat aircraft were so improved that they could send their shots
effectively 10,000 feet into the air. If the aircraft had been
forced to operate at that height their usefulness would have been
largely destroyed, for it is obvious that for observation purposes
the atmospheric haze at such a height would obscure the view and
make accurate mapping of the enemy's position impossible. For
offensive purposes too the airplanes at so great an elevation would
be heavily handicapped, if not indeed rendered impotent. As we shall
see later, dropping a bomb from a swiftly moving airplane upon a
target is no easy task. It never falls direct but partakes of the
motion of the plane. It is estimated that for every thousand feet of
elevation a bomb will advance four hundred feet in the direction
that the aircraft is moving, provided its speed is not in excess of
sixty miles an hour. As a result marksmanship at a height of more
than five thousand feet is practically impossible.
In the main this situation is met, as all situations in war in which
efficiency can only be attained at the expense of great personal
danger are met, namely, by braving the danger. When the aviators
have an attack in contemplation they fly low and snap their fingers
at the puff balls of death as the shrapnel from their appearance
when bursting may well be called. Naturally, efforts were made early
in the war to lessen the danger by armouring the body of the machine
sufficiently to protect the aviator and his engine--for if the
aviator escaped a shot which found the engine, his plight would be
almost as bad as if the missile had struck him.
The main difficulty with armouring the machines grew out of the
added weight. The more efficient the armour, the less fuel could be
carried and the less ammunition. If too heavily loaded the speed of
the machine would be reduced and its ability to climb rapidly upon
which the safety of the aviator usually depends, either in
reconnaissance or fighting, would be seriously impeded. The first
essays in protective armour took the form of the installation of a
thin sheet of steel along the bottom of the body of the craft. This
turned aside missiles from below provided the plane were not so near
the ground as to receive them at the moment of their highest
velocity. But it was only an unsatisfactory makeshift. At the higher
altitudes it was unnecessary and in conflict with other airplanes it
proved worthless, because in a battle in the air the shots of the
enemy are more likely to come from above or at least from levels in
the same plane. The armoured airplane was quickly found to have less
chance of mounting above its enemy, because of the weight it
carried, and before long the principle of protecting an airplane as
a battleship is protected was abandoned, except in the case of the
heavier machines intended to operate as scouts or guides to
artillery, holding their flights near the earth and protected from
attack from above by their attendant fleet of swift fighting
machines. Of these the Vickers machine used mainly by the British is
a common type. It is built throughout of steel and aluminum, and the
entire fusillage is clothed with steel plating which assures
protection to the two occupants from either upward or lateral fire.
The sides of the body are carried up so that only the heads of the
aviators are visible. But to accomplish this measure of protection
for the pilot and the gunner who operates the machine gun from a
seat forward of the pilot, the weight of the craft is so greatly
increased that it is but little esteemed for any save the most
sluggish manoeuvre.
Indeed just as aircraft, as a factor in war, have come to be more
like the cavalry in the army, or the destroyers and scout cruisers
in the navy, so the tendency has been to discard everything in their
design that might by any possibility interfere with their speed and
their ability to turn and twist, and change direction and elevation
with the utmost celerity under the most difficult of conditions. It
is possible that should this war run into the indefinite future we
may see aircraft built on ponderous lines and heavily armoured, and
performing in the air some of the functions that the British "tanks"
have discharged on the battlefields. But at the end of three years
of war, and at the moment when aërial hostilities seemed to be
engaging more fully than even before the inventive genius of the
nations, and the dash and skill of the fighting flyers, the tendency
is all toward the light and swift machine.
[Illustration: Photo by Press Illustrating Service.
_A Curtis Seaplane Leaving a Battleship._]
The attitude of the fighting airmen is somewhat reminiscent of that
of America's greatest sea-fighter, Admiral Farragut. Always opposed
to ironclads, the hero of Mobile Bay used to say that when he went
to sea he did not want to go in an iron coffin, and that when a
shell had made its way through one side of his ship he didn't want
any obstacle presented to impede its passing out of the other side.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_Launching a Hydroaëroplane._]
The all important and even vital necessity for speed also detracted
much from the value of aircraft in offensive operations. It was
found early that you could not mount on a flying machine guns of
sufficient calibre to be of material use in attacking fortified
positions. If it was necessary for the planes to proceed any
material distance before reaching their objective, the weight of
the necessary fuel would preclude the carriage of heavy artillery.
In the case of seaplanes which might be carried on the deck of a
battleship to a point reasonably contiguous to the object to be
attacked, this difficulty was not so serious. This was demonstrated
to some extent by the British raids on the German naval bases of
Cuxhaven and Wilhelmshaven, but even in these instances it was bombs
dropped by aviators, not gunfire that injured the enemy's works. But
for the airplane proper this added weight was so positive a handicap
as to practically destroy its usefulness as an assailant of
fortified positions.
The heavier weapons of offence which could be carried by the
airplane even of the highest development were the bombs. These once
landed might cause the greatest destruction, but the difficulty of
depositing them directly upon a desired target was not to be
overcome. The dirigible balloon enjoyed a great advantage over the
airplane in this respect, for it was able to hover over the spot
which it desired to hit and to discharge its bombs in a direct
perpendicular line with enough initial velocity from a spring gun to
overcome largely any tendency to deviate from the perpendicular. But
an airplane cannot stop. When it stops it must descend. If it is
moving at the moderate speed of sixty miles an hour when it drops
its missile, the bomb itself will move forward at the rate of sixty
miles an hour until gravity has overcome the initial forward force.
Years before the war broke out, tests were held in Germany and
France of the ability of aviators to drop a missile upon a target
marked out upon the ground. One such test in France required the
dropping of bombs from a height of 2400 feet upon a target 170 feet
long by 40 broad--or about the dimensions of a small and rather
stubby ship. The results were uniformly disappointing. The most
creditable record was made by an American aviator, Lieutenant Scott,
formerly of the United States Army. His first three shots missed
altogether, but thereafter he landed eight within the limits. In
Germany the same year the test was to drop bombs upon two targets,
one resembling a captive Zeppelin, the other a military camp 330
feet square. The altitude limit was set at 660 feet. This, though a
comparatively easy test, was virtually a failure. Only two
competitors succeeded in dropping a bomb into the square at all,
while the balloon was hit but once.
The character and size of the bombs employed by aircraft naturally
differed very widely, particularly as to size, between those carried
by dirigibles and those used by airplanes. The Zeppelin shell varied
in weight between two hundred and two hundred and fifty pounds. It
was about forty-seven inches long by eight and a half inches in
diameter. Its charge varied according to the use to which it was to
be put. If it was hoped that it would drop in a crowded spot and
inflict the greatest amount of damage to human life and limb it
would carry a bursting charge, shrapnel, and bits of iron, all of
which on the impact of the missile upon the earth would be hurled in
every direction to a radius exceeding forty yards. If damage to
buildings, on the other hand, was desired, some high explosive such
as picric acid would be used which would totally wreck any
moderate-sized building upon which the shell might fall. In many
instances, particularly in raids upon cities such as London,
incendiary shells were used charged with some form of liquid fire,
which rapidly spread the conflagration, and which itself was
practically inextinguishable.
Shells or bombs of these varying types were dropped from airplanes
as well as from the larger and steadier Zeppelins. The difference
was entirely in the size. It was said that a Zeppelin might drop a
bomb of a ton's weight. But so far as attainable records are
concerned it is impossible to cite any instance of this being done.
The effect on the great gas bag of the sudden release of a load so
great would certainly cause a sudden upward flight which might be so
quick and so powerful as to affect the very structure of the ship.
So far as known 250 pounds was the topmost limit of Zeppelin bombs,
while most of them were of much smaller dimensions. The airplane
bombs were seldom more than sixty pounds in weight, although in the
larger British machines a record of ninety-five pounds has been
attained. The most common form of bomb used in the heavier-than-air
machines was pear-shaped, with a whirling tail to keep the missile
upright as it falls. Steel balls within, a little larger than
ordinary shrapnel, are held in place by a device which releases them
during the fall. On striking the ground they fall on the explosive
charge within and the shell bursts, scattering the two or three
hundred steel bullets which it carries over a wide radius. Bombs of
this character weigh in the neighbourhood of six pounds and an
ordinary airplane can carry a very considerable number. Their
exploding device is very delicate so that it will operate upon
impact with water, very soft earth, or even the covering of an
airship. Other bombs commonly used in airplanes were shaped like
darts, winged like an arrow so that they would fall perpendicularly
and explode by a pusher at the point which was driven into the body
of the bomb upon its impact with any hard substance.
It seems curious to read of the devices sometimes quite complicated
and at all times the result of the greatest care and thought, used
for dropping these bombs. In the trenches men pitched explosive
missiles about with little more care than if they had been so many
baseballs, but only seldom was a bomb from aloft actually delivered
by hand. In the case of the heavier bombs used by the dirigibles
this is understandable. They could not be handled by a single man
without the aid of mechanical devices. Some are dropped from a
cradle which is tilted into a vertical position after the shell has
been inserted. Others are fired from a tube not unlike the torpedo
tube of a submarine, but which imparts only slight initial velocity
to the missile. Its chief force is derived from gravity, and to be
assured of its explosion the aviator must discharge it from a height
proportionate to its size.
In the airplane the aviator's methods are more simple. Sometimes the
bombs are carried in a rack beneath the body of the machine, and
released by means of a lever at the side. A more primitive method
often in use is merely to attach the bomb to a string and lower it
to a point at which the aviator is certain that in falling it will
not touch any part of the craft, and then cut the string. Half a
dozen devices by which the aviator can hold the bomb at arm's length
and drop it with the certainty of a perpendicular fall are in use in
the different air navies. It will be evident to the most casual
consideration that with any one of these devices employed by an
aviator in a machine going at a speed of sixty miles an hour or more
the matter of hitting the target is one in which luck has a very
great share.
There is good reason for the pains taken by the aviators to see that
their bombs fall swift and true, and clear of all the outlying parts
of their machines. The grenadier in the trenches has a clear field
for his explosive missile and he may toss it about with what appears
to be desperate carelessness--though instances have been known in
which a bomb thrower, throwing back his arm preparatory to launching
his canned volcano, has struck the back of his own trench with
disastrous results. But the aviator must be even more careful. His
bombs must not hit any of the wires below his machine in
falling--else there will be a dire fall for him. And above all they
must not get entangled in stays or braces. In such case landing will
bring a most unpleasant surprise.
A striking case was that of a bomber who had been out over the
German trenches. He had a two-man machine, had made a successful
flight and had dropped, effectively as he supposed, all his bombs.
Returning in serene consciousness of a day's duty well done, he was
about to spiral down to the landing place when his passenger looked
over the side of the car to see if everything was in good order.
Emphatically it was not. To his horror he discovered that two of the
bombs had not fallen, but had caught in the running gear of his
machine. To attempt a landing with the bombs in this position would
have been suicidal. The bombs would have instantly exploded, and
annihilated both machine and aviators. But to get out of the car,
climb down on the wires, and try to unhook the bombs seemed more
desperate still. Stabilizers, and other devices, now in common use,
had not then been invented and to go out on the wing of a biplane,
or to disturb its delicate balance, was unheard of. Nevertheless it
was a moment for desperate remedies. The pilot clung to his
controls, and sought to meet the shifting strains, while the
passenger climbed out on the wing and then upon the running gear. To
trust yourself two thousand feet in mid-air with your feet on one
piano wire, and one hand clutching another, while with the other
hand you grope blindly for a bomb charged with high explosive, is an
experience for which few men would yearn. But in this case it was
successful. The bombs fell--nobody cared where--and the two
imperilled aviators came to ground safely.
A form of offensive weapon which for some reason seems peculiarly
horrible to the human mind is the fléchette. These are steel darts a
little larger than a heavy lead pencil and with the upper two thirds
of the stem deeply grooved so that the greater weight of the lower
part will cause them to fall perpendicularly. These are used in
attacks upon dense bodies of troops. Particularly have they proved
effective in assailing cavalry, for the nature of the wounds they
produce invariably maddens the horses who suffer from them and
causes confusion that will often bring grave disaster to a
transport or artillery train. Though very light, these arrows when
dropped from any considerable height inflict most extraordinary
wounds. They have been known to penetrate a soldier's steel helmet,
to pass through his body and that of the horse he bestrode, and bury
themselves in the earth. In the airplane they are carried in boxes
of one hundred each, placed over an orifice in the floor. A touch of
the aviator's foot and all are discharged. The speed of the machine
causes them to fall at first in a somewhat confused fashion, with
the result that before all have finally assumed their perpendicular
position they have been scattered over a very considerable extent of
air. Once fairly pointed downward they fall with unerring directness
points downward to their mark.
[Illustration: _At a United States Training Camp._ © U. & U.]
It is a curious fact that not long after these arrows first made
their appearance in the French machines, they were imitated by the
Germans, but the German darts had stamped upon them the words: "Made
in Germany, but invented by the French."
[Illustration: _A "Blimp" with Gun Mounted on Top._ © U. & U.]
One of the duties of the fighting airmen is to destroy the
observation balloons which float in great numbers over both the
lines tugging lazily at the ropes by which they are held captive
while the observers perched in their baskets communicate the results
of their observations by telephone to staff officers at a
considerable distance. These balloons are usually anchored far
enough back of their own lines to be safe from the ordinary
artillery fire of their enemies. They were therefore fair game for
the mosquitoes of the air. But they were not readily destroyed by
such artillery as could be mounted on an ordinary airplane. Bullets
from the machine-guns were too small to make any rents in the
envelope that would affect its stability. Even if incendiary they
could not carry a sufficiently heavy charge to affect so large a
body. The skin of the "sausages," as the balloons were commonly
called from their shape, was too soft to offer sufficient resistance
to explode a shell of any size. The war was pretty well under way
before the precise weapon needed for their destruction was
discovered. This proved to be a large rocket of which eight were
carried on an airplane, four on each side. They were discharged by
powerful springs and a mechanism started which ignited them as soon
as they had left the airplane behind. The head of each rocket was of
pointed steel, very sharp and heavy enough to pierce the balloon
skin. Winslow was fortunate enough to be present when the first test
of this weapon was made. In his book, _With the French Flying
Corps_, he thus tells the story:
Swinging lazily above the field was a captive balloon. At one end
of Le Bourget was a line of waiting airplanes. "This is the
second; they have already brought down one balloon," remarked the
man at my elbow. The hum of a motor caused me to look up. A
wide-winged double motor, Caudron, had left the ground and was
mounting gracefully above us. Up and up it went, describing a
great circle, until it faced the balloon. Everyone caught his
breath. The Caudron was rushing straight at the balloon, diving
for the attack.
"Now!" cried the crowd. There was a loud crack, a flash, and
eight long rockets darted forth leaving behind a fiery trail. The
aviator's aim however was wide, and to the disappointment of
everyone the darts fell harmlessly to the ground.
Another motor roared far down the field, and a tiny _appareil de
chasse_ shot upward like a swallow. "A Nieuport," shouted the
crowd as one voice. Eager to atone for his _copain's_ failure,
and impatient at his delay in getting out of the way, the tiny
biplane tossed and tumbled about in the air like a clown in the
circus ring.
"Look! he's looping! he falls! he slips! no, he rights again!"
cried a hundred voices as the skilful pilot kept our nerves on
edge.
Suddenly he darted into position and for a second hovered
uncertain. Then with a dive like that of a dragon-fly, he rushed
down to the attack. Again a sheet of flame and a shower of
sparks. This time the balloon sagged. The flames crept slowly
around its silken envelope. "_Touchez!_" cried the multitude.
Then the balloon burst and fell to the ground a mass of flames.
High above the little Nieuport saucily continued its pranks, as
though contemptuous of such easy prey.
[Illustration: _Aviators Descending in Parachutes from a Balloon
Struck by Incendiary Shells._ © U. & U.]
It may be properly noted at this point that the captive balloons or
kite balloons have proved of the greatest value for observations in
this war. Lacking of course the mobility of the swiftly moving
airplanes, they have the advantage over the latter of being at all
times in direct communication by telephone with the ground and being
able to carry quite heavy scientific instruments for the more
accurate mapping out of such territory as comes within their sphere
of observation. They are not easy to destroy by artillery fire, for
the continual swaying of the balloon before the wind perplexes
gunners in their aim. At a height of six hundred feet, a normal
observation post, the horizon is nearly thirty miles from the
observer. In flat countries like Flanders, or at sea where the
balloon may be sent up from the deck of a ship, this gives an
outlook of the greatest advantage to the army or fleet relying upon
the balloon for its observations of the enemy's dispositions.
[Illustration: _The Balloon from which the Aviators Fled._ © U. &
U.]
Most of the British and French observation balloons have been of the
old-fashioned spherical form which officers in those services find
sufficiently effective. The Germans, however, claimed that a balloon
might be devised which would not be so very unstable in gusty
weather. Out of this belief grew the Parseval-Siegfeld balloon which
from its form took the name of the Sausage. In fact its appearance
far from being terrifying suggests not only that particular edible,
but a large dill pickle floating awkwardly in the air. In order to
keep the balloon always pointed into the teeth of the wind there is
attached to one end of it a large surrounding bag hanging from the
lower half of the main envelope. One end of this, the end facing
forward, is left open and into this the wind blows, steadying the
whole structure after the fashion of the tail of a kite. The effect
is somewhat grotesque as anyone who has studied the numerous
pictures of balloons of this type employed during the war must have
observed. It looks not unlike some form of tumor growing from a
healthy structure.
Captive or kite balloons are especially effective as coast guards.
Posted fifty miles apart along a threatened coast they can keep a
steady watch over the sea for more than twenty-five miles toward the
horizon. With their telephonic connections they can notify airplanes
in waiting, or for that matter swift destroyers, of any suspicious
sight in the distance, and secure an immediate investigation which
will perhaps result in the defeat of some attempted raid. Requiring
little power for raising and lowering them and few men for their
operation, they form a method of standing sentry guard at a nation's
front door which can probably be equalled by no other device. The
United States at the moment of the preparation of this book is
virtually without any balloons of this type--the first one of any
pretensions having been tested in the summer of 1917.
As late as the third year of the war it could not be said that the
possibilities of aërial offense had been thoroughly developed by any
nation. The Germans indeed had done more than any of the
belligerents in this direction with their raids on the British coast
and on London. But, as already pointed out, these raids as serious
attacks on strategic positions were mere failures. Advocates of the
increased employment of aircraft in this fashion insist that the
military value to Germany of the raids lay not so much in the
possibility of doing damage of military importance but rather in the
fact that the possibility of repeated and more effective raids
compelled Great Britain to keep at home a force of thirty thousand
to fifty thousand men constantly on guard, who but for this menace
would have been employed on the battlefields of France. In this
argument there is a measure of plausibility. Indeed between January,
1915, and June 13, 1917, the Germans made twenty-three disastrous
raids upon England, killing more than seven hundred persons and
injuring nearly twice as many. The amount of damage to property has
never been reported nor is it possible to estimate the extent of
injury inflicted upon works of a military character. The extreme
secrecy with which Great Britain, in common with the other
belligerents, has enveloped operations of this character makes it
impossible at this early day to estimate the military value of these
exploits. Merely to inflict anguish and death upon a great number of
civilians, and those largely women and children, is obviously of no
military service. But if such suffering is inflicted in the course
of an attack which promises the destruction or even the crippling of
works of military character like arsenals, munition plants, or naval
stores, it must be accepted as an incident of legitimate warfare.
The limited information obtainable in wartime seems to indicate that
the German raids had no legitimate objective in view but were
undertaken for the mere purpose of frightfulness.
The methods of defence employed in Great Britain, where all attacks
must come from the sea, were mainly naval. What might be called the
outer, or flying, defences consisted of fast armed fighting
seaplanes and dirigibles. Stationed on the coast and ready on the
receipt of a wireless warning from scouts, either aërial or naval,
that an enemy air flotilla was approaching the coast, they could at
once fly forth and give it battle. A thorough defence of the British
territory demanded that the enemy should be driven back before
reaching the land. Once over British territory the projectiles
discharged whether by friend or foe did equal harm to the people on
the ground below. Accordingly every endeavour was made to meet and
beat the raiders before they had passed the barrier of sea. Beside
the flying defences there were the floating defences. Anti-aircraft
guns were mounted on different types of ships stationed far out
from the shore and ever on the watch. But these latter were of
comparatively little avail, for flying over the Channel or the North
Sea the invaders naturally flew at a great height. They had no
targets there to seek, steered by their compasses, and were entirely
indifferent to the prospect beneath them. Moreover anti-aircraft
guns, hard to train effectively from an immovable mount, were
particularly untrustworthy when fired from the deck of a rolling and
tossing ship in the turbulent Channel.
Third in the list of defences of the British coast, or of any other
coast which may at any time be threatened with an aërial raid, are
defensive stations equipped not only with anti-aircraft guns and
searchlights but with batteries of strange new scientific
instruments like the "listening towers," equipped with huge
microphones to magnify the sound of the motors of approaching
aircraft so that they would be heard long before they could be seen,
range finders, and other devices for the purpose of gauging the
distance and fixing the direction of an approaching enemy.
Some brief attention may here be given to the various types of
anti-aircraft guns. These differ very materially in type and weight
in the different belligerent armies and navies. They have but one
quality in common, namely that they are most disappointing in the
results attained. Mr. F. W. Lancaster, the foremost British
authority on aircraft, says on this subject:
"Anti-aircraft firing is very inaccurate, hence numbers of guns are
employed to compensate."
[Illustration: Photo by International Film Service.
_German Air Raiders over England._
_In the foreground three British planes are advancing to the
attack._]
That is to say that one or two guns can be little relied upon to put
a flyer _hors du combat_. The method adopted is to have large
batteries which fairly fill that portion of the air through which
the adventurous airman is making his way with shells fired rather at
the section than at the swiftly moving target.
"Archibald," the British airmen call, for some mysterious reason, the
anti-aircraft guns employed by their enemies, sometimes referring to a
big howitzer which made its appearance late in the war as "Cuthbert."
The names sound a little effeminate, redolent somehow of high teas and
the dancing floor, rather than the field of battle. Perhaps this was
why the British soldiers adopted them as an expression of contempt for
the enemy's batteries. But contempt was hardly justifiable in face of
the difficulty of the problem. A gun firing a twenty-pound shrapnel
shell is not pointed on an object with the celerity with which a
practised revolver shot can throw his weapon into position. The gunner
on the ground seeing an airplane flying five thousand feet above
him--almost a mile up in the air--hurries to get his piece into
position for a shot. But while he is aiming the flyer, if a high-speed
machine, will be changing its position at a rate of perhaps 120 miles
an hour. Nor does it fly straight ahead. The gunner cannot point his
weapon some distance in advance as he would were he a sportsman intent
on cutting off a flight of wild geese. The aviator makes quick
turns--zigzags--employs every artifice to defeat the aim of his enemy
below. Small wonder that in the majority of cases they have been
successful. The attitude of the airmen toward the "Archies" is one of
calm contempt.
The German mind being distinctly scientific invented early in the
war a method of fixing the range and position of an enemy airplane
which would be most effective if the target were not continually in
erratic motion. The method was to arrange anti-aircraft guns in a
triangle, all in telephonic connection with a central observer. When
a flyer enters the territory which these guns are guarding, the
gunner at one of the apexes of the triangle fires a shell which
gives out a red cloud of smoke. Perhaps it falls short. The central
observer notes the result and orders a second gun to fire. Instantly
a gunner at another apex fires again, this time a shell giving
forth black smoke. This shell discharged with the warning given by
the earlier one is likely to come nearer the target, but at any rate
marks another point at which it has been missed. Between the two a
third gunner instantly corrects his aim by the results of the first
two shots. His shell gives out a yellow smoke. The observer then
figures from the positions of the three guns the lines of a
triangular cone at the apex of which the target should be. Sometimes
science wins, often enough for the Germans to cling to the system.
But more often the shrewd aviator defeats science by his swift and
eccentric changes of his line of flight.
At the beginning of the war Germany was very much better equipped
with anti-aircraft guns than any of her enemies. This was due to the
remarkable foresight of the great munition makers, Krupp and
Ehrhardt, who began experimenting with anti-aircraft guns before the
aircraft themselves were much more than experiments. The problem was
no easy one. The gun had to be light, mobile, and often mounted on
an automobile so as to be swiftly transferred from place to place in
pursuit of raiders. It was vital that it should be so mounted as to
be speedily trained to any position vertical or horizontal. As a
result the type determined upon was mounted on a pedestal fixed to
the chassis of an automobile or to the deck of a ship in case it was
to be used in naval warfare. The heaviest gun manufactured in
Germany was of 4-1/4-inch calibre, throwing a shell of forty pounds
weight. This could be mounted directly over the rear axle of a heavy
motor truck. To protect the structure of the car from the shock of
the recoil these guns are of course equipped with hydraulic or other
appliances for taking it up. They are manufactured also in the
3-inch size. Germany, France, and England vied with each other in
devising armored motor cars equipped with guns of this type--the
British using the makes of Vickers and Hotchkiss, and the French
their favourite Creusot. The trucks are always armoured, the guns
mounted in turrets so that the effect is not unlike that of a small
battleship dashing madly down a country road and firing repeatedly
at some object directly overhead. But the record has not shown that
the success of these picturesque and ponderous engines of war has
been great. They cannot manoeuvre with enough swiftness to keep up
with the gyrations of an airplane. They offer as good a target for a
bomb from above as the aircraft does to their shots from below.
Indeed they so thoroughly demonstrated their inefficiency that
before the war had passed its third year they were either abandoned
or their guns employed only when the car was stationary. Shots fired
at full speed were seldom effective.
The real measure of the effectiveness of anti-aircraft guns may be
judged by the comparative immunity that attended the aviators
engaged on the two early British raids on Friedrichshaven, the seat
of the great Zeppelin works on Lake Constance, and on the German
naval base at Cuxhaven. The first was undertaken by three machines.
From Belfort in France, the aviators turned into Germany and flew
for 120 miles across hostile territory. The flight was made by day
though indeed the adventurous aviators were favoured by a slight
mist. Small single seated "avro" machines were used, loaded heavily
with bombs as well as with the large amount of fuel necessary for a
flight which before its completion would extend over 250 miles. Not
only at the frontier, but at many fortified positions over which
they passed, they must have exposed themselves to the fire of
artillery, but until they actually reached the neighbourhood of the
Zeppelin works they encountered no fire whatsoever. There the attack
on them was savage and well maintained. On the roofs of the
gigantic factory, on neighbouring hillocks and points of vantage
there were anti-aircraft guns busily discharging shrapnel at the
invaders. It is claimed by the British that fearing this attack the
Germans had called from the front in Flanders their best marksmen,
for at that time the comparative worthlessness of the Zeppelin had
not been demonstrated and the protection of the works was regarded
as a prime duty of the army.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_One Aviator's Narrow Escape._]
The invading machines flew low above the factory roofs. The
adventurers had come far on an errand which they knew would awaken
the utmost enthusiasm among their fellows at home and they were
determined to so perform their task that no charge of having left
anything undone could possibly lie. Commander Briggs, the first of
the aviators to reach the scene, flew as low as one hundred feet
above the roofs, dropping his bombs with deadly accuracy. But he
paid for his temerity with the loss of his machine and his liberty.
A bullet pierced his petrol tank and there was nothing for him to do
save to glide to earth and surrender. The two aviators who
accompanied him although their machines were repeatedly hit were
nevertheless able to drop all their bombs and to fly safely back to
Belfort whence they had taken their departure some hours before. The
measure of actual damage done in the raid has never been precisely
known. Germany always denied that it was serious, while the British
ascribe to it the greatest importance--a clash of opinion common in
the war and which will for some years greatly perplex the student of
its history.
The second raid, that upon Cuxhaven, was made by seaplanes so far as
the air fighting was concerned, but in it not only destroyers but
submarines also took part. It presented the unique phenomenon of a
battle fought at once above, upon, and below the surface of the sea.
It is with the aërial feature of the battle alone that we have to
do.
Christmas morning, 1915, seven seaplanes were quietly lowered to the
surface of the water of the North Sea from their mother ships a
little before daybreak. The spot was within a few miles of Cuxhaven
and the mouth of the River Elbe. As the aircraft rose from the
surface of the water and out of the light mist that lay upon it,
they could see in the harbour which they threatened, a small group
of German warships. Almost at the same moment their presence was
detected. The alarms of the bugles rang out from the hitherto quiet
craft and in a moment with the smoke pouring from their funnels
destroyers and torpedo boats moved out to meet the attack. Two
Zeppelins rose high in the air surrounded by a number of the smaller
airplanes, eager for the conflict. The latter proceeded at once to
the attack upon the raiding air fleet, while the destroyers, the
heavier Zeppelins, and a number of submarines sped out to sea to
attack the British ships. The mist, which grew thicker, turned the
combat from a battle into a mere disorderly raid, but out of it the
seaplanes emerged unhurt. All made their way safely back to the
fleet, after having dropped their bombs with a degree of damage
never precisely known. The weakness of the seaplane is that on
returning to its parent ship it cannot usually alight upon her deck,
even though a landing platform has been provided. It must, as a
rule, drop to the surface of the ocean, and if this be at all rough
the machine very speedily goes to pieces. This was the case with
four of the seven seaplanes which took part in the raid on Cuxhaven.
All however delivered their pilots safely to the awaiting fleet and
none fell a victim to the German anti-aircraft guns.
In May of 1917, the British Royal Naval Air Service undertook the
mapping of the coast of Belgium north from Nieuport, the most
northerly seaport held by the British, to the southern boundary of
Holland. This section of coast was held by the Germans and in it
were included the two submarine bases of Zeebrugge and Ostend. At
the latter point the long line of German trenches extending to the
boundary of Switzerland rested its right flank on the sea. The whole
coast north of that was lined with German batteries, snugly
concealed in the rolling sand dunes and masked by the waving grasses
of a barren coast. From British ships thirty miles out at sea, for
the waters there are shallow and large vessels can only at great
peril approach the shore, the seaplanes were launched. Just south of
Nieuport a land base was established as a rendezvous for both
air-and seaplanes when their day's work was done. From fleet and
station the aërial observers took their way daily to the enemy's
coast. Every mile of it was photographed. The hidden batteries were
detected and the inexorable record of their presence imprinted on
the films. The work in progress at Ostend and Zeebrugge, the active
construction of basins, locks, and quays, the progress of the great
mole building at the latter port, the activities of submarines and
destroyers within the harbour, the locations of guns and the
positions of barracks were all indelibly set down. These films
developed at leisure were made into coherent wholes, placed in
projecting machines, and displayed like moving pictures in the ward
rooms of the ships hovering off shore, so that the naval forces
preparing for the assault had a very accurate idea of the nature of
the defences they were about to encounter.
This was not done of course without considerable savage fighting in
mid-air. The Germans had no idea of allowing their defences and the
works of their submarine bases to be pictured for the guidance of
their foes. Their anti-aircraft guns barked from dawn to dark
whenever a British plane was seen within range. Their own aërial
fighters were continually busy, and along that desolate wave-washed
coast many a lost lad in leather clothing and goggles, crumpled up
in the ruins of his machine after a fall of thousands of feet, lay
as a memorial to the prowess of the defenders of the coast and the
audacity of those who sought to invade it. But during the long weeks
of this extended reconnaissance hardly a spadeful of dirt could be
moved, a square yard of concrete placed in position, or a submarine
or torpedo boat manoeuvred without its record being entered upon the
detailed charts the British were so painstakingly preparing against
the day of assault. When peace shall finally permit the publication
of the records of the war, now held secret for military reasons,
such maps as those prepared by the British air service on the
Belgian coast will prove most convincing evidence of the military
value of the aërial scouts.
What the lads engaged in making these records had to brave in the
way of physical danger is strikingly shown by the description of a
combat included in one of the coldly matter-of-fact official
reports. The battle was fought at about twelve thousand feet above
mother earth. We quote the official description accompanied by some
explanatory comments added by one who was an eye-witness and who
conversed with the triumphant young airman on his return to the
safety of the soil.
"While exposing six plates," says the official report of this
youthful recording angel, "I observed five H. A.'s cruising."
"H. A." stands for "hostile aeroplane."
"Not having seen the escort since returning inland, the pilot
prepared to return. The enemy separated, one taking up a position
above the tail and one ahead. The other three glided toward us
on the port side, firing as they came. The two diving machines
fired over 100 rounds, hitting the pilot in the shoulder."
As a matter of fact, the bullet entered his shoulder from above,
behind, breaking his left collarbone, and emerged just above his
heart, tearing a jagged rent down his breast. Both his feet,
furthermore, were pierced by bullets; but the observer is not
concerned with petty detail.
The observer held his fire until H. A., diving on tail, was
within five yards.
Here it might be mentioned that the machines were hurtling
through space at a speed in the region of one hundred miles an
hour.
The pilot of H. A., having swooped to within speaking distance,
pushed up his goggles, and laughed triumphantly as he took sight
for the shot that was to end the fight. But the observer, had his
own idea how the fight should end.
"I then shot one tray into the enemy pilot's face," he says, with
curt relish, "and watched him sideslip and go spinning earthward
in a train of smoke."
He then turned his attention to his own pilot. The British
machine was barely under control, but as the observer rose in his
seat to investigate the foremost gun was fired, and the aggressor
ahead went out of control and dived nose first in helpless
spirals.
Suspecting that his mate was badly wounded in spite of this
achievement, the observer swung one leg over the side of the
fusillage and climbed on to the wing--figure for a minute the air
pressure on his body during this gymnastic feat--until he was
beside the pilot, faint and drenched with blood, who had
nevertheless got his machine back into complete control.
"Get back, you ass!" he said through white lips in response to
inquiries how he felt. So the ass got back the way he came, and
looked around for the remainder of the H. A.'s. These, however,
appeared to have lost stomach for further fighting and fled.
The riddled machine returned home at one hundred knots while the
observer, having nothing better to do, continued to take
photographs.
"The pilot, though wounded, made a perfect landing"--thus the
report concludes.
When the time came for the assault upon Zeebrugge the value of these
painstaking preparations was made evident. The attack was made from
sea and air alike. Out in the North Sea the great British
battleships steamed in as near the coast as the shallowness of the
water would permit. From the forward deck of each rose grandly a
seaplane until the air was darkened by their wings, and they looked
like a monstrous flock of the gulls which passengers on ocean-going
liners watch wheeling and soaring around the ship as it ploughs its
way through the ocean. These gulls though were birds of prey. They
were planes of the larger type, biplanes or triplanes carrying two
men, usually equipped with two motors and heavily laden with high
explosive bombs. As they made their way toward the land they were
accompanied by a fleet of light draft monitors especially built for
this service, each mounting two heavy guns and able to manoeuvre in
shallow water. With them advanced a swarm of swift, low-lying,
dark-painted destroyers ready to watch out for enemy torpedo boats
or submarines. They mounted anti-aircraft guns too and were prepared
to defend the monitors against assaults from the heavens above as
well as from the sinister attack of the underwater boats. Up from
the land base at Nieuport came a great fleet of airplanes to
co-operate with their naval brethren. Soon upon the German works,
sheltering squadrons of the sinister undersea boats, there rained a
hell of exploding projectiles from sea and sky. Every gunner had
absolute knowledge of the precise position and range of the target
to which he was assigned. The great guns of the monitors roared
steadily and their twelve and fourteen-inch projectiles rent in
pieces the bomb proofs of the Germans, driving the Boches to cover
and reducing their works to mere heaps of battered concrete. Back
and forth above flew seaplanes and airplanes, giving battle to the
aircraft which the Germans sent up in the forlorn hope of heading
off that attack and dropping their bombs on points carefully mapped
long in advance. It is true that the aim of the aviators was
necessarily inaccurate. That is the chief weakness of a bombardment
from the sky. But what was lacking in individual accuracy was made
up by the numbers of the bombing craft. One might miss a lock or a
shelter, but twenty concentrating their fire on the same target
could not all fail. This has become the accepted principle of aërial
offensive warfare. The inaccuracy of the individual must be
corrected by the multiplication of the number of the assailants.
The attack on Zeebrugge was wholly successful. Though the Germans
assiduously strove to conceal the damage done, the later
observations of the ruined port by British airmen left no doubt that
as a submarine base it had been put out of commission for months to
come. The success of the attack led to serious discussion, in which
a determination has not yet been reached, of the feasibility of a
similar assault upon Heligoland, Kiel, or Cuxhaven, the three great
naval bases in which the German fleet has lurked in avoidance of
battle with the British fleet. Many able naval strategists declared
that it was time for the British to abandon the policy of a mere
blockade and carry out the somewhat rash promise made by Winston
Churchill when First Lord of the Admiralty, to "dig the rats out of
their holes." Such an attack it was urged should be made mainly from
the air, as the land batteries and sunken mines made the waters
adjacent to these harbours almost impassable to attacking ships.
Rear-Admiral Fiske, of the United States Navy, strongly urging such
an attack, wrote in an open letter:
The German Naval General Staff realizes the value of
concentration of power and mobility in as large units as
possible. The torpedo plane embodies a greater concentration of
power and mobility than does any other mechanism. For its cost,
the torpedo plane is the most powerful and mobile weapon which
exists at the present day.
An attack by allied torpedo planes, armed with guns to defend
themselves from fighting airplanes, would be a powerful menace to
the German fleet and, if made in sufficient numbers, would give
the Allies such unrestricted command of the North Sea, even of
the shallow parts near the German coast, that German submarines
would be prevented from coming from a German port, the submarine
menace abolished, and all chance of German success wiped out.
I beg also to point out that an inspection of the map of Europe
shows that in the air raids over land the strategical advantage
lies with Germany, because her most important towns, like Berlin,
are farther inland than the most important towns of the Allies,
like London, so that aëroplanes of the Allies, in order to reach
Berlin, would have to fly over greater distances, while exposed
to the fire of other aëroplanes, than do aëroplanes of the
Germans in going to London for raids on naval vessels.
However, the strategical advantage over water lies with the
British, because their control of the deep parts of the North Sea
enables them to establish a temporary aeronautical base of mother
ships sufficiently close to the German fleet to enable the
British to launch a torpedo-plane attack from it on the German
fleets in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, while the Germans could not
possibly establish an aeronautical base sufficiently close to the
British fleet.
[Illustration: © Press Illustrating Service.
_Downed in the Enemy's Country._]
This gives the Allies the greatest advantage of the offensive. It
would seem possible, provided a distinct effort is made, for the
Allies to send a large number of aeroplane mother ships to a
point, say, fifty miles west of Heligoland, and for a large force
of fighting aëroplanes and torpedo planes to start from this
place about two hours before dawn, reach Kiel Bay and
Wilhelmshaven about dawn, attack the German fleets there and sink
the German ships.
The distance from Heligoland to Kiel is about ninety land miles,
and to Wilhelmshaven about forty-five.
The torpedo planes referred to are an invention of Admiral Fiske's
which, in accordance with what seems to be a fixed and fatal
precedent in the United States, has been ignored by our own
authorities but eagerly adopted by the naval services of practically
all the belligerents. One weakness of the aërial attack upon ships
of war is that the bombs dropped from the air, even if they strike
the target, strike upon the protective deck which in most warships
above the gunboat class is strong enough to resist, or at least to
minimize, the effect of any bomb capable of being carried by an
airplane. The real vulnerable part of a ship of war is the thin skin
of its hull below water and below the armor belt. This is the point
at which the torpedo strikes. Admiral Fiske's device permits an
airplane to carry two torpedoes of the regular Whitehead class and
to launch them with such an impetus and at such an angle that they
will take the water and continue their course thereunder exactly as
though launched from a naval torpedo tube. His idea was adopted both
by Great Britain and Germany. British torpedo planes thus equipped
sank four Turkish ships in the Sea of Marmora, a field of action
which no British ship could have reached after the disastrous
failure to force the Dardanelles. The Germans by employment of the
same device sank at least two Russian ships in the Baltic and one
British vessel in the North Sea. The blindness of the United States
naval authorities to the merits of this invention was a matter
arousing at once curiosity and indignation among observers during
the early days of our entrance upon the war.