INCIDENTS OF THE WAR IN THE AIR
In time, no doubt, volumes will be written on the work of the airmen
in the Great War. Except the submarine, no such novel and effective
device was introduced into the conduct of this colossal struggle as
the scouting airplane. The development of the service was steady
from the first day when the Belgian flyers proved their worth at
Liège. From mere observation trips there sprang up the air duels,
from the duels developed skirmishes, and from these in time pitched
battles in which several hundred machines would be engaged on each
side. To this extent of development aërial tactics had proceeded by
midsummer of 1917. Their further development must be left to some
future chronicler to record. It must be noted, however, that at that
early day the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States,
pleading for a larger measure of preparation for the perils of war,
asserted that the time was not far distant when this country would
have to prepare to repel invading fleets of aircraft from European
shores. This may have been an exaggeration. At that moment no
aircraft had crossed the Atlantic and no effort to make the passage
had been made save those of Wellman and Vanniman. When the guns
began to roar on the Belgian frontier there was floating on Keuka
Lake, New York, a huge hydro-airplane with which it was planned to
make the trans-Atlantic voyage. The project had been financed by Mr.
Rodman Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, and the tests of the ship under
the supervision of a young British army officer who was to make the
voyage were progressing most promisingly. But the event that plunged
the world into war put a sudden end to experiments like this for the
commercial development of the airplane. There is every reason to
believe, however, that such a flight is practicable and that it will
ultimately be made not long after the world shall have returned to
peace and sanity.
[Illustration: Photo by Kadel & Herbert.
_Later Type of French Scout._
_The gun mounted on the upper wing is aimed by pointing the machine
and is fired by the pilot._]
Airmen are not, as a rule, of a romantic or a literary temperament.
Pursuing what seems to the onlooker to be the most adventurous and
exhilarating of all forms of military service, they have been chary
of telling their experiences and singularly set upon treating them
as all in the day's work and eliminating all that is picturesque
from their narratives. Sergeant James R. McConnell, one of the
Americans in the French flying corps, afterwards killed, tells of a
day's service in his most readable book, _Flying for France_, in a
way that gives some idea of the daily routine of an operator of an
_avion de chasse_. He is starting just as the sky at dawn is showing
a faint pink toward the eastern horizon, for the aviator's work is
best done in early morning when, as a rule, the sky is clear and the
wind light:
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_Position of Gunner in Early French Machines._]
Drawing forward out of line, you put on full power, race across
the grass, and take the air. The ground drops as the hood slants
up before you and you seem to be going more and more slowly as
you rise. At a great height you hardly realize you are moving.
You glance at the clock to note the time of your departure, and
at the oil gauge to see its throb. The altimeter registers 650
feet. You turn and look back at the field below and see others
leaving.
In three minutes you are at about four thousand feet. You have
been making wide circles over the field and watching the other
machines. At forty-five hundred feet you throttle down and wait
on that level for your companions to catch up. Soon the
escadrille is bunched and off for the lines. You begin climbing
again, gulping to clear your ears in the changing pressure.
Surveying the other machines, you recognize the pilot of each by
the marks on its side--or by the way he flies.
The country below has changed into a flat surface of varicoloured
figures. Woods are irregular blocks of dark green, like daubs of
ink spilled on a table; fields are geometrical designs of
different shades of green and brown, forming in composite an
ultra-cubist painting; roads are thin white lines, each with its
distinctive windings and crossings--from which you determine your
location. The higher you are the easier it is to read.
In about ten minutes you see the Meuse sparkling in the morning
light, and on either side the long line of sausage-shaped
observation balloons far below you. Red-roofed Verdun springs
into view just beyond. There are spots in it where no red shows
and you know what has happened there. In the green pasture land
bordering the town, round flecks of brown indicate the shell
holes. You cross the Meuse.
Immediately east and north of Verdun there lies a broad, brown
band. From the Woevre plain it runs westward to the "S" bend in
the Meuse, and on the left bank of that famous stream continues
on into the Argonne Forest. Peaceful fields and farms and
villages adorned that landscape a few months ago--when there was
no Battle of Verdun. Now there is only that sinister brown belt,
a strip of murdered Nature. It seems to belong to another world.
Every sign of humanity has been swept away. The woods and roads
have vanished like chalk wiped from a blackboard; of the villages
nothing remains but grey smears where stone walls have tumbled
together. The great forts of Douaumont and Vaux are outlined
faintly, like the tracings of a finger in wet sand. One cannot
distinguish any one shell crater, as one can on the pockmarked
fields on either side. On the brown band the indentations are so
closely interlocked that they blend into a confused mass of
troubled earth. Of the trenches only broken, half-obliterated
links are visible.
Columns of muddy smoke spurt up continually as high explosives
tear deeper into this ulcered area. During heavy bombardment and
attacks I have seen shells falling like rain. The countless
towers of smoke remind one of Gustave Doré's picture of the fiery
tombs of the arch-heretics in Dante's "Hell." A smoky pall covers
the sector under fire, rising so high that at a height of one
thousand feet one is enveloped in its mist-like fumes. Now and
then monster projectiles hurtling through the air close by leave
one's plane rocking violently in their wake. Airplanes have been
cut in two by them.
For us the battle passes in silence, the noise of one's motor
deadening all other sounds. In the green patches behind the brown
belt myriads of tiny flashes tell where the guns are hidden; and
those flashes, and the smoke of bursting shells, are all we see
of the fighting. It is a weird combination of stillness and
havoc, the Verdun conflict viewed from the sky.
Far below us, the observation and range-finding planes circle
over the trenches like gliding gulls. At a feeble altitude they
follow the attacking infantrymen and flash back wireless reports
of the engagement. Only through them can communication be
maintained when, under the barrier fire, wires from the front
lines are cut. Sometimes it falls to our lot to guard these
machines from Germans eager to swoop down on their backs. Sailing
about high above a busy flock of them makes one feel like an old
mother hen protecting her chicks.
The pilot of an _avion de chasse_ must not concern himself with
the ground, which to him is useful only for learning his
whereabouts. The earth is all-important to the men in the
observation, artillery-regulating, and bombardment machines, but
the fighting aviator has an entirely different sphere. His domain
is the blue heavens, the glistening rolls of clouds below the
fleecy banks towering above the vague aërial horizon, and he must
watch it as carefully as a navigator watches the storm-tossed
sea.
On days when the clouds form almost a solid flooring, one feels
very much at sea, and wonders if one is in the navy instead of
aviation. The diminutive Nieuports skirt the white expanse like
torpedo boats in an arctic sea, and sometimes, far across the
cloud-waves, one sights an enemy escadrille, moving as a fleet.
Principally our work consists of keeping German airmen away from
our lines, and in attacking them when opportunity offers. We
traverse the brown band and enter enemy territory to the
accompaniment of an anti-aircraft cannonade. Most of the shots
are wild, however, and we pay little attention to them. When the
shrapnel comes uncomfortably close, one shifts position slightly
to evade the range. One glances up to see if there is another
machine higher than one's own. Low, and far within the German
lines, are several enemy planes, a dull white in appearance,
resembling sandflies against the mottled earth. High above them
one glimpses the mosquito-like forms of two Fokkers. Away off to
one side white shrapnel puffs are vaguely visible, perhaps
directed against a German crossing the lines. We approach the
enemy machines ahead, only to find them slanting at a rapid rate
into their own country. High above them lurks a protection plane.
The man doing the "ceiling work," as it is called, will look
after him for us.
Getting started is the hardest part of an attack. Once you have
begun diving you're all right. The pilot just ahead turns tail up
like a trout dropping back to water, and swoops down in irregular
curves and circles. You follow at an angle so steep your feet
seem to be holding you back in your seat. Now the black Maltese
crosses on the German's wings stand out clearly. You think of him
as some sort of a big bug. Then you hear the rapid tut-tut-tut of
his machine-gun. The man that dived ahead of you becomes mixed up
with the topmost German. He is so close it looks as if he had hit
the enemy machine. You hear the staccato barking of his
mitrailleuse and see him pass from under the German's tail.
The rattle of the gun that is aimed at you leaves you
undisturbed. Only when the bullets pierce the wings a few feet
off do you become uncomfortable. You see the gunner crouched
down behind his weapon, but you aim at where the pilot ought to
be--there are two men aboard the German craft--and press on the
release hard. Your mitrailleuse hammers out a stream of bullets
as you pass over and dive, nose down, to get out of range. Then,
hopefully, you redress and look back at the foe. He ought to be
dropping earthward at several miles a minute. As a matter of
fact, however, he is sailing serenely on. They have an annoying
habit of doing that, these Boches.
Zeppelins as well as the stationary kite balloons and the swiftly
flying airplanes often tempted the fighting aviators to attack. One
of the most successful of the British champions of the air, though
his own life was ended in the second year of the war, was
sub-Lieutenant R. A. J. Warneford, of the British Flying Corps. In
his brief period of service Warneford won more laurels than any of
the British aviators of the time. He was absolutely fearless, with a
marvelous control of the fast Vickers scout which he employed, and
fertile in every resource of the chase and of the flight. In an
interview widely printed at the time, Lieutenant Warneford thus told
the story of his casual meeting of a German Zeppelin high in air
between Ghent and Brussels and his prompt and systematic destruction
of the great balloon. The story as told in his own language reads
like the recountal of an everyday event. That to meet an enemy more
than a mile above the earth and demolish him was anything
extraordinary does not seem to have occurred to the aviator.
I proceeded on my journey at an increased height [he says]. It
was just three o'clock in the morning when all of a sudden I
perceived on the horizon about midway between Ghent and Brussels
a Zeppelin flying fast at an altitude of about six thousand feet.
I immediately flew toward it and when I was almost over the
monster I descended about fifteen metres, and flung six bombs at
it. The sixth struck the envelope of the ship fair and square in
the middle. There was instantly a terrible explosion. The
displacement of the air round about me was so great that a
tornado seemed to have been produced. My machine tossed upward
and then flung absolutely upside down, I was forced to loop the
loop in spite of myself. I thought for a moment that the end of
everything had come. In the whirl I had the pleasure of seeing my
victim falling to the earth in a cloud of flames and smoke. Then
by some miracle my machine righted herself and I came to earth in
the enemy's country. I was not long on the ground you may be
sure. I speedily put myself and my machine into working order
again; then I set my engine going.
This time the fortunate aviator returned safely to his own
territory. He had then served only four months, had attained the age
of twenty-three, and even in so brief a service had received the
Cross of the Legion of Honour from France and the Victoria Cross
from the British. Only one week after this courageous exploit he was
killed while on a pleasure flight and with him a young American
journalist, Henry Beach Needham, to whom he was showing the
battlefield.
During the early years of the war all of the governments were
peculiarly secretive concerning all matters relative to their
aviation services. This was probably due to the fact that the flying
corps was a brand new branch of the service. No nation was
adequately equipped with flyers. Each was afraid to let its enemies
know how insufficient were its air guards, or what measures were
being taken to bring the aërial fleet up to the necessary point of
efficiency. Investigators were frowned upon and the aviators
themselves were discouraged from much conversation about their work.
About the beginning of 1916 the British suddenly awoke to the fact
that even in war publicity has its value. It was necessary to arouse
the enthusiastic support of the people for recruiting or for the
conscription which ultimately was ordered. To do this graphic
descriptions of what was doing at the front in the various branches
of the service seemed necessary. The best writers in England were
mobilized for this work. Kipling wrote of the submarines, Conan
Doyle of the fighting on the fields of France. The Royal Flying
Corps gave out a detailed story the authorship of which was not
stated, but which describes most picturesquely the day of a flying
man.
In the United States it appeared in the _Sun_, of New York, and
sections of it are reprinted here:
"The following bombing will be carried out by No.--Squadron at
night (10 P.M., 12 midnight, and 2 A.M.). At each of these times
three machines, each carrying eight twenty-pound bombs, will bomb
respectively P----, C----, H----."
Thus the operation order read one evening in France. Just an
ordinary order too, for bombing is carried out day and night
incessantly. Bombing by night is usually carried out on towns and
villages known to be resting places of the German troops, and it
is part of the work of the Royal Flying Corps to see that the Hun
never rests.
Fritz after a hard spell in the trenches is withdrawn to some
shell torn village behind his lines to rest. He enters the ruined
house, that forms his billet, and with a sigh of contentment at
reaching such luxury after the miseries of trench life prepares
to sleep in peace. He dreams of home, and then out of the night
comes the terror of the air.
A bomb falls in his billet, exploding with a terrific report and
doing more damage to the already ruined walls. Possibly a few of
his comrades are wounded or killed. Other explosions take place
close by and the whole village is in turmoil.
Fritz does not sleep again. His nerves are jangled and all
possibility of sleep is gone. The next day he is in a worse
condition than after a night in the trenches. This continues
night after night. The damage to German morale is enormous.
From the aërial point of view things are different. A pilot
warned for night flying takes it as he takes everything else,
with apparent unconcern. He realizes that he will have an
uninteresting ride in the dark; the danger from "Archie" will be
small, for an airplane is a difficult target to keep under
observation with a searchlight, and the danger from hostile
aircraft will be smaller still.
Over the trenches the star shells of the infantry may be seen,
occasionally the flash of a badly concealed gun glints in the
darkness or the exploding bombs of a trench raiding party cause
tiny sparks to glimmer far below. Probably the enemy, hearing the
sound of engines, will turn on his searchlights and sweep the sky
with long pencils of light. The pilot may be picked up for a
second, and a trifle later the angry bang, bang, bang of "Archie"
may be heard, firing excitedly at the place where the aeroplane
ought to be but is not--the pilot has probably dipped and changed
his course since he was in the rays of the searchlight. He may be
caught again for an instant and the performance is repeated.
Before long the vicinity of the target is reached and he prepares
to drop his bombs, usually eight in number. A little before he is
over the spot the first bombs will be released, for the
trajectory of the bomb follows the course of the machine if the
latter keeps on a straight course and when it explodes the
airplane is still overhead. Down far below will be seen a tiny
burst of flame; possibly a large fire blazes up and the pilot
knows that his work is good. He then turns and repeats his
performance until all his bombs are exhausted, when he turns for
home.
Bombs are usually dropped from a low altitude at night in order
to be surer of getting the target. If during the performance any
local searchlights are turned on "Archie" gets busy and a merry
game of hide and seek in and out the beams takes place. If the
airplane is very low, and bombs are sometimes dropped from a
height of only a few hundred feet, it is highly probable that the
bursting shells do more damage than the airplane's bombs, and it
is almost impossible to wing an airplane by night.
[Illustration: Photo by Press Illustrating Service.
_A French Scout Airplane._]
Over the lines the pilot probably meets more searchlights, dodges
them, and gradually descends. Below him he sees the aerodromes of
the surrounding squadrons lighted up for landing purposes. Should
he be in doubt as to which is his own he fires a certain
combination of signal lights and is answered from below. He then
lands, hands his machine over to the mechanics, and turns in.
[Illustration: Photo by International Film Service.
"_Showing Off._"
_A Nieuport performing aërial acrobatics around a heavier bombing
machine._]
So much for night bombing. By day it is different. Though at
night it is the billets which usually form the target, by day
bombing is carried out for the purpose of damaging specific
objects. Railroads, dumps of stores and ammunition, and enemy
aerodromes are the favourite targets.
The raiding machines fly in formation and are surrounded by other
machines used solely for protective purposes. Generally a raid is
carried out by machines from two squadrons, the bomb carriers
belonging to a corps wing and the escorting machines to an army
wing.
All the machines meet at a prearranged rendezvous well on our
side of the line at a certain time and a given altitude. There
they manoeuvre into their correct formation. A flight commander
leads the raid and his machine is distinguished by streamers tied
to it.
Once over the target the fighters scatter and patrol the
neighbourhood while the bombers discharge their missiles on the
objective. Usually, unless anti-aircraft fire is very heavy, they
descend a few thousand feet to make surer of the target, and when
their work is completed rise again to the level of the escort.
Results can usually be fairly judged by day. An ammunition dump
quickly shows if it is hit and stores soon burst into flame.
Railway stations or junctions show clearly damage to buildings or
overturned trucks, but the damage to the track itself is hard to
estimate. Aerodromes may be bombed for the purpose of destroying
enemy machines in their hangars or merely in order to spoil the
landing by blowing holes all over the place. It is with great
delight that a pilot remarks in his report that a hostile
machine, surrounded by mechanics, was about to ascend, but that
instead he had descended to within a few hundred feet and
obtained a direct hit, with the result that the enemy machine,
including the surrounding men, seemed to be severely damaged.
One officer on a bomb raid saw his chance in this way, descended
to four hundred feet under intense rifle fire, successfully
bombed the enemy machine, which was just emerging from its
hangar, and then tried to make off. Unfortunately at this moment
his engine petered out, possibly on account of the enemy's fire,
and he had to descend.
By skillful planing he managed to descend about three quarters of
a mile away, in full view of the enemy. Instead of giving up the
ghost and at once firing his machine, this officer jumped out
and, utterly unperturbed by the German fire or by the Huns making
across country to take him prisoner, commenced to inspect the
engine. Luckily he found the cause of the trouble at once, put it
right,--it was only a trifling mishap,--adjusted the controls,
and swung the propeller.
The engine started, he jumped in, with the nearest Hun only a
hundred yards off, and opening the throttle raced over the ground
and into the air pursued by a futile fusillade of bullets. His
engine held out and he safely regained his aerodrome, after
having been reported missing by his comrades. For this escapade
he received the Military Cross--a well-earned reward.
When all the bombs have been dropped and the formation resumed
the machines head for home. It is on the homeward journey that
events may be expected, for time enough has elapsed for the Hun
to detail a squadron to intercept our returning machines and pick
off any stragglers that may fall behind.
It is a favourite Boche manoeuvre to detail some of his slow
machines to entice our fighters away from the main body, and when
this has been accomplished, to attack the remainder with Fokkers,
which dive from aloft onto the bombing machines. This trick is
now well-known and the fighters rarely leave their charges until
the latter are in comparative safety.
Sometimes a Hun of more sporting character than his brothers will
wait alone for the returning convoy, hiding himself thousands of
feet up in the clouds until he sees his moment. Then singling out
a machine he will dive at it, pouring out a stream of bullets as
he falls. Sometimes he achieves his object and a British machine
falls to earth, but whatever the result, the Hun does not alter
his tactics. He dives clean through the whole block of machines,
down many thousands of feet, only flattening out when close to
the ground.
The whole affair is so swift--just one lightning dive--that long
before a fighter can reach the Hun the latter is away thousands
of feet below and heading for home and safety. Every Fokker
pilot knows that once his surprise dive is over he has no chance
against another machine--the build of the Fokker only allows this
one method of attack--and he does not stop to argue about it. His
offensive dive becomes a defensive one--that is the sole
difference.
Sometimes a large squadron of German machines, composed of
various types of airplanes, intercepts a returning formation. If
it attacks a grand aërial battle ensues. The British fighting
machines spread out in a screen to allow the bombing machines a
chance of escape and then attack the Huns as they arrive. In one
place one British airplane will be defending itself from two or
three German machines; close by two or three of our busses will
be occupied in sending a Hun to his death; elsewhere more equal
combats rage and the whole sky becomes an aërial battlefield,
where machines perform marvellous evolutions, putting the best
trick flying of pre-war days very much in the shade. No sooner
has a pilot accounted for his foe, by killing him, forcing him to
descend, or making him think discretion the better part of
valour, than he turns to the help of a hard-pressed brother,
surprising the enemy by an attack from the rear or otherwise
creating a diversion.
A single shot in the petrol tank proves fatal; loss of pressure
ensues, the engine fails, and the pilot is forced to descend. He
can usually land safely, but should he be in enemy territory he
must fire his machine and prepare for a holiday in Germany.
Should he be fortunate enough to plane over our lines little
damage is done; the tank can be repaired and the machine made
serviceable again. But for the time being he is out of the fight.
Sometimes the escaping petrol may ignite and the pilot and
observer perish in the flames--the most terrible fate of all.
The aërial battle ends in one of two ways: one side is
outmanoeuvred, outnumbered, and has lost several machines and
flies to safety, or, the more usual ending, both sides exhaust
their ammunition, only a limited quantity perforce being carried,
and the fight is of necessity broken off. Meanwhile the bombing
machines have probably crossed the line in safety, and their duty
is finished. Should they be attacked by a stray machine they are
armed and quite capable of guarding themselves against any attack
except one in force.
During these bomb raids photographs of the target are frequently
obtained or should the staff require any district crossed on the
journey and taken they are generally secured by bombing machines.
It is wonderful what minute details may be seen in a photograph
taken at a height of from eight to twelve thousand feet, and our
prints, which are far superior to those taken by the Hun, have
revealed many useful points which would otherwise have remained
unknown.
When it is remembered that a single machine crossing the line is
heavily shelled it may be conceived what an immense concentration
of "Archies" is made on the raiders on their return. It is
remarkable what feeble results are obtained considering the
intensity of the bombardment, but rarely is a machine brought
down, though casualties naturally occur occasionally.
Lieutenant C., in company with other machines, had successfully
bombed his target and had meanwhile been heavily shelled, with
the result that his engine was not giving its full number of
revolutions and he lagged a little behind the rest of the
formation. No hostile aircraft appeared and all went well until
he was about to cross the lines, when a terrific bombardment was
opened on him.
He dodged and turned to the best of his ability, but a well-aimed
shell burst just above him and a piece of the "Archie" hit him on
the head, not seriously wounding him, but knocking him
unconscious. The machine, deprived of the guiding hand,
immediately got into a dive and commenced a rapid descent from
ten thousand feet, carrying the unconscious pilot with it, to be
dashed to pieces on the ground.
Whether the rush of air, the sudden increase of pressure, or the
passing off of the effect of the blow caused the disabled man to
come to his senses is not known, but when the machine was only a
few hundred feet from the ground, Lieutenant C. recovered his
senses sufficiently to realize his position and managed to pull
the machine up and make a landing. He then lapsed into
unconsciousness again. Had he remained in his state of collapse
half a minute longer, he would inevitably have been killed.
Another curious case of wounding was that of Lieutenant H., who
was also returning from a bomb raid. When passing through the
heavily shelled zone his machine was hit by a shell, which passed
through the floor by the pilot's seat and out at the top without
exploding. Lieutenant H. thought it must have been very close to
his leg, but he was so fully occupied with manoeuvring to dodge
other shells that he had no time to think of it.
He crossed the line and began to plane down when he was aware of
a feeling of faintness, but pulling himself together he landed
his machine, taxied up to the sheds, and attempted to get out. It
was only then that he realized that his leg was shot almost
completely off above the knee; the lower part was merely hanging
by a piece of skin.
Incredible as it may seem the shell which hit his machine also
tore through the leg--luckily without exploding--unknown to
Lieutenant H. Probably the force of the blow and excitement of
the moment caused it to pass unnoticed and the torn nature of the
wound helped to close the arteries and prevent his bleeding to
death. He recovered, and though no longer flying is still engaged
in doing his duty for the duration of the war.
[Illustration: _Raid on a Troop Train by John E. Whiting._]
The courage and dash of the American aviators, serving with the
French Army, led the Allies to expect great things of our flying
corps which should be organized immediately after our declaration of
war. About the time of that declaration Major L. W. B. Rees, of the
British Flying Corps, came to the United States for the purpose of
giving to our authorities the benefit of British experience in
raising and equipping aërial fleets and in the development of the
most efficient tactics. Major Rees in an official statement set
forth many facts of general interest concerning the various flying
services of the belligerent armies. The British, he said, fly on
three levels with three different kinds of machines. Nearest the
ground, about six thousand feet up, are the artillery directors who
hover about cutting big figure eights above the enemy trenches and
flash back directions by wireless to the British artillerists. These
observers are, of course, exposed to attack from anti-aircraft guns,
the effective range of which had by the middle of war become as
great as ten thousand feet. Yet, as has already been noted, the
amount of execution done by these weapons was surprisingly small.
The observers are protected from attack from above, first by the
heavy fighting planes, flying at ten thousand feet, carrying two men
to the plane and able to keep the air for four hours at a time at a
speed of 110 miles an hour. They are supposed to use every possible
vigilance to keep the enemy's fighters away from the slower and busy
observing machines. In this they are seconded by the lighter one-man
fighting machines which cruise about at a height of fifteen thousand
feet at a speed of 130 miles an hour and able to make a straight
upward dash at the rate of ten thousand feet in ten minutes. The
aviators of these latter machines came to describe their task as
"ceiling work," suggesting that they operated at the very top of the
world's great room. They are able to keep the air only about two
hours at a time.
Americans, perhaps, gave exaggerated importance to the work of the
Lafayette Escadrille which was manned wholly by American boys, and
which, while in service from the very beginning of the war, was the
first section of the French Army permitted to display the flag of
the United States in battle after our declaration of war. It was
made up, in the main, of young Americans of good family and
independent means, most of them being college students who had laid
down their books for the more exciting life of an airman. They paid
heavily in the toll of death for their adventure and for the
conviction which led them to take the side of democracy and right in
the struggle against autocracy and barbarism months, even years,
before their nation finally determined to join with them. In the
first two and a half years of the war, seven of the aviators in this
comparatively small body lost their lives.
Harvard College was particularly well represented in the American
Flying Corps--although this is a proper and pertinent place to say
that the sympathy shown for the allied cause by the young collegians
of the United States was a magnificent evidence of the lofty
righteousness of their convictions and the spirit of democracy with
which they looked out upon the world. When the leash was taken off
by the declaration of war by the United States the college boys
flocked to training camps and enlistment headquarters in a way that
bade fair to leave those institutions of learning without students
for some years to come.
But to hark back to Harvard, it had in the Lafayette Escadrille five
men in 1916; three of these, Kiffen Rockwell, Norman Prince, and
Victor Chapman, were killed in that year. A letter published in
_Harvard Volunteers in Europe_ tells of the way these young
gladiators started the day's work:
Rockwell called me up at three: "Fine day, fine day, get up!" It
was very clear. We hung around at Billy's [Lieutenant Thaw] and
took chocolate made by his ordonnance. Hall and the Lieutenant
were guards on the field; but Thaw, Rockwell, and I thought we
would take _a tour chez les Boches_. Being the first time the
_mechanaux_ were not there and the machine gun rolls not ready.
However it looked misty in the Vosges, so we were not hurried.
"Rendezvous over the field at a thousand metres," shouted Kiffen.
I nodded, for the motor was turning; and we sped over the field
and up.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_A Burning Balloon, Photographed from a Parachute by the Escaping
Balloonist._]
In my little cockpit from which my shoulders just protrude I have
several diversions besides flying. The compass, of course, and
the map I keep tucked in a tiny closet over the reservoir before
my knees, a small clock and one altimetre. But most important is
the contour, showing revolutions of the motor which one is
constantly regarding as he moves the manettes of gasoline and gas
back and forth. To husband one's fuel and tease the motor to
round eleven takes attention, for the carburetor changes with the
weather and the altitude.... The earth seemed hidden under a fine
web such as the Lady of Shalott wove. Soft purple in the west,
changing to shimmering white in the east. Under me on the left
the Vosges like rounded sand dunes cushioned up with velvety
light and dark masses (really forests), but to the south standing
firmly above the purple cloth like icebergs shone the Alps. My!
they look steep and jagged. The sharp blue shadows on their
western slopes emphasized the effect. One mighty group standing
aloof to the west--Mount Blanc perhaps. Ah, there are quantities
of worm-eaten fields my friends the trenches--and that town with
the canal going through it must be M----. Right beside the capote
of my engine, showing through the white cloth a silver snake--the
Rhine!
What, not a quarter to six, and I left the field at five!
Thirty-two hundred metres. Let's go north and have a look at the
map.
While thus engaged a black puff of smoke appeared behind my tail
and I had the impression of hearing a piece of iron hiss by.
"Must have got my range first shot!" I surmised, and making a
steep bank piqued heavily. "There, I have lost them now." The
whole art of avoiding shells is to pay no attention till they get
your range and then dodge away, change altitude, and generally
avoid going in a straight line. In point of fact, I could see
bunches of exploding shells up over my right shoulder not a
kilometre off. They continued to shell that section for some
time; the little balls of smoke thinning out and merging as they
crossed the lines.
In the earlier days of the war, when the American aviators were
still few, their deeds were widely recounted in their home country,
and their deaths were deplored as though a personal loss to many of
their countrymen. Later they went faster and were lost in the daily
reports. Among those who had early fixed his personality in the
minds of those who followed the fortunes of the little band of
Americans flying in France was Kiffen Rockwell, mentioned in an
earlier paragraph, and one of the first to join the American
escadrille. Rockwell was in the war from sincere conviction of the
righteousness of the Allies' cause.
"I pay my part for Lafayette, and Rochambeau," he said proudly, when
asked what he was doing in a French uniform flying for France. And
pay he did though not before making the Germans pay heavily for
their part. Once, flying alone over Thann, he came upon a German
scout. Without hesitation the battle was on. Rockwell's machine was
the higher, had the better position. As aërial tactics demanded he
dived for the foe, opening fire as soon as he came within thirty or
forty yards. At his fourth shot the enemy pilot fell forward in his
seat and his machine fell heavily to earth. He lighted behind the
German lines much to the victor's disgust, for it was counted a
higher achievement to bring your foe to earth in your own territory.
But Rockwell was able to pursue his victim far enough to see the
wreck burst into flames.
Though often wounded, Rockwell scorned danger. He would go into
action so bandaged that he seemed fitter to go to an hospital. He
was always on the attack--"shoved his gun into the enemy's face" as
his fellows in the escadrille expressed it. So in September, 1916,
he went out after a big German machine, he saw flying in French
territory. He had but little difficulty in climbing above it, and
then dashed down in his usual impetuous manner, his machine gun
blazing as he came on. But the German was of heavier metal mounting
two machine guns. Just as to onlookers it seemed that the two
machines would crash together, the wings of one side of Rockwell's
plane suddenly collapsed and he fell like a stone between the lines.
The Germans turned their guns on the pile of wreckage where he lay,
but French gunners ran out and brought his body in. His breast was
all blown to pieces with an explosive bullet--criminal, of course,
barbarous and uncivilized, but an everyday practice of the Germans.
Rockwell was given an impressive funeral. All the British pilots,
and five hundred of their men marched, and the bier was followed by
a battalion of French troops. Over and around the little French
graveyard aviators flew dropping flowers. In later days less
ceremony attended the last scene of an American aviator's career.
Another American aviator, also a Harvard man, who met death in the
air, was Victor Chapman of New York, a youth of unusual charm, high
ideals, and indomitable courage. At the very outbreak of the war he
enlisted in the French Foreign Legion--a rough entourage for a
college-bred man. Into the Foreign Legion drifted everything that
was doubtful, and many that were criminal. No questions were asked
of those who sought its hospitable ranks, and readers of Ouida's
novel _Under Two Flags_ will recall that it enveloped in its
convenient obscurity British lordlings and the lowest of Catalonian
thieves. But in time of actual war its personnel was less mixed, and
Chapman's letters showed him serving there contentedly as pointer of
a mitrailleuse. But not for long. Most of the spirited young
Americans who entered the French Army aspired to serve in the
aviation corps, and Chapman soon was transferred to that field.
There he developed into a most daring flyer. On one occasion, with a
bad scalp wound, after a brush with four German machines, he made
his landing with his machine so badly wrecked that he had to hold
together the broken ends of a severed control with one hand, while
he steered with the other. Instead of laying up for the day he had
his mechanician repair his machine while a surgeon repaired him,
then, patched up together, man and machine took the air again in
search for the Boches.
In June, 1916, though still suffering from a wound in the head, he
started in his machine to carry some oranges to a comrade lying
desperately wounded in a hospital some miles away. On the way he saw
in the distance behind the German lines two French airmen set upon
by an overwhelming force of Germans. Instantly he was off to the
assistance of his friends, plunging into so unequal a fight that
even his coming left the other Americans outnumbered. But he had
scarce a chance to strike a blow. Some chance shot from a German gun
put him out of action. All that the other two Americans, Lufbery and
Prince, knew was that they saw a French machine come flying to their
aid, and suddenly tip and fall away to earth. Until nightfall came
and Chapman failed to return none was sure that he was the victim.
The part played by young Americans as volunteers for France before
the United States entered upon the war was gallant and stimulating
to national pride. It showed to the world--and to our own countrymen
who needed the lesson as much as any--that we had among our youth
scores who, moved by high ideals, stood ready to risk their lives
for a sentiment--stood ready to brave the myriad discomforts of the
trenches, the bursting shrapnel, the mutilating liquid fire, the
torturing gas that German autocracy should be balked of its purpose
of dominating the world.
And the service of these boys aided far more than they knew. The
fact that our countrymen in numbers were flying for France kept ever
before the American people the vision of that war in the air of
which poets and philosophers had dreamed for ages. It brought home
to our people the importance of aviation before our statesmen could
begin to see it. It set our boys to reading of aircraft, building
model planes, haunting the few aviation fields which at the time our
country possessed. And it finally so filled the consciousness of our
people with conviction of the supreme importance of aviation as an
arm of the national armed service that long before the declaration
of war the government was embarrassed by the flood of volunteers
seeking to be enrolled in the flying forces of the nation.