AIR FIGHTING
Up to the present the greatest aid given
by the air service to any of the armies
in this war is that of acting as scouts; or, in
other words, the air service supplies the eyes
of the army and navy.
Much is said of the time when thousands of
planes will be used as offensive weapons on a
large scale. It is quite possible that in the
future this will come to pass; but up to the
present, spasmodic bombardments of fortified
positions by a few planes, and the useless
murder of non-combatants by German zeppelins,
has been the limit of the attacking power of
air fleets. There are spectacular fights in the
air between airmen of the opposing sides; and,
when one considers the limited perspective of a
man living in a seven-foot ditch, the monotony
of such a life, and man's natural love of
competition, one can easily understand the deep
interest taken in these air duels by the men in
the trenches.
One sometimes sees six or seven battles in
the heavens in one afternoon, and another
dozen machines driven back by shells from our
anti-aircraft guns. Tennyson's prophetic
words, written long ago in Locksley Hall, are
indeed fulfilled:--
For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained
a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Let us hope that after this war for liberty
and freedom has ended in the subjugation of
militarism, his further prophecy in regard to
"the Parliament of man, the Federation of the
world" may also come true.
When airmen fly over their opponent's lines,
they are first met by shells from anti-aircraft
guns and bullets from machine-guns, and
between the two they are often forced to return
to their own side of the lines. It is a beautiful
picture, on a clear day, to see these machines,
swerving this way and that, diving, ascending,
out of the path of this rain of shot and shell
that greets them, though it rarely brings them
down. The swaying machine, cutting its way
through the hundreds of white and black puffy
balls, caused by the bursting shells, is a sight
for gods and men; and the men, at least, never
tire of watching it.
A very amusing incident, in this connection,
is told by the officers of a certain Canadian
battalion of infantry. Their original Lieutenant
Colonel, now a General, came of a well-known
and able, though rather egotistical and
bombastic Canadian family. When in the
trenches this Lieutenant Colonel always
insisted on being accompanied by his batman or
a special runner whose duty it was to carry a
Ross rifle ready loaded. When he saw a
German plane soaring over No Man's Land toward
him, anywhere from ten thousand to fifteen
thousand feet in the air, he would cry:--
"Quick, give me that rifle!" and, putting it
to his shoulder, he would pump shot after shot
in the direction of the distant airman. If the
latter chanced to go back from whence he came,
the Lieutenant Colonel would turn to those
about him with a satisfied and triumphant smile
of self-approbation:--
"Ah, I've turned him back," he would say.
When he learned, as he occasionally did, that
he had been filling the sky with lead in a
mistaken effort to hit one of our own machines,
it worried him not at all, for the knowledge
he had that he had "turned back" hundreds of
Hun planes prevented an occasional slight
mistake from damping the ardor of a spirit such
as his.
When the war is over he may rest assured,
as he no doubt will, that no Canadian, no
Britisher, yes, it might even be written, no
man, had done more in this great war to
accomplish the defeat of the Hun than he!
Very often, while you are looking up at a
shelled aeroplane, the bits of shrapnel and
shell are heard thudding into the earth
all about. On one occasion my commanding
officer and I lay on the ground in a shower
of this kind, while a short distance away a
soldier of another battalion was severely
wounded by a piece of shell casing. It is
strange that more men are not hit in this
manner, and the same remark may be made of the
few who are wounded in proportion to the
number of shells poured over in an ordinary
bombardment.
A young airman described his work to me
as "much monotony, and a few damned bad
frights"; and this may be taken as a description
of almost any branch of the service at the
front. The phrase, "a young airman," is very
appropriate in speaking of most of our heroes
of the air, for they are often only boys of
nineteen or twenty years of age who, with the
recklessness of youth, but the courage of
veterans, risk their valuable young lives in
dangerous reconnaissances or in battling with the
enemy a mile or two in the air. Strange that
buoyant, happy young fellows like these, with
all their lives before them, should value the
future less than those who have lived more than
half of theirs. But this is the case; and it is
stated, truly, that the steadiness of nerve of
these heroic youngsters surpasses that of older
men.
One day we relieved the ---- battalion in
the lines, and as the trenches were veritable
mudholes, Major P---- and I took to the
fields and crossed overland to our rear lines,
passing through our long line of Howitzers
and field guns on the way. As our batteries
were just about to open a heavy strafe on the
enemy, to find out the strength of their
artillery on this front, we sat on the edge of a
shellhole to smoke a cigarette and watch the
effect of the bombardment. The batteries
near us had eight or ten men to each gun, using
a small derrick to carry into the dark breech
of the gun the heavy shell. This was pushed
home, and behind it was shoved in the charge
of guncotton. Then the metal door--for all
the world like the door of a small safe--was
closed and bolted. The range having been
given from a row of figures called across by an
artillery lieutenant with field glasses, the gun
was brought to the proper level by one man
turning a wheel, while another, gazing through
a clinometer, told when the proper range was
attained. Another man pulled a string, the
gun belched forth its death-dealing load, and
we watched the shell bursting a mile or two
away over the German lines, with a flash, a
great upheaval of earth, and a cloud of smoke
high in the air.
Presently to our right we heard a machine-gun
playing its rat-a-tat-tat. Looking up we
saw one of our own planes spitting its stream
of fire at a large, red, German flyer that had
been doing much damage to our machines on
this front for some weeks. The Hun plane
was above, thus having the advantage.
Suddenly his machine made a nose-dive downward,
like a hawk swooping down on its prey, and as
the German had speed very much in his favor,
he quickly arrived at the position he desired.
His machine-gun poured forth bullets, and to
our horror we saw that the tail of our aeroplane
was cut cleanly off by them, as though by a
huge sword. The machine, having no guiding
rudder, immediately turned nose downward,
and we sighed sadly and felt sick at heart as
we thought of the gallant young chaps falling
rapidly to their death.
It is always with a sinking feeling that you
watch one of your own machines brought down.
You can't be entirely without pity even for the
enemy under the same conditions. For when
a man dies in a charge, or even when he is
mortally hit by a sniper's bullet or by a shell,
he is either killed instantly, or he is brought
back on a stretcher with hopes of recovery. But
when an aviator is ten thousand feet in the air,
carrying on a duel with a foe, it is often only
his machine that is disabled, and while it noses
down the long ten thousand feet, though it is
only a matter of moments, he has time to realize
that death is about to conquer him, and not in
a pleasant manner.
Just before our unfortunate machine in this
fight crashed into the earth one of the
occupants fell or jumped from it. The other
remained in his seat, facing his quickly-coming
death with the same courage that made him
take the chance. The tail of the machine,
being the lighter, came down more slowly and
struck the earth not far behind the body to
which it had been attached.
In the meantime the German soared
triumphantly above, but now he circled down,
sailing close to the earth over his fallen
opponents, apparently to see the result of his work.
Then he soared aloft again, as all about him are
fleecy white clouds or puffs of smoke from the
explosions of shells from our anti-aircraft guns
in the neighborhood. They burst everywhere
except in his quickly-changing path, and he
sailed back over his own lines in safety.
Stretcher bearers hurried forward from a
nearby field ambulance dressing station to find
that the man who had fallen from the machine
was still alive, though probably fatally injured.
He was hurried off to receive attention. The
other was beneath the machine and beyond
human aid. As the smashed machine was in
plain view of the Germans it might at any
moment become the target of their artillery,
and the stretcher bearers here, as in all their
work, showed an absolute disregard of personal
danger. All honor to them! One-half hour
later, being nearby with my corporal, we
crossed over to the ruined aeroplane. Already
the Royal Flying Corps had a guard on it to
save it from souvenir hunters, and we were
warned away, but were later allowed to go
around it, and had a good view at close hand
of its tangled mass of wires, machinery, and
armament. There, with his youthful face
looking up toward his Maker, lay the other
occupant of the plane. Shortly his loved ones at
home would receive the sad intelligence of the
untimely, but honorable and courageous, death
of this boy who gave up the life he was to
live, the sons he was to father--"his
immortality," to use the words of Rupert Brook--in
order to do his share in holding aloft the
lamp of liberty and freedom.
Sometimes it is difficult to say who has command
of the air at a certain section of the line.
This big red plane, and a few others of its
type, seemed to be speedier than any of ours
on this front; but just as we have gradually
surpassed the German in artillery, in the
morale of our men, in control of No Man's Land,
and in general offensive power, it was only a
matter of a short time till we again took
control of the air on this front, as we have on
others.
The control of the air depends in great part,
not on the courage of the aviators, but on the
efficiency of their machines. Two days later
I saw this red plane, or one of its type,
daringly fly over our lines, and only about 300 feet
above them--an exceedingly low flight over
enemy lines. A scouting plane of ours, much
inferior in speed and fighting power, but manned
by some brave boy who cared not for his life
so long as he did his duty, flew straight at the
red machine.
We watched in strained silence, while they
circled about each other, their machine-guns
spitting fire, and once they nearly collided,
head on. The Hun decided to retreat, and
flew back over his own lines; and our man, or
boy, sailed away in another direction to
continue the observation work he had been doing
when the Hun came. Had our boy lost, his
would have been just another name added to
the long list of heroes of the Royal Flying
Corps; for his act, in risking his life in
attacking a much speedier and more dangerous
machine than his own, was the act of a noble,
courageous, fearless boy, well worthy of all
praise, and of the finest decoration. Had he
succeeded in downing his enemy, luck would
have been on his side, for success in fighting in
the air, as in ordinary life, often depends on
chance.
Besides the courage displayed by the youthful
members of the air service, they and their
German enemy-rivals usually display toward
each other a chivalry perhaps not equalled in
any other branch of the army. It is partly
due, no doubt, to the fact that the men who go
into the air service, outside of their courage,
are naturally lovers of the picturesque and
spectacular. It is also due to the unconscious
admiration one brave man has for another; the
pity which he must feel for a fellowman whom
he may shoot to his death ten thousand feet in
the air; and finally, the knowledge that it is
only a matter of time, if he remains in the
service, till he meets a superior machine, if
not a braver man, who may give him the same
fate. This feeling does not prevent them
fighting most fiercely, for each knows that while to
the winner may come rewards and decorations,
to the loser comes almost certain death. But
if by chance they both escape through poor
firing, exhaustion of ammunition, or that great
element, chance, there is little or no personal
hatred, but rather admiration for a brave foe.
The greatest of British airmen, the late
Captain Ball, V.C., D.S.O., told of a contest
in which he and a German both exhausted
their machine-gun ammunition without serious
injury to either; and then, after having done
their best to kill each other, they sailed along
side by side, laughing one at the other, till they
parted company with a friendly wave of the
hand to return to their own lines.
It was not uncommon, in the early part of
the war, when one of our men was brought
down behind the German lines, for the Germans
on the following day to fly over our lines
and to drop a note telling us that Lieutenant
Blank had been killed in a fight on the previous
day, and had been buried behind their trenches
with all military honors. Needless to say our
airmen displayed the same courtesy toward
their opponents. The knowledge thus given
often saved that depressing uncertainty on the
part of the missing hero's relations and friends,
which is more disheartening than the knowledge
of his death.
Personal bravery is not the monopoly of any
one nation. The airmen of our brave French,
Belgian, Italian, or Russian allies require no
praise from my feeble pen; and those of us who
have been out there have seen too many
incidents of the courage of our enemies to belittle
them, and we have no desire to do so. They
have often been barbarous in their uncalled-for
cruelties and outrageous in their acts, but they
have been sometimes brave, careless of death,
and chivalrous.
On one occasion I saw a German airman fly
so low over our lines from the front to the rear
that we could see him leaning out over the side
and looking down at us in the trenches. Some
companies of infantry in the front lines raised
their rifles and peppered away at him. But he
carelessly flew on toward the rear where a
company of pioneers were digging trenches;
and so struck were they at this reckless trick
that they pulled off their helmets, and
swinging them in the air, they cheered him.
Another instance of British--Canadian in this
case--love of any brave act!
The annals of our British air service are so
crowded with tales of heroic deeds that they
seem almost to dwarf the heroism shown in
the infantry, artillery, or naval branches of our
forces. Many stories worthy of the classic
heroes are yet untold of boys twenty-one or
twenty-two years old who grappled with their
enemies in the clouds with the same undaunted
fearlessness displayed by Horatius at the
bridge in the brave days of old.