THE EYES OF THE ARMY
“Why, all my life I have been trying to guess what lay on the other
side of the hill!”--THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
One day, while I was gazing at a German working-party grubbing like
ants on a far slope behind the enemy lines, a hawk glided swiftly and
strongly into the field of my telescope. It hung almost motionless in
the clear summer air, high up above the green valley, its powerful
wings outspread, the very incarnation of waking watchfulness. And I
found myself wondering of what the hawk reminded me, poised aloft, now
swooping a little this way, now that, until a low droning in the azure
far above gave me my clue even as an aeroplane glittered into sight.
The aeroplane stood out, almost motionless as it seemed to me, over the
German lines, while with a “pom-pom-pom!” the German anti-aircraft guns
ringed it round in puffs of white smoke. Like the hawk that continued
to hover over the valley, it was watching--watching. Like the hawk’s,
its searching glance plunged down into the animate life far below, the
life that pursues its normal round unperturbed because it knows it
cannot escape from the eyes in the sky.
The aeroplanes are the eyes of the army. They alone have made possible
the war of positions. From the Alps to the North Sea the warring
nations of Europe are hidden in the ground, but their eyes are far
aloft. It is the alliance between the mole and the hawk. While the
man in the trench uses the periscope to observe from his safe shelter
the enemy trench across the way, the army commanders in the rear peer
through the eyes of the aeroplanes into the enemy trenches and into the
enemy country far behind the firing-line.
The most important contribution which this war is destined to make to
our knowledge of warfare lies in the development of the use of military
aircraft. The aeroplane has revolutionized warfare, because it has
practically removed from war the element of surprise. The only hope
that the modern General has of maintaining the fog of war lies in the
weather, which, in more than one instance in this war, has effectually
veiled from peering eyes aloft movements which are destined to have a
decisive influence on the operations.
The aeroplane has relieved the cavalry of the greater part of its
functions. If our cavalry are serving dismounted in the trenches, and
their horses growing round of belly, it is the fault of the aeroplane.
Sir John French has defined the functions of cavalry as threefold: to
reconnoitre, to deceive, to support. The aeroplane has entirely usurped
the first of these three roles, and has rendered the second illusory.
Only rain and mist can safely hope to obscure the movements of an army
from the eyes of the watcher in the skies.
Like cavalry, the military aeroplanes execute both tactical and
strategical reconnaissances. Their tactical reconnaissances are carried
out on shorter flights, which lead them out over the enemy trench-lines
and the region immediately behind. Their object is to note any change
in the clear-cut line of the trenches, as seen from above, indicative
of the laying out of fresh fortifications or communication trenches; to
look out for reliefs coming up; and, generally, to gauge the strength
and composition of the enemy forces along a definite section of the
front by noting the positions of transport columns and by locating the
whereabouts of brigade and divisional headquarters.
Generally the aeroplane has a specific mission, though, of course,
roving flights are also made. A flight may be undertaken at the request
of a battalion in the front line which has observed suspicious activity
on the part of the enemy opposite, or the Intelligence may have got
wind of some move which seems to require further elucidation by a peep
from above.
Of the same nature as these tactical reconnaissances are the flights
undertaken in collaboration with the artillery, either to survey likely
objectives for our guns, to locate hostile batteries that have been
annoying our lines, or to perform that useful duty known as “spotting
for the guns”--_i.e._, observing the effect of our artillery fire.
Naturally, in the course of flights undertaken for purposes unconnected
with our artillery, an aeroplane will often make observations of the
greatest value to the guns. In such cases, of course, a report is
immediately made to the artillery headquarters.
As in these tactical reconnaissances the aeroplane is, so to speak, an
extended and movable periscope for the men in the front line, so, in
its strategical reconnaissance work, it may be said to serve as eyes
to the General Staff. Strategical reconnaissance takes the aeroplane
on longer flights far into the enemy’s country, where above towns
in the war zone, about barracks and railheads and headquarters and
fortifications, keen eyes may glean much that is of supreme importance
to the General Staff in compiling the information as to the strength
and dispositions of the enemy on which all strategy is based.
In addition to the tactical and strategical importance of the
aeroplane in war, it is also a weapon not only of offence, but
of defence, against aircraft. It can carry out bombing raids on
fortified positions, factories of munitions of war, aviation centres,
railway-stations, barracks, bivouacs, and batteries. It is the only
really effective weapon of defence against aircraft, both aeroplanes
and airships. One of the principal duties of our aeroplanes at the
front is to go up and chase away German aircraft reconnoitring or bound
on bombing exploits. They have also done useful work as sky sentries on
the watch for the Zeppelins which from time to time sally forth--with
small success, be it said--to spread German _Kultur_ from the clouds
over the towns situated in our zone of operations at the front.
The battle of Neuve Chapelle may be cited as a typical instance of the
work which the Royal Flying Corps is doing in this war. It was our
airmen who, by continual reconnaissance work in all the variations of
weather which are found in the late winter of Flanders, ascertained
the dispositions of the Germans about Neuve Chapelle to be such as to
justify the hope that we might risk a successful offensive at this
point. It was they who, while our troops were massing for the attack,
made sure that all was quiet, not only in the German lines, but also
in the enemy’s country, far back into Belgium. It was they who, by
hovering constantly above our trenches, kept prying German eyes away,
and prevented them from discovering the surprise which was preparing
for Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and his merry men.
Nor did the usefulness of the Royal Flying Corps cease here. Despite
the very hazy weather which prevailed on the morning of the engagement
(March 10), “a remarkable number of hours’ flying of a most valuable
character were effected, and continuous and close reconnaissance was
maintained over the enemy’s front” (Sir John French’s Despatch, dated
General Headquarters, April 5, 1915).
During the actual fighting, in addition to their usual work of
“spotting for the guns,” our aeroplanes executed several daring raids
into Belgium, in order to hamper the enemy’s movements by destroying
his points of communication. Bombs were dropped on the railways at
Menin, Courtrai, Don, and Douai; a wireless installation near Lille
is believed to have been destroyed; while, to quote the official
despatch again, “a house in which the enemy had installed one of his
headquarters was set on fire.”
This was, I believe, the headquarters of the German Intelligence, for
I read in the German newspapers that the rooms in which the German
Intelligence at General Headquarters is installed are boarded up along
one side as the result of the partial destruction of the house by an
English air raid. It was also stated that one of the English bombs
which had not exploded is kept on the mantelpiece in the office as a
memento.
A Belgian doctor who called upon me in London in April, immediately on
his arrival from Belgium, told me of a dramatic account of the British
air raid on the railway at Courtrai, given to him by the guard of a
train which had been standing in the station at the time. The man had
been wounded, and my Belgian friend had been called in to attend him.
The guard said that, on the appearance of the British aeroplane over
the station, a number of German soldiers rushed out on to the line and
started to fire at the raider with their rifles. The British airman
suddenly planed down, and the Germans, thinking he had been hit,
streamed together with shouts of joy into a dense crowd to await his
landing.
But their triumph was short-lived. When he was not more than a hundred
feet from the ground the raider dropped four bombs in rapid succession
right into the midst of the crowd; then, with a quick jerk of his
elevating plane, soared aloft and away. The bombs worked havoc among
that dense mass. A score or more of soldiers and railwaymen were
killed, and as many more wounded. The train was wrecked; and as for
the guard, who was a German, the doctor said he became positively
panic-stricken at the mere thought of what he had seen that day.
The development which the war has produced in what I may call air
tactics is positively prodigious. It must be remembered that, at the
outset, the aeroplane had practically never been tried on active
service, for the experiments made in the Tripoli and Balkan wars, and
by the French in Morocco, were more in the nature of sporting flights
than serious military tests. Our pilots have had to learn by their own
experience in the air--and a gallant and bravely bought experience it
has been--the fighting tactics of the aeroplane. They have had to learn
to distinguish “by silhouette” the different types of German machine,
and to discover the most efficacious way of dealing with each one,
according as the position of the propeller and of the driving-seat
in relation to the planes restricts the field of fire of the enemy
machine-gun. They have had to learn for themselves how to manœuvre for
position when tackling an adversary in the air, to find out the vital
spots in the different types of enemy machines.
Active service has brought them their first taste of flying under fire.
They have learnt to keep a cool head with high-explosive shrapnel from
the enemy “Archies” bursting all around them, and bullets from the
machine-guns of attacking aeroplanes whistling about their ears or
rustling through the canvas stretches of their wings. They have learnt
to make those twists and turns, those swoops and dives, which I have
so often seen them making high in the air above the lines, to avoid
those pretty little puffs which carry instant destruction in their
folds of white smoke.
Just as a certain temper of nerve is required of the airman, so must
he also possess special faculties of observation to fit him for
military work. The air observer must be cool-headed and resolute.
Above all things he must possess a certain measure of intuition which
will complete, which will fill in the details, as it were, of the
picture which his sharp eyes must pick out in relief from the blurred
chessboard of fields and roads and trees far beneath him.
Only experience will teach even the keenest eye to observe fruitfully.
Only the trained eye, reinforced by a good military brain, will detect
in that black thread on a white strip troops marching along a road,
or distinguish a moving train in that white smudge gliding over a
dark background. Only the trained mind will appreciate the military
significance of these observations. Where the intuition comes in is in
making the correct deductions from the things observed, and fitting
them into their right place in the general scheme of our information of
the enemy’s movements. Intelligent map-reading at the height at which
aeroplanes in war are compelled to travel is more than an acquired
accomplishment; it is a born gift.
Where a pilot and an observer venture forth together in one machine,
they must work in closest harmony. Like bowler and wicket-keeper in one
of those successful combinations with which we are familiar in county
cricket, each must divine by intuition the intention of the other. In
the roar of the propeller, the rush of the hurricane, communication by
word of mouth is hopeless, and even the portable telephone is of small
avail.
Now the observer is the captain on the bridge, the pilot the chief
engineer in the engine-room. Now the rôles are reversed. Destruction
threatens, and the pilot takes command. The observer can lean back and
commend his soul to God, while his comrade strains every nerve to avert
a swift end by a bullet in the air or a more terrible death on the
cruel earth a mile below.
Though only two years old, the Royal Flying Corps has already created
its own distinctive atmosphere. I can only describe it as a subtle
blend of the free-and-easy good-fellowship of the navy with the kind of
hectic dare-devilry which is characteristic of airmen everywhere.
Not that the foolhardiness of a certain type of airman that we all
know is tolerated in the Royal Flying Corps. Its spirit demands high
courage, cool nerve, and absolute devotion to duty, on the part of
every one of its men, but feats of the “looping the loop” order are
strictly repressed. It is to keep this spirit out of the Corps that the
rule has been made forbidding any “advertising” of individual airmen by
name in connection with their flights on military service.
The risks are the same for all airmen at the front. Every airman
that fares forth over the German lines takes his life in his hand.
The authorities who decide these things hold--and rightly hold, in
my opinion--that the “writing-up” of the feats of individuals on
duty might introduce into the Corps a spirit of rivalry which is not
consonant with our high military traditions, and would also be unfair
to those airmen who weekly fly hundreds of miles in accomplishment of
difficult and dangerous missions, but who, by chance or by their own
skill and judgment, avoid adventures that savour of the sensational.
Therefore, “no names, no courts-martial.”
This rule has often rankled in my journalistic heart, for the Royal
Flying Corps accomplishes almost daily feats which appeal to all that
is daring and adventurous in Englishmen. Let us hope that after the war
the war diary of the Royal Flying Corps will be made public. It should
prove as inspiring a record of gallantry as the story of the Scott
Expedition.
Let me remind you, as a foretaste of the deeds of epic heroism
this diary contains, of the achievements of three young men of the
Royal Flying Corps, all of whom have made the sacrifice of their
lives--Rhodes-Moorhouse, V.C., Mapplebeck, D.S.O., and Aidan Liddell,
V.C.
England was thrilled to the depths when it read the plain,
unvarnished tale told by “Eyewitness” of the last flight and death of
Rhodes-Moorhouse. You remember how, landing at the flying-ground with
a mortal wound, he had but one thought, not of himself, but of his
mission--to make his report before they bore him away to die. Those who
were present when he returned from his last flight repeated to me the
grim jest he made about the horrifying wound he had received. Though
his body was hurt beyond repair, the courage in that brave soul burned
so brightly that it gave him strength to fulfil his duty to the last.
And so his epitaph ran: “He made his report.”
I have heard nothing more extraordinary or more gallant than the
Odyssey of young Lieutenant Mapplebeck, who, after emerging safe
and sound from one of the most adventurous episodes of the war, met
his death in a banal flying accident in England. Young Mapplebeck’s
adventure began when, in the course of a reconnaissance over the enemy
lines, he was shot down over a town in German occupation. He managed
to land in a field, and, finding to his amazement that his enforced
descent had not been observed, promptly concealed himself.
Mapplebeck spoke French, Flemish, and German, with equal fluency, and
this gift of tongues, coupled with a nice mixture of resourcefulness
and audacity, helped him to a suit of civilian clothes, in which he
proceeded to take a look round the town. The walls were covered with
placards announcing that his abandoned aeroplane had been found, and
threatening dire reprisals against whomsoever should contumaciously
venture to harbour him. This did not deter the adventurous young
man from mixing freely with the German soldiers. He drank beer with
them, and listened--with what silent amusement may be divined--to
their bewildered speculations as to the whereabouts of the vanished
_Engländer_.
He actually managed to change some money, bringing home in proof of his
feat German banknotes stamped with that historic phrase, “_Gott strafe
England!_” and probably circulated, in the territories occupied by
Germany, with a view to producing a “moral effect” on the unfortunate
civilian population.
As the result of an accident the hero of my tale had one foot shorter
than the other. But he did not allow this physical deformity to
interfere with his subsequent course of action. He concluded his
extraordinary adventure by walking right through the German lines,
through Belgium into Holland, doing an average of thirty miles on foot
a day. To prevent his passage being traced, he took the precaution of
changing his nationality, speech, and story, with everybody with whom
he came in contact. He, too, “made his report.” Though it was late by
several weeks, it was a good deal more ample and informative than had
ever been anticipated when he set out. Within a month of his adventure,
Mapplebeck was flying at the front again.
Captain Aidan Liddell died in hospital in August, after a magnificent
feat of endurance which was described to me by his comrades of the
R.F.C. at the time. While he was reconnoitring over the German lines in
Belgium one day at the beginning of August, his leg was almost severed
by a German shell which burst right above his machine. Liddell, who was
driving, immediately lost consciousness, and the machine, with pilot
and observer, dived nose foremost towards the earth.
The aeroplane was flying at a very great height when the accident
happened. It turned right over on itself as it hurtled down, but,
owing to its great altitude from the ground, had time to right itself.
On being wounded, Liddell had collapsed over the steering-wheel,
with his arms round the pillar. This position kept him in his seat
when the machine turned turtle. The observer was jammed hard between
the machine-gun and the struts, and was thus likewise prevented from
falling out.
As the machine righted itself, the pilot regained consciousness. Now
they were dangerously near the earth, but, recognizing that with his
wound he could not last very long, Liddell turned the machine for home.
He made off in a straight line for the nearest flying-ground, which
happened to be Belgian. With fifty wounds, as it subsequently appeared,
in his leg, faint from loss of blood, he flew for thirty-five minutes,
and finally reached the aerodrome, where he made a perfect landing. To
those who ran out to greet him he said very steadily: “You must lift me
out. If I move I’m afraid my leg will come off.”
When they told me his story there was every chance that the gallant
pilot would save his leg, nor did his life seem seriously endangered.
But amputation proved necessary, and Liddell did not survive the
operation. The Victoria Cross laid upon his coffin was the worthy
recompense of his deathless endurance.
Those are three little stories of the Royal Flying Corps. I can think
of no higher praise than to say that they are typical of the spirit of
our airmen at the front.
There is a freemasonry of the air. Some kind of affinity seems to
exist between those who have taken to themselves wings to explore the
vastnesses of space. It has survived the snapping of all the other
ties that once united us with our present foe. German airmen who
rejoice in the slaughter of civilians from the skies show themselves
of punctilious chivalry towards their foeman in space. If a British
aeroplane goes forth and does not return, it often happens that a
message is thrown down in our lines by a German aeroplane announcing
the fate of the missing. The Royal Flying Corps, on its side, is
equally courteous. There is no place left for chivalry between foemen
on earth, it seems, so they have banished it to the skies.
I always think there is an heroic atmosphere about the flying-grounds
at the front. It is the privilege of these green fields and gorse-grown
heaths, with their fringe of sheds, to witness the finish of these
epic adventures in the air. Out of the crystal clearness of the summer
evening, from the drifting cloud-wrack of a stormy day, the aeroplanes
drone home, laden with their cargoes of glorious deeds. I have seen the
airmen go out at dawn. I have seen them return in the sunset. Indeed,
where the war correspondents have their headquarters the sky throbs all
day with the song of the propellers.
There is a great deal of efficiency and bustle about these
flying-grounds at the front. Through the doors flung wide of the
hangars lining the ground one gets a glimpse of the fighting
aeroplanes, strangely big and cumbrous on the ground as contrasted with
their power and beauty in the air. Little knots of mechanics in blue
overalls, the natty forage-cap of the R.F.C. poised on one side of the
head, swarm about the machines, busied with the engine, changing parts,
tightening up wires.
All these flying-grounds at the front are self-contained. The
motor-lorries of the Wing stationed there line one side of the
aerodrome when they are not away at the railheads fetching stores and
supplies. The hum of the lathe, the clink of tools, resound from the
travelling workshops by the roadside as from the repair shops installed
in sheds and barns about the place. There is a constant droning in the
air, faint and soothing like the hum of a bee, from somewhere far aloft
where an airman is executing graceful curves on a testing flight, loud
and deafening about the sheds where the engines are having their trial
runs.
Here is an aeroplane starting off on reconnaissance. Pilot and observer
are already in their seats in the midst of a neat arrangement of
maps on rollers, compass, barograph, speedometer, pressure gauges,
clock, camera, and machine-gun. The biplane, big but frail, its planes
shining diaphanously, its metal-work sparkling in the sun, quivers and
trembles to the stroke of the roaring propeller. An officer wearing the
characteristic cross-buttoned tunic of the R.F.C. is making a parting
recommendation to the pilot, who, in his fur-lined leather hood and
leather coat and fur gloves, looks more like an Arctic explorer than
anything else. The observer, similarly muffled up, is fixing a map in
position.
The biplane is standing out in the middle of the field, its nose
pointed in the opposite direction from the firing-line, for the airmen
will only bring their machine into the wind after they are in the
air. The roar of the engine grows suddenly louder as the officer,
his injunctions at an end, steps clear, and the biplane slides away
over the ground with that curious bobbing motion that one knows. It
takes the air easily, steadily, and clambers aloft round and round the
aerodrome, then suddenly turns sharply aside and makes off towards the
firing-line, twenty miles away.
Not a day passes that one does not see our aeroplanes bound for the
front. How often have I stood in the fire-trench and watched one of
these aerial reconnaissances--seen our airman, so high that he looked
like a tiny moth in a vast domed hall, stealing out over the German
lines! Again and again the enemy anti-aircraft guns drive him back, but
each time he comes back and each time he sees a little more.
Sometimes, as I have watched, I have seen another aeroplane suddenly
materialize out of the blue and circle in sweeps about the invader.
The “Archies” cease fire. From somewhere very far away, as it seems,
echoes the dull tap-tapping of a machine-gun. Suddenly you realize that
it is a fight in the air, that you are watching the fantasy of Wells
translated into reality. Honestly, it is not very thrilling. You hear
that very faint barking of the guns: all you see is two tiny shining
specks manœuvring in the air. The only men who get a good view of the
fight are the combatants engaged.
But, as so often happens, imagination breathes life into the dead
bones of reality. As you watch those translucent dots curvetting a
mile above your head, you find yourself thinking of the greensward of
the busy aerodrome awaiting the return of the aerial scout, even now
at grips in the air, of his place at the dinner-table, of the pleasant
château where the Flying Corps has its mess, of the comrades who even
now, maybe, are scanning the sky towards where the battle front is
stretched, for a sign of the missing bird. I have seen these anxious
little groups at nightfall waiting on the open flying-ground for those
who have not come back, and great fires throwing out a ruddy light to
guide the wanderer home.
The Germans have the most wholesome respect for the efficiency of the
Royal Flying Corps. It has found tangible expression in the efforts
they have made to produce a type of machine faster and more powerful
than anything our airmen possess. The German battle aeroplane, a most
formidable machine with double fuselage, made its appearance this
summer, and proved itself to be the fastest aeroplane in the field.
Engine-power will almost always get the better of skill and courage.
Once again the Germans, by calling in their unrivalled technical
knowledge to their aid, diminished the advantage we had gained over
them in equal contest. We lost no time in taking up the challenge, and
there are signs that the Germans will not be left long in enjoyment of
their monopoly of speed in aerial reconnaissance.
The Germans have proved themselves to be skilful and adventurous
fliers in this war. It is characteristic of the thoroughness of their
war training that at the very outset of the war they gave proof of
possessing a more or less definite plan of campaign for the war in the
air. But--probably on superior orders--they do not show that lust for
fighting that distinguishes our airmen. Our fliers are always lamenting
the fact that a German airman will never wait to engage an adversary
who sallies out to drive him off, but turns tail and runs as soon as
the enemy appears.
The time has not yet come to review the work of the Royal Flying Corps
at the front. I have made no attempt to do so in this chapter. The
aeroplane is such an essential part of the Intelligence in modern war
that no detailed survey of the methods by which the Royal Flying Corps
fulfils its functions as the eyes of the army can safely be given
until the war is over. I have had to content myself, therefore, with
seeking to impart to you at home some of the admiration with which the
gallantry and endurance of our airmen in the field have inspired me,
who have been privileged to see them at their work.
“Ruin-kist but gamesome ever,
Proud we meet amid the blue:
Who shall speed the world’s endeavour,
Splendid foeman, I or you?
Here we crash: the great downcasting
Waits. May weal us all betide!
Buoyant with the Everlasting
Lords of death we ride--we ride!”
J. MACKERETH: _Hymn of the Airman_.