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[Illustration]
NIGHT BOMBING
WITH THE BEDOUINS
_By One of the Squadron_
ROBERT H. REECE
LIEUT. D.F.C., R.A.F.
_With Illustrations_
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, ROBERT H. REECE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
DEDICATION
_In a spirit of the deepest reverence I dedicate this unworthy effort
to the memory of a true sportsman, a loyal friend, and a gallant
officer who was killed in action while serving his Country as a
Pilot in the American Air Service,_
LIEUTENANT SAMUEL PIERCE MANDELL
_America has given of the finest of her Youth to uphold the Cause of
Right, but she has given no one of more splendid promise than he,
whose service was an example of devotion to duty, of readiness for
action, and of undaunted courage._
_His life was an inspiration to the living "to carry on" and finish
the great struggle for which he died, that he and those like him may
not have died in vain._
CONTENTS
I. PER ARDUA AD ASTRA 1
II. THE "BEDOUIN" SQUADRON 12
III. THE BEDOUINS AT OCHEY AERODROME 39
IV. A NIGHT RAID 50
V. SOME EPICS OF NIGHT BOMBING 71
VI. THE GUIDING HAND 86
ILLUSTRATIONS
LIEUTENANT ROBERT H. REECE, R.A.F. _Photogravure Frontispiece_
JIMMIE WALKS UP AND DOWN THE TRENCH 14
ENTRANCE TO OFFICERS' MESS 40
THE PATRIOTIC, SCIENTIFIC MECHANICS 44
AFTER THE LANDING 84
NIGHT BOMBING WITH THE "BEDOUINS"
CHAPTER I
PER ARDUA AD ASTRA
In prehistoric times the first man to make for himself a stone hatchet
probably became the greatest warrior of his particular region. He may
not have been as strong physically as his neighbor, but with the aid of
so marvellous an invention as a stone hatchet he undoubtedly conquered
his enemies and became a great prehistoric potentate, until some other
great man made a larger and stronger hatchet; so down to the present
invention has followed invention and improvement has been added to
improvement to such an extent that it is difficult to imagine what new
weapon of destruction man can develop in the future.
What would the past generation have said of a man who had prophesied
great armies fighting in the air? Even in the early months of the war
there were but few who realized what an important part of the war was to
be carried on in the newly conquered element. When the infantry saw an
occasional box-kite-looking machine drifting slowly over the lines,
struggling to keep itself aloft, how many, I wonder, foresaw that in a
few months these machines would be swooping down on them like swallows,
raking them with machine guns by day and bombing them by night? How many
artillery officers laughed at the suggestion that a day was coming when
thousands of great guns would be directed from the air? Yet in a few
short months two great blind fighting giants, their arms stretching from
the Belgian coast to the Swiss border, learned to see each other; and
their eyes were in the air.
The first aeroplanes to cross the lines carried no armament; they were
for reconnaissance work only; they would fly a few miles back of the
enemy lines, have a good look around, and then come back and report what
they had seen. Often British and German machines would pass quite close
to each other. Flying was considered sufficiently dangerous, not to add
a further danger to it by attacking enemy machines.
The Germans, however, because they greatly outnumbered the British in
the air, had more eyes to see with; something had to be done; so rifles
were carried by the British and a finer sport than shooting ducks came
into vogue. This quickly led to the carrying of machine guns. Ingenuity
in devising sights to compensate for the speed of our own machines and
to gauge a proper deflection according to the speed and angle of
approach of the enemy machine, soon decreased the advantage the enemy
aviators had through superior numbers.
For example, if our machine was flying at the rate of one hundred miles
per hour and the enemy's machine was travelling past us in the opposite
direction at an equal rate, our fore-sight nullified our motion and
enabled us to shoot as if from a stationary base, while our back-sight
helped us to gauge that imaginary point at which to shoot where our
bullets and the enemy machine would meet. In other words, we shot at an
enemy machine although we ourselves were travelling rapidly, exactly as
a sportsman shoots at a bird on the wing.
Then a new aeroplane was developed, the single-seater tractor, with a
Vickers gun, synchronized to shoot through the rapidly revolving
propeller so as to avoid the blades. These machines were used to patrol
the lines and keep enemy machines from crossing, or to accompany a
reconnaissance machine as protector; for they were very much faster,
easier to manoeuvre, and altogether very much more efficient fighters.
At first they operated singly, but it was soon discovered that two of
these scout machines operating together invariably obtained better
success than when operating alone. This led to formation flying, and up
to the cessation of hostilities these formations grew in size and varied
in shape.
The reconnaissance work was soon divided into classes: long and short
reconnaissance and photographic reconnaissance. The long reconnaissance
dealt with enemy movements far behind the lines; the short
reconnaissance with enemy activities near the front. The photographic
reconnaissance consisted of taking aerial photographs of everything of
military importance within flying radius. These photographs pieced
together showed the enemy defences along the entire British front and
their changes from day to day.
Wireless apparatus was soon attached to aeroplanes, and this enabled an
aviator to communicate with people on the ground many miles away; and so
what was called artillery observation was developed. Roughly speaking,
this is the direction of the fire of our batteries against enemy
targets; but, just as specialization came in reconnaissance and
fighting, so now machines specialized in artillery observation. To-day
the efficiency of the artillery depends largely upon its direction from
the air. For instance, when a battery takes over a new area the gunners
may be called upon to fire at certain targets, such as cross-roads or
houses used as infantry headquarters or ammunition and stores dumps, at
a moment's notice. Consequently, if these targets are registered by
aeroplane, all the gunners have to do when called upon to open fire is
to refer to their registration book which will give them the necessary
angles to use on their sights, then, by allowing for the temperature of
the day and the direction and velocity of the wind, their shooting is
certain to be far more accurate than it would be if the target had not
been previously registered. The registration of targets to-day without
the use of areoplanes is very often impossible.
The registration of targets from the air, however, is not the most
important part of this work. For instance, a machine will be flying over
enemy territory; the observer will see the flash of an enemy gun and
will pin-point its position on his map, which is marked off into large
and small lettered and numbered squares. This operation enables him to
send by wireless what is known as a zone call, giving the exact
location of the enemy battery to all of our batteries within range. The
enemy battery then has to move suddenly, if it is ever to move at all.
Barrages can also be controlled very efficiently from the air, so,
considering the comparatively short time that aeroplanes have been used
in this work and the wonderful results that have been obtained, it does
not take much imagination to see the necessity for all future artillery
officers to be trained as aviators.
In the earlier stages of the war it was very difficult for Headquarters
to keep in close touch with the infantry during a "push"; consequently,
considerable loss of life might result from one portion of the line
advancing out of contact with another. Probably the eagerness of raw
troops to keep on advancing regardless of their objective has led to a
considerable and unnecessary loss of life. The aeroplane can be used in
these situations to great advantage, and after the development of what
is known as "contact patrol" the aeroplane became the connecting link
between Headquarters and the infantry.
It was not until 1916 that the full powers of the aeroplane as an
offensive weapon began to be realized. Bombing was done, but it was of a
desultory nature, and although the number of machines engaged in this
work steadily increased, and the work itself became more and more
diversified and specialized, it was not until 1918 that the
possibilities of the aeroplane as a purely offensive weapon were
appreciated.
An aeroplane can operate far back of the enemy lines, both in the day
and at night; enemy troops in transport can be bombed: railway stations,
sidings, etc., damaged; transports of all kinds delayed; and ammunition
dumps, when located, can be blown up. In fact, military targets of all
sorts can be attacked from the air that cannot be reached in any other
way. The very foundation of a nation's strength in war, its industry,
can be attacked from the air and, if attacked on a large enough scale,
can be destroyed. For instance, eighty per cent of the German steel
industry was within bombing range of the Allies. The Westphalian group
of high-grade steel industries centred at Essen is about two hundred
miles from Nancy. If this group had been bombed on a large scale the
source of supply of German guns and munitions could have been destroyed;
for a blast furnace destroyed cannot be replaced within nine months, and
the destruction of the central electrical plant of a steel factory would
place the entire factory out of operation for at least six months. The
hundreds of bombing machines which the English aeroplane factories were
turning out at the time hostilities ceased, and the thousands of men
being trained for bombing, make one wonder what would have happened to
the German industries if the war had continued through the spring of
1919.
Besides these hundreds of aeroplanes under construction and the
thousands of men in training, the Royal Air Force had in operation,
November 11, 1918, over twenty thousand aeroplanes, over thirty thousand
aviators, and over two hundred thousand mechanics and other personnel.