SOME EPICS OF NIGHT BOMBING
I
In the summer of 1917 the Germans were rushing troops up to the Ypres
front, where the activities of the British threatened them at this point
in their line. This movement of troops was made at night, as usual,
_because_ if made in daylight they would have been plainly visible to
our reconnaissance and artillery observation squadrons. These troops
were detrained at Menin and were transported by motor lorry along the
Menin-Gelevelt road. On a certain evening the first night-bombing
squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, then situated west of Nieppe Forest,
was ordered to delay in every possible way this movement of enemy
troops. The result must have been satisfactory, for the General in
command of the British Army on that front sent us, a few days later, the
glad tidings that no German reinforcements arrived at the critical
moment and all the British objectives had been captured and held.
Whether or not the only night-bombing squadron engaged in that action
was responsible for the tie-up of the Hun transportation system is
problematical, but all the members of the squadron remember that night
and hope that their efforts were of value.
The only thing out of the ordinary that evening in the squadron's
routine was the mounting of double guns in the aeroplanes and an earlier
dinner hour; the dinner, possibly, was gayer than usual. The machines
left the ground in daylight, gained their height over Nieppe Forest and
crossed the lines at dusk, swooped down over Menin Station and dropped
their bombs at an altitude of one thousand to five hundred feet. Then,
nose down, engine "full out," they raced away from Menin and followed,
in the brilliant moonlight, the road to Gelevelt, flying within one
hundred feet of the ground.
A heavy fire at close range at the transports on the road and at the
shadows of the trees cast by the moon, as the case might be, soon
exhausted the drums of ammunition. Each aviator did his level best to
get results, all the time trying to avoid landing on the tree-tops; some
of them did so land; they were shot down by the Huns. As soon as their
ammunition was gone they headed for home and, crossing the lines at a
low altitude, were shot at by anti-aircraft batteries and machine guns
from the ground and "bumped" here and there by the air displacement of
passing shells from the steadily flashing guns of both their own and the
enemy's artillery.
When they arrived at their aerodrome there was a breathing-spell for the
aviators while the bomb-racks were being refilled with bombs, the empty
ammunition drums replaced with full ones, and the engines replenished
with petrol, oil, and water. The planes then roared into the air again,
climbed for a short time, and then headed for Menin, where railway
communications were again bombed and the Menin-Gelevelt road was again
raked with machine-gun fire.
After a brief respite on the return from this second raid, the machines
again took off and raided the Huns for the third time that night. All
that were left of this weary group of aviators returned from this third
raid in broad daylight, with nerves strained to the verge of a
breakdown; some were in tears, some striving to be gay, and some were
very quiet, but all were happy in knowing that they had "done their
damndest."
When afterward they learned that the "push" had been successful and that
the Hun reserves had failed to appear, their grief for the "missing" was
softened by the thought that _their_ sacrifice had not been in vain; it
had brought about the full accomplishment of the purpose of the
raids--C'est la Guerre--
II
Probably the first time that a Rhine town was bombed on a densely cloudy
night was in the spring of 1918 and it was bombed by a small Scotchman
called "Jock."
The wind that night was from the northeast, a favorable wind from the
aviators' point of view because it was against them on the outward
voyage. Shortly after crossing the lines, however, dense clouds coming
up with the wind obliterated the earth, and all the aviators except Jock
turned back hoping to find their aerodrome before it was also blotted
out by the low-lying clouds.
Jock, however, was "keen" on bombing Hun factories, and the objective
that night was the Badische Works situated on the river Rhine; so Jock
held to his compass course and flew for over four hours without once
seeing the ground. When a sufficient time had elapsed to bring him over
his target, if his previous reckoning, of course, of ground speed and
drift was correct, and if the wind had not varied in velocity or
strength, Jock "spiralled" down through the clouds and, finding the
ground beneath him nothing but dense blackness, glided lower and lower
until eventually a large town directly beneath him became visible and
then the river Rhine, passing between Ludwigshafen on the west and
Mannheim on the east, was lit up by the rays of the moon coming through
a sudden rift in the clouds. Jock by now was only eight hundred feet
above Mannheim; he opened up his throttle and circled around the city
while his navigation officer on his large-scale chart compared the
landmarks momentarily made visible by the rift in the clouds.
At last, thoroughly satisfied as to their position, fourteen
one-hundred-and-twelve-pound bombs were dropped as near the factory as
possible. If some of these bombs dropped in the town itself, it was not
due to intention on the part of the aviators, who, blinded by
searchlights, could not be sure of sending all the bombs with accuracy.
With over one hundred and sixty miles to travel in a plane riddled with
shrapnel from the bursting shells, the prominent thought in the minds of
the aviators was, that their work being accomplished, their next move
was to "beat it" in the direction where lay friendly country.
After the release of the bombs, Jock climbed up through the clouds and
steered a direct course for home. Since the ground could not be studied
because of the intervening clouds, the aviators devoted their entire
attention to compass, time, and the stars. During this flight above the
clouds the efficiency of the Hun's sound instruments was thoroughly
demonstrated, for, although the clouds were too dense for any
searchlight to penetrate and this effectually screened the machine from
observation from below, again and again Jock's plane was surrounded by
the black puffs of bursting anti-aircraft shells.
After flying for a sufficient number of hours to bring them above their
aerodrome, if their calculations were correct, Jock and his companion
discussed the advisability of coming down through the clouds; the
unanimous decision, however, was to continue on until a lack of petrol
would force them to land, for changes in wind might have created a
considerable error in their calculations, unchecked as they were by
observations of landmarks; so after flying for another hour they came
down through the clouds and succeeded in making a safe landing near a
small French village just before their supply of petrol was exhausted.
III
One evening in August, 1918, there was a strong southwest wind blowing
across the eastern part of France and severe thunderstorms were reported
to be approaching. Nevertheless, certain Bedouins were selected to raid
the railway station and sidings at Frankfort; "intelligence" having
reported important rail movements in that vicinity. The Bedouins were
ordered to return if they found, after testing the air, the weather
conditions unfavorable for a flight of such long distance. As an
alternative target to Frankfort they were given the Burbach Hutte Works
at Saarbrucken.
After gaining their height above the aerodrome, Jock and his navigation
officer steered a direct course for "D" lighthouse, situated north of
Barcarat and but a few miles from the front-line trenches. Having
accurately figured their drift and ground speed on this course, Jock and
his companion calculated that, by steering a straight course to
Frankfort, spending five minutes over the target, and steering a
straight course back to their aerodrome, they could make sufficient
headway against the wind on the return voyage to bring them safely home
with a ten minutes' supply of petrol left in their tanks; any error in
course necessitating a deviation, or any increase in the velocity of the
wind, might mean a prolonged sojourn in a German prison camp if not
subjection to the well-known tortures of a German hospital.
After an accurate calculation of direction and velocity of wind, a
course of thirty-nine degrees was steered from "D" lighthouse; the river
Saar was crossed north of Saarburg; Bitsch and Pirmasens were passed to
the north and Kaiserlautern to the south and then, the Vosges Mountains
having been crossed, Jock and his companion looked down on the Rhine
valley. The Rhine River was crossed north of Oppenheim, and from an
elevation of six thousand feet, Mainz, at the juncture of the rivers
Main and Rhine, showed clearly in the moonlight. Still holding their
course, the aviators looked out to the left, followed up the river Main
to Frankfort, here they throttled back the engines, glided swiftly down
through the anti-aircraft barrage and searchlights and released their
bombs as accurately as possible. Then, after an almost vertical "bank"
so sudden was the turn, Jock steered a straight course for the nearest
point in the lines, which was considerably over one hundred miles away.
Now the aviators had to face a strong head wind and steer straight into
a rapidly approaching storm. The time taken to fly from Frankfort to the
Rhine River, together with a change in drift, proved to the aviators
that the wind had varied slightly in direction and had increased
somewhat in velocity. They immediately decided not to lose time by
climbing above the approaching storm, but to pass beneath it. This they
did, and those aviators never went through a nastier experience than
this homeward journey. Blinded and stung as they were by the downpour of
rain, while their aeroplane was hurled about by the wind to such an
extent that it appeared to be completely out of control, the voyage
seemed interminable. The clouds above belched flashes of lightning in
apparent unison with the Hun anti-aircraft batteries below. Held in the
beams of the enemy's searchlights and plainly visible against the dark
clouds above, Jock's plane was an easy target for the Hun gunners.
But who can account for the fortunes of war? Jock brought his plane,
riddled with shrapnel, into the moonlight beyond, showing up
Kaiserlautern directly below, with its searchlights sweeping the sky
while its anti-aircraft batteries filled the air with bursting shells;
but in spite of this "hate" it was a pleasant sight to the aviators, for
it showed them that their course was correct and that there was still
time to gain the lines unless the wind increased. Again they passed
below another dense bank of clouds, to experience again being blinded
with the rain and shaken by the violence of the wind by which their
plane was tossed about, all the while subjected to an attack by
lightning from above and by anti-aircraft guns from below. It is a
little trying to the nerves to fly for an hour without being able to see
the earth beneath, and surrounded by the incessant flashings of
lightning and the "whonkings" of bursting shells, but when homeward
bound these little incidents are of minor import.
[Illustration: AFTER THE LANDING]
For the second time Jock brought the plane, tossing about like a cork on
a mountainous sea, out into comparative light. As landmarks were
recognized, the course was checked and changed, when a third storm was
encountered. This last storm was furious, and it was impossible to hold
the plane on a compass course; fortunately, however, the storm lasted
but a short time, and when Jock brought his plane out into the breaking
dawn, the Marne-Rhine Canal was visible to the south. A few moments
later the lines were crossed and a direct course was steered to the
nearest aerodrome. Just then the engines spluttered, then stopped, the
petrol was exhausted, and Jock was forced to land in a field near
Luneville after a sustained flight of eight hours and fifty minutes.