One branch of our military machine developed with astonishing rapidity
and skill during those Somme battles. The young gentlemen of the Air
Force went “all out” for victory, and were reckless in audacity. How
far they acted under orders and against their own judgment of what was
sensible and sound in fighting-risks I do not know. General Trenchard,
their supreme chief, believed in an aggressive policy at all costs, and
was a Napoleon in this war of the skies, intolerant of timidity, not
squeamish of heavy losses if the balance were tipped against the enemy.
Some young flying-men complained to me bitterly that they were expected
to fly or die over the German lines, whatever the weather or whatever
the risks. Many of them, after repeated escapes from anti-aircraft
shells and hostile craft, lost their nerve, shirked another journey,
found themselves crying in their tents, and were sent back home for
a spell by squadron commanders, with quick observation for the
breaking-point; or made a few more flights and fell to earth like broken
birds.
Sooner or later, apart from rare cases, every man was found to lose his
nerve, unless he lost his life first. That was a physical and mental
law. But until that time these flying-men were the knights-errant of the
war, and most of them did not need any driving to the risks they took
with boyish recklessness.
They were mostly boys--babes, as they seemed to me, when I saw them
in their tents or dismounting from their machines. On “dud” days,
when there was no visibility at all, they spent their leisure hours
joy-riding to Amiens or some other town where they could have a “binge.”
They drank many cocktails and roared with laughter over, bottles of
cheap champagne, and flirted with any girl who happened to come within
their orbit. If not allowed beyond their tents, they sulked like baby
Achilles, reading novelettes, with their knees hunched up, playing the
gramophone, and ragging each other.
There was one child so young that his squadron leader would not let
him go out across the battle-lines to challenge any German scout in the
clouds or do any of the fancy “stunts” that were part of the next
day's program. He went to bed sulkily, and then came back again, in his
pajamas, with rumpled hair.
“Look here, sir,” he said. “Can't I go? I've got my wings. It's
perfectly rotten being left behind.”
The squadron commander, who told me of the tale, yielded.
“All right. Only don't do any fool tricks.”
Next morning the boy flew off, played a lone hand, chased a German
scout, dropped low over the enemy's lines, machine-gunned infantry on
the march, scattered them, bombed a train, chased a German motor-car,
and after many adventures came back alive and said, “I've had a rare old
time!”
On a stormy day, which loosened the tent poles and slapped the wet
canvas, I sat in a mess with a group of flying-officers, drinking tea
out of a tin mug. One boy, the youngest of them, had just brought down
his first “Hun.” He told me the tale of it with many details, his eyes
alight as he described the fight. They had maneuvered round each other
for a long time. Then he shot his man en passant. The machine crashed on
our side of the lines. He had taken off the iron crosses on the wings,
and a bit of the propeller, as mementoes. He showed me these things
(while the squadron commander, who had brought down twenty-four Germans,
winked at me) and told me he was going to send them home to hang beside
his college trophies... I guessed he was less than nineteen years old.
Such a kid!... A few days later, when I went to the tent again, I
asked about him. “How's that boy who brought down his first 'Hun'?” The
squadron commander said:
“Didn't you hear? He's gone west. Brought down in a dog-fight. He had a
chance of escape, but went back to rescue a pal... a nice boy.”
They became fatalists after a few fights, and believed in their luck, or
their mascots--teddy-bears, a bullet that had missed them, china dolls,
a girl's lock of hair, a silver ring. Yet at the back of their brains,
most Of them, I fancy, knew that it was only a question of time before
they “went west,” and with that subconscious thought they crowded in all
life intensely in the hours that were given to them, seized all chance
of laughter, of wine, of every kind of pleasure within reach, and said
their prayers (some of them) with great fervor, between one escape and
another, like young Paul Bensher, who has revealed his soul in verse,
his secret terror, his tears, his hatred of death, his love of life,
when he went bombing over Bruges.
On the mornings of the battles of the Somme I saw them as the heralds of
a new day of strife flying toward the lines in the first light of dawn.
When the sun rose its rays touched their wings, made them white like
cabbage butterflies, or changed them to silver, all a sparkle. I saw
them fly over the German positions, not changing their course. Then all
about them burst black puffs of German shrapnel, so that many times
I held my breath because they seemed in the center of the burst. But
generally when the cloud cleared they were flying again, until they
disappeared in the mists over the enemy's country. There they did deadly
work, in single fights with German airmen, or against great odds,
until they had an air space to themselves and skimmed the earth like
albatrosses in low flight, attacking machine-gun nests, killing or
scattering the gunners by a burst of bullets from their Lewis guns,
dropping bombs on German wagon transports, infantry, railway trains
(one man cut a train in half and saw men and horses falling out), and
ammunition--dumps, directing the fire of our guns upon living targets,
photographing new trenches and works, bombing villages crowded with
German troops. That they struck terror into these German troops was
proved afterward when we went into Bapaume and Peronne and many
villages from which the enemy retreated after the battles of the Somme.
Everywhere there were signboards on which was written “Flieger Schutz!”
(aircraft shelter) or German warnings of: “Keep to the sidewalks. This
road is constantly bombed by British airmen.”
They were a new plague of war, and did for a time gain a complete
mastery of the air. But later the Germans learned the lesson of low
flying and night bombing, and in 1917 and 1918 came back in greater
strength and made the nights horrible in camps behind the lines and in
villages, where they killed many soldiers and more civilians.
The infantry did not believe much in our air supremacy at any time, not
knowing what work was done beyond their range of vision, and seeing
our machines crashed in No Man's Land, and hearing the rattle of
machine-guns from hostile aircraft above their own trenches.
“Those aviators of ours,” a general said to me, “are the biggest liars
in the world. Cocky fellows claiming impossible achievements. What proof
can they give of their preposterous tales? They only go into the air
service because they haven't the pluck to serve in the infantry.”
That was prejudice. The German losses were proof enough of our men's
fighting skill and strength, and German prisoners and German letters
confirmed all their claims. But we were dishonest in our reckoning from
first to last, and the British public was hoodwinked about our losses.
“Three of our machines are missing.” “Six of our machines are missing.”
Yes, but what about the machines which crashed in No Man's Land and
behind our lines? They were not missing, but destroyed, and the boys who
had flown in them were dead or broken.
To the end of the war those aviators of ours searched the air for their
adventures, fought often against overwhelming numbers, killed the German
champions in single combat or in tourneys in the sky, and let down tons
of high explosives which caused great death and widespread destruction;
and in this work they died like flies, and one boy's life--one of those
laughing, fatalistic, intensely living boys--was of no more account in
the general sum of slaughter than a summer midge, except as one little
unit in the Armies of the Air.