XII The War in the Air
Mr. H.G. Wells did not long anticipate the sensations of an aerial conflict between the nations. Six years after the publication of his War in the Air the thing has become an accomplished fact, and for the first time in history the great nations are fighting for the mastery not only upon land but in the air and under the sea.
Fine as have been the adventures of airmen in times of peace, and startling as spectators have found the acrobatic performance of “looping the loop,” these tricks of the air appear feeble exploits compared with the new sensation of an actual battle in the clouds. Soldiers, scribbling their letters in the trenches, have been fascinated by the sudden appearance at dusk of a hostile aeroplane, and have gazed with pleasurable agitation as out of the dim, mysterious distance a British aviator shot up in pursuit.
“It is thrilling and magnificent,” says one officer, “and I was filled with rapture at the spectacle of the first fight in the clouds. The German maneuvered for position and prepared to attack, but our fellow was too quick for him, and darted into a higher plane. The German tried to circle round and follow, and so in short spurts they fought for mastery, firing at each other all the time, the machines swaying and oscillating violently. The British airman, however, well maintained his ascendency. Then suddenly there was a pause, the German machine began to reel, the wounded pilot had lost control, and with a dive the aeroplane came to earth half a mile away. Our man hovered about for a time, and then calmly glided away over the German lines to reconnoiter.”
Nothing could excel the skill and daring shown by the men of the Royal Flying Corps. They stop at nothing. Some of their machines have been so badly damaged by rifle and shell fire that on descending they have had to be destroyed.
“Fired at constantly both by friend and foe,” Sir John French writes, “and not hesitating to fly in every kind of weather, they have remained undaunted throughout.” The highest praise is bestowed upon Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson, in command of the Corps, for the high state of efficiency this young branch of the service has attained. It has been on its trial, and has already covered itself with glory. General Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, has sent a special message singling out the British Flying Corps “most particularly” for his highest eulogies. Several English airmen have already been made Chevaliers of the Legion of Honor.
That the nervous strain of aerial warfare is severe is shown by expression in several airmen’s letters. Not only have they to fight their man, but they have to manage their machines at the same time. This means that if an airman ascends alone he is unable to use a rifle and must depend for attack on revolver fire only. This is illustrated by a passage in one of the official reports: “Unfortunately one of our aviators, who has been particularly active in annoying the enemy by dropping bombs, was wounded in a duel in the air. Being alone on a single-seated monoplane, he was not able to use a rifle, and whilst circling above a German two-seater in an endeavor to get within pistol shot was hit by the observer of the latter, who was armed with a rifle. He managed to fly back over our lines, and by great good luck descended close to a motor ambulance, which at once conveyed him to hospital.”
This appears to be only the second instance recorded during the first two months of the war in which our airmen have suffered mishap, yet half-a-dozen German machines have been brought down and their navigators either killed or wounded. Private Harman, King’s Royal Rifles, describes an exciting pursuit in which a German aeroplane was captured. The British aviator, who had the advantage in speed and was a good revolver shot, evidently greatly distressed the fugitive, for, surrendered, he planed down in good order, and on landing was found to be dead.
According to an officer in the Royal Flying Corps the worst aerial experience in war is to go up as a passenger. “It is ‘loathly,’” he says, “to sit still helplessly and be fired at.” In one flight as a spectator his machine was “shelled and shot at about a hundred times, but luckily only thirteen shots went through the planes and neither of us was hit.” An interesting account of a battle seen from the clouds is given in a letter published by The Times. “I was up with —— for an evening reconnaissance over this huge battle. I bet it will ever be remembered as the biggest in history. It extends from Compiègne right away east to Belfort. Can you imagine such a sight? We flew at 5 p.m. over the line, and at that time the British Army guns (artillery, heavy and field) all opened fire together. We flew at 5,000 feet and saw a sight which I hope it will never be my lot to see again. The woods and hills were literally cut to ribbons all along the south of Laon. It was marvelous watching hundreds of shells bursting below one to right and left for miles, and then to see the Germans replying.”
Another officer of the Flying Corps describes his impression of the Battle of Mons, seen from a height of 5,000 feet. British shells were bursting like little bits of cotton wool over the German batteries. A German attack developed, and the airman likens the enemy’s advance formation to a “large human tadpole”—a long dense column with the head spread out in front.
Evidently the anti-aircraft guns, though rather terrifying, do very little damage. Airmen have had shells burst all round them for a long time without being hurt. Of course they are careful to fly at a high altitude. When struck by shrapnel, however, an aeroplane (one witness says) “just crumples up like a broken egg.” On the other hand, bombs dropped from aeroplanes do great damage, if properly directed. A petrol bomb was dropped by an English airman at night into a German bivouac with alarming results, and another thrown at a cavalry column struck an ammunition wagon and killed fifteen men. A French airman wiped out a cavalry troop with a bomb, and the effect of the steel arrows used by French aviators is known to be damaging. The German bombs thrown by Zeppelins and Taube aeroplanes on Antwerp and Paris do not appear to have much disturbed either the property or equanimity of the inhabitants. So far as aerial excursions are concerned the most brilliant exploit is undoubtedly that of Flight-Lieutenant C.H. Collet, of the Naval Wing of the British Flying Corps, who, with a fleet of five aeroplanes swept across the German frontier and, hovering over Düsseldorf, dropped three bombs with unerring effect upon the Zeppelin sheds.
Bomb-dropping, however, has not been indulged in to any great extent by either of the combatants, and the chief use to which air machines have been put is that of scouting. The Germans use them largely for range finding, and they seem to prove a very accurate guide to the gunners. “We were advancing on the German right and doing splendidly,” writes Private Boardman (Bradford) “when we saw an aeroplane hover right over our heads, and by some signaling give the German artillery the range. The aviator had hardly gone when we were riddled with shot and shell.” A sergeant of the 21st Lancers says the signaling is done by dropping a kind of silver ball or disc from the aeroplanes, and the Germans watch for this and locate our position to a nicety at once.
As scouts—and that, meantime, is the real practical purpose of aeroplanes in war—the British aviators have done wonders. Their machines are lighter and faster than those of the Germans, and as they make a daily average of nine reconnaissance flights of over 100 miles each it will be understood that they keep the Intelligence Department well supplied with accurate information of the enemy’s movements.
French airmen are particularly daring both in reconnaissance and in flight, and the well-known M. Védrines, whose achievements are familiar to English people, has already brought down three German aeroplanes. In one encounter he fought in a Blériot machine carrying a mitrailleuse, and the enemy dropped, riddled with bullets. So completely have some of the aeroplanes been perforated, without mishap, says the Daily Telegraph’s war correspondent, that the pilots have found a new game. Each evening after their flights they count the number of bullet holes in their machine, marking each with a circle in red chalk, so that none may be included in the next day’s total. The record appears to be thirty-seven holes in one day, and the pilot in question claims to be the “record man du monde.”
Zeppelins have not maintained their reputation in this war. One sailed over Sir John French’s headquarters and indicated the position to the enemy, but they are no match for the swift and agile aeroplanes. A wounded dispatch carrier saw one English and two French machines attack a Zeppelin and bring it down instantly. A half hour’s fight with another is recorded; among the captured passengers in this, according to a soldier’s letter, was a boy of nine. Private Drury, Coldstream Guards, saw one huge German aeroplane brought to earth, three of its officers being killed by rifle fire and one badly injured.
There is something strange, mysterious, and insubstantial about the war in the air that the soldiers do not yet feel or comprehend. Often the feverish activity of aircraft at a high altitude is known only to a very few practised observers. A gentle purring in the air and the scarcely audible ping-pong of distant revolver shots may represent a fierce duel in the clouds, and often the soldiers are unaware of the presence of a hostile airman until the projectiles aimed at them burst in the trenches. One evening, a graphic official message states, the atmosphere was so still and clear that only those specially on the lookout detected the enemy’s aeroplanes, and when the bombs burst “the puffs of smoke from the detonating shell hung in the air for minutes on end like balls of fleecy cottonwool before they slowly expanded and were dissipated.”
Of course, the tactics adopted for dealing with hostile aircraft are to attack them instantly with one or more British machines, and as in this respect the British Flying Corps has established an individual ascendency, Sir John French proudly declares that “something in the direction of the mastery of the air has already been gained.”