Meeting the Enemy (29 page)

The ultimate aim of fighter pilots was air superiority, preventing the enemy’s observation planes from overlooking the battlefield and passing back intelligence on, among other things, troop movements and artillery dispositions. If accurately collected, this information could prove key to inflicting heinous losses on the enemy, even hastening a tactical defeat. This fact was reason enough for an absence of latitude or humanity in combat, and was as strategic a consideration to a pilot as his natural inclination for self-preservation. Fighter ace Captain James McCudden understood this implicitly: his success was not down to flying skill alone. ‘One cannot afford to be sentimental when one has to do one’s job of killing and going on killing,’ he wrote in 1918.

Such single-minded focus had the power to startle even him.

It seems all very strange to me, but whilst fighting Germans I have always looked upon a German aeroplane as a machine that has got to be destroyed, and at times when I have passed quite close to a Hun machine and have had a good look at the occupant, the thought has often struck me: ‘By Jove! There is a man in it.’ This may sound queer, but it is quite true.

So close did planes come to each other as they spiralled and twisted in the air that pilots’ recollections of combat included remarkably detailed descriptions of the enemy. McCudden recalled one German pilot who, by half-rolling his aircraft, passed a few feet below his own.

I saw the pilot look upwards; and it struck me that he did not seem the least perturbed, as I should have expected him to be . . . That Hun was a good one, for every time I got behind him he turned upside down and passed out underneath me. I well remember looking at him too. He seemed only a boy.

Aerial killing could never be entirely dispassionate. Down below, in and around the trenches, the war was different inasmuch as artillery and machine-gun fire were responsible for a vastly disproportionate number of deaths in comparison to individually targeted rifle fire and the bayonet. By contrast, aerial combat was as personal as it could be: a one-on-one duel to the death and a likely plummet to earth for the loser.

Pilots flew without parachutes. Not, as is popularly assumed, because it was feared they would jump at the first sign of difficulty, but because parachutes were bulky, heavy and entirely unsuited for tight cockpits. Pilots did everything they could to make their aircraft lighter and faster. Even if parachutes could be worn, deploying one would be tricky at any time and highly problematic from a spinning, burning aircraft. To have any chance, a pilot had to remain with his plane even when it had lost power and was badly damaged. The alternative was to bail out to certain death.

Lieutenant Patrick O’Brien, a pilot with 66 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (RFC), believed that the worst scenario came once an aircraft was fully alight. Then it took less than a minute for the fabric to burn off the wings, at which point the plane dropped ‘like an arrow’. In close combat O’Brien watched, albeit fleetingly, as one German aircraft hurtled past him in flames, and witnessed the look of dread on the pilot’s face. ‘The Hun was diving at such a sharp angle that both his wings came off.’

Destroying the enemy was all-engrossing and victory elating. And yet on those occasions when a stricken pilot was forced to leap from his falling aircraft, there was a rush of sympathy among pilots for the doomed opponent, and a feeling of sickness as he hit the ground.

‘The machine went beyond the vertical and onto its back,’ recalled McCudden of the finale of one engagement. ‘The enemy gunner either jumped or fell out, and I saw him following the machine down, twirling round and round, all arms and legs, truly a ghastly sight.’

There was something about the lone, tumbling man that evinced sympathy from all sides. Choosing to jump rather than burn to death took guts. Julius Buckler, a German pilot serving with Jasta 17, was aghast when, strafing an aircraft of the RFC, it began to emit smoke, then burst into flames. ‘Now came the most horrifying thing I have ever witnessed . . . I saw the pilot stand up – the brave man did not want to burn – preferring to leap to his death from 3,000 metres . . . I cannot describe my emotions as I watched this person plunging into the depths before my eyes.’

The grim spectacle haunted Buckler. ‘I could endure everything again if I had to, but I would not want to experience my thirteenth victory a second time.’

Death was a daily occupational hazard but respect for the vanquished was rarely found wanting. Where a plane was shot down, victorious pilots went to see the defeated pilot whenever possible, regardless of whether that man was alive or dead. One of Captain McCudden’s ‘kills’ in October 1917 included an enemy aircraft brought down over British positions near Mazingarbe. McCudden landed immediately.

I found the observer shot dead, but the pilot was still breathing, and so I got some Tommies to find a stretcher in order to take him to hospital, but the poor fellow died in a few minutes, for he was badly shot too. I felt very sorry indeed, for shooting a man down where you can see the results of your work . . . It makes one think when one views such an object as I was doing then.

After returning to the Squadron Mess for lunch, McCudden drove back to the crash site with Major Blomfield, the Officer Commanding the squadron. It was the wish of pilots, McCudden acknowledged, to down a German plane over British lines, in order to collect a war trophy and McCudden and his OC were keen to see what they could find. The downed plane was under guard, and as the two men approached, one of the guards handed McCudden a silk cap belonging to the pilot. There was paperwork that showed the German had only recently returned from leave in Berlin. ‘We stayed by the Hun for some time, and the O.C. said that it was a pity we could not bring down Huns without this happening – alluding to the dead occupants – and I agreed . . . The Major collected what parts of the machine he wanted and we then came away, as it was getting late.’

After watching a German pilot plummet to his death, Second Lieutenant Patrick O’Brien was in combat again above the Ypres Salient. In this dogfight his squadron was outnumbered two to one. He fully expected a fate similar to that of the pilot he had seen downed in flames but, as he made a desperate sharp turn, he came upon another German plane at point-blank range.

I had the drop on him, and he knew it. His white face and startled eyes I can still see. He knew beyond question that his last moment had come, because his position prevented his taking aim at me, while my gun pointed straight at him. My first tracer-bullet passed within a yard of his head, the second looked as if it hit his shoulder, the third struck him in the neck, and then I let him have the whole works and he went down in a spinning nose dive.

In fighting, your machine is dropping all the time. I glanced at my instruments and my altitude was between eight and nine thousand feet. While I was still looking at the instruments board, a burst of bullets blew it to smithereens, [while] another bullet went through my upper lip.

Any chance of survival for such a pilot depended on the severity of his wounds and his ebbing skills to steer his plane to the ground. Despite the fact that his propeller had also been hit and the petrol tank punctured, O’Brien guided his plane down although he had no memory of landing, and awoke in an enemy artillery officers’ headquarters.

A number of captured RFC pilots were so badly injured that they were exchanged, returning to Britain before the war was over. Once home they were interviewed, and related stirring accounts not only of combat but of extraordinary and heart-stopping struggles in fatally damaged aircraft. Lieutenant John Howey, an observer with 6 Squadron, was one such individual. At 10,000 feet he was attacked by two German aircraft and, from below, an anti-aircraft battery.

One of these shells burst within a very few feet of us, killing my pilot instantaneously, and breaking off half the propeller, at the same time making a large hole in the radiator. The machine commenced suddenly to nose-dive steeply to earth, with the engine full on, and vibrating terribly. I looked round and saw the pilot’s head hanging over the side, with a large wound on the left of his forehead, quite dead.

As soon as I could get out of my seat, I leant over and switched the engine off (I experienced some difficulty in doing this, as the machine was spiralling as well as nose-diving). I then pushed the joy-stick back and to one side, and managed to get the machine level. I immediately stepped over the partition that divides the pilot’s seat from that of the observer, and sat on the pilot’s lap, taking over the controls, which were undamaged. The aeroplane then put her nose up, and her tail down, and completely lost her flying speed. She stood thus for a second, or so, and at first I thought she was going over backwards, but she tail-slid instead and managed to right herself. I immediately put her nose down and made a very fast landing.

I must have been pitched out and temporarily stunned, because I know I never climbed out of the machine, but found myself looking at a mounted German officer and several armed soldiers. I was then marched to the village of Ledeghem. A German officer gave me a photo of my machine, which I still have.

Another pilot to leave an exhilirating account of his final dogfight was Captain Francis Don. He had already served at Gallipoli in 1915 with the 1/1st Scottish Horse, and then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. In early June 1917, he was shot down near Le Cateau.

My engine was hit at about 10,000 feet which compelled me to descend. I was attacked the whole way down. My observer and I were both wounded; one of his fingers was shot away, and he had also a wound in the arm. I was first hit on my right side, which proved a trifling wound and when within about 1,000 feet of the ground I got three or four bullets in my left arm. We landed without accident. The German pilot continued to fire on us making several dives at what was a stationary target. Fortunately we were not hit again.

Rapid improvements were made in aircraft reliability throughout the war and by 1917 planes were much more robust than the flying coffins that took to the air three years earlier. All the same, death and injury as a result of engine malfunction were common and because of this pilots would sometimes take scrunched-up newspaper or a mouthful of chewing gum to plug in-flight oil leaks. Lieutenant Duncan Grinnell-Milne was on a reconnaissance deep over enemy lines. As he and his observer set a course for home, an ‘ominous knock’ was heard from the engine. ‘Suddenly there was a loud explosion; pieces of metal flew past my head and the machine was enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke.’ The plane began to descend.

I find it almost impossible to describe my feelings as it gradually dawned on me that we were certain to come down within enemy lines. I had a sensation of misery, depression and hopelessness, which grew so strong as time went on that I felt almost physically sick. I suppose it was a form of nostalgia – or was it just cowardice? At any rate, I felt unbearably sad at the idea that in all probability I would have to spend that night in a German prison.

Although it was rare to survive an uncontrolled crash, a pilot might walk away from a crash-landing, albeit badly bruised or injured. Escaping the aircraft was a priority in case petrol or petrol fumes ignited. Then, if downed behind enemy lines, relief at survival was soured by the bitter knowledge that capture was inevitable. There was one upside: a stricken pilot could expect his surrender to be routinely accepted, for the enemy converging on a crash site were typically neither pumped up with combat adrenalin nor stressed with battle fatigue.

Yet no surrender was guaranteed. When a German pilot took it upon himself to launch a ground attack, first strafing a lorry to which an observation balloon was tethered and then shooting up some adjacent horse lines, it was probably imperative that he get away. In his case he was immediately brought down. ‘Everybody was savage at the machine-gunning, we being so helpless in the wagon lines,’ wrote one of the men who chased across open fields towards the fair-haired and youthful pilot. The pilot may have had no inkling of the ill will bearing down on him for a staff car drew up and he was bundled into the back. ‘There was an attempt to rush the car, but the sight of senior British officers defending it with their sticks checked us, and the car got away.’

Lieutenant Duncan Grinnell-Milne’s aircraft landed in a ploughed field and within minutes the observer had alerted him to the enemy’s approach. The two men set light to the aircraft but, as the Germans closed in, a series of loud explosions halted them in their tracks. In the flames the machine gun’s bullets began to explode.

The effect on the enemy was quite extraordinary. Half their number threw themselves flat on their faces while the remainder took refuge in flight. Of those who were lying down I tried a few phrases of my choicest German, informing them that we were quite harmless and would like to surrender. To this they made no reply, merely staring at us wide-eyed. It was a strange position to be in; we begged to be allowed to surrender but our enemies either lay flat on the ground in front of us or ran away. I felt like shrugging my shoulders and walking away in disgust, but presently, when our ammunition had burnt itself out, they plucked up courage and started to return. We were soon surrounded by a large crowd of harmless enough individuals, who stood gaping at us as though we had dropped from Mars. Then some German flying officers arrived and introduced themselves to us with much bowing and saluting as if the war had never existed . . . The German flying officers tried to engage us in an interesting discussion on aero-dynamics, about which we knew nothing, and we took a last look at our ill-fated craft. A few minutes later we walked away with several German officers and reaching a road where a large Mercedes touring car was waiting we were bowed into the most comfortable seats and driven off at a great speed for a village.