The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots (2 page)

Curiously, the Great War, which opened two years later was initially reluctant to embrace the fighter pilot’s martial charms. At first, the belligerents used aircraft for scouting and reconnaissance alone, with pilots waving happily to enemy airmen when they passed in the sky. This state of affairs, in a situation of total war, could not and did not last long. By winter 1915 it was commonplace for the observer in a two-seater aircraft to be toting a carbine, and soon after to be wielding a machine-gun. When Antony Fokker perfected a synchronized gear that allowed a machine gun to be fired through the propeller it allowed a single man to both fly and fire. The “classic” period of the fighter pilot followed, in which one man jousted with another in a “dog-fight” over the Western Front and “aces” (pilots with five or more kills) such as Manfred von Richthofen and James McCudden became global legends. Much romance and status attracted to the fighter pilot, who was often an officer and a gentleman from a cavalry regiment, yet it is too easy to forget that the life-expectancy of a pilot in World War I was measured in weeks. For all the daring of those magnificent men in their flimsy flying machines, they too were bullet fodder.

In the long interval of the 1920s and 30s, before World War was recommenced, the fighter pilot went somewhat out of fashion, at least in the higher circles of military thinking. Under the influence of the Italian military theorist Douhet a number of notable air forces, including Britain’s RAF, became wedded to the notion that wars might be won by strategic bombing campaign. Only in the very last year of peace was the RAF persuaded to invest heavily in fighter, as opposed to bomber, production. As history has recorded, it was a wise move; for it was “The Few”, the fighter pilots of the RAF, who won the air Battle of Britain in 1940 and prevented a Nazi invasion of that country.

If the First World War provided the greatest fighter pilot legends, the Second donated to posterity the most memorable fighter aircraft. The Spitfire. The Me-109. The Zero. The Mustang. This reminds us that the fighter pilot himself (and sometimes, herself) is a creature of the machine. No other warrior, not even tank crew, is so dependent on technology, on advances in technology and understanding of that technology. Invariably the pilot with the fleeter, faster and better armoured craft will triumph in an engagement. Hence the frenzied development of the fighter over the last century, a development which took a quantum leap into the air when the Luftwaffe, in the dying days of World War II, brought the jet-powered Me 262 out of the hangar. The Me 262 was produced too late to save the Third Reich but it was the writing in the sky for the future of the fighter pilot and his charge. The Korean War of 1950–3 was the last major war to see the use of propeller-driven fighter. Since then, the fighter pilot has become an ever more accomplished jet-powered technocrat. The F-16s, Tornados and Harriers which screamed over the skies of Vietnam, the Falklands and the Gulf were computerised, hitec, multi-million dollar machines that delivered death at a speed and intensity that von Richthofen would have been incapable of even imagining. Such indeed is the speed of modern jet fighters, which in the shape of the Russian Mikoyan MiG-25 “Foxbat” can top March 3, that classic dog fighting is impossible. Jet duels, instead, are high-speed passes where the missile-firing protagonists are often miles apart.

Von Richthofen would, however, recognise much of himself in the man in the contemporary cockpit. The fighter pilot of today, like his forbear, still relies on quick wits, courage, some uncanny sixth spatial sense of danger and evasion, plus the deadly hunting instinct. (The first German air units were, incidentally, called
Jagdstaffeln
or Hunting Squadrons). There is a true paradox in the heart of every fighter pilot: he flies the only truly modern weapon, yet uses the same warrior skills as an ancient
samurai.
The sheer individuality of the fighter pilot, a man alone or at most accompanied by one or two crew, also stands out in the epoch of mass, uniformed warfare. Small wonder, then, that history and culture has tended to see the fighter pilot as a knight in flying armour, jousting with opponents in a blue battlefield. The Sir Galahad of the Air, in fact

The pages which follow address the perennial question of the earth-bound: What is it like to be a fighter pilot? Twenty-seven fighter pilots, from World War I to the Gulf, answer that question in their own words, from their autobiographies, diaries and letters. There are necessarily and happily (for the armchair reader, at least) numerous accounts of aerial combat, but other aspects of the fighter pilot’s active service over the last century are not forgotten: R&R in World War I, capture and interrogation by enemy forces in the Gulf, being hospitalised for burns after baling out of a flaming Spitfire in the Battle of Britain. For good measure, there is also an account by a USAAF bomb crew member, Beirne Lay, on the few joys of being on the receiving end of a fighter pilot’s attention. The book follows a rough time order, to allow the reader to appreciate the changing experience, tactics and machinery of war in the air.

Scramble! It’s now time to climb into the cockpit . . .

Jon E. Lewis

THE WINGS START TO GROW

DUNCAN GRINNELL-MILNE

Grinnell-Milne left the infantry in 1915 for training as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. The experience is recorded below.

I arrived at Shoreham after dark. On the way from London, or rather during the change of trains at Brighton, I met an officer bound for the same destination. His name was on his luggage-labels, together with the address of the particular Reserve Air Squadron which I myself was to join. As he was a subaltern and as I saw no signs of his being a qualified aviator, I was not more than usually awed by the fact that he was a Gunner. I had hoped that in aviation he would be as much of a novice as I was, but in the course of conversation he informed me that he had been at Shoreham quite a long time, that he was in fact just returning from leave which, I knew, was not usually granted until one had fully qualified. My respect for him increased.

I asked him about the Squadron. He was very willing to talk and the first impression he gave me was encouraging: few parades, no unnecessary drill, no compulsory church on Sundays, rather more liberty than in an infantry regiment – provided, of course, that one “got on well.” That, to me, meant showing promise as a pilot; my head was, so to speak, already in the air. And my companion must, I thought, be something of an expert, spending most of each day off the ground, for he told me that he “simply loved the work.”

But a little later he let fall that he was struggling to qualify as a Squadron Adjutant and had practically given up the idea of becoming an Active Service pilot. Also he told me that no one did much flying at Shoreham and that after a few days’ trial many officers returned to their regiments. I was not quite so sure that I was going to “love the work.”

At Shoreham station a Crossley tender met us – that, at any rate, was a step up from the infantry! – and took us over to the Mess in a bungalow near the sea. There, in addition to an air of comfortable informality, I found cheese, biscuits and beer.

ii

The next day was Saturday, no parades but attendance at the aerodrome. From the Mess to the aerodrome was perhaps as much as a mile; we were driven there in a Crossley tender.

In the sheds was a collection of aircraft, most of them interesting museum pieces in which we were to be instructed, and two dangerous-looking single-seaters (said to be capable of ninety miles an hour!) with which, I was glad to hear, we were to have no dealings whatsoever. There were about half a dozen of us novices and the same number of older pupils. The instructors were pre-war regular officers, of the rank of Captain; they had flown in France, had actually been fired at in the air, had survived engine failures, forced landings, rifle fire and what not. We regarded them as living evidence that the Age of Heroes had come again.

During the morning, one of the museum pieces was wheeled from its shed and set down upon the edge of the turf. With much pushing and pulling it was carefully arranged so as to face into the wind, although to us laymen the manœuvre was a little obscure, since the bows of the aeroplane were almost identical with its stern. It had an elevator – or stabilizing surface – stuck out in front upon curving outriggers of wood, and a double set of stabilizers – or elevators – fixed to wooden spars at the stern. But for the propeller which drove the machine inexorably forward and the arrangement of the pilot’s seat and controls, it might have been designed to travel in either direction. Officially it was called after its inventor: a Maurice Farman biplane; but it was better known as a “Longhorn,” because of the outriggers to the forward elevator. A slightly more modern sister-ship was called the “Shorthorn,” because the inventor had, rather rashly we thought, done away with the outriggers and elevator; and taking them all round the
vaches mécaniques
of Monsieur Farman’s breeding were pleasant beasts. But except for slowness and docility the resemblance to cows ended with the horns. To the uninitiated eye the Longhorn presented such a forest of struts and spars, with floppy white fabric drooped over all, it inevitably brought to mind a prosperous seaport in the heyday of sailing ships, whilst piano-wire was festooned everywhere to such an extent that the wrecking of a few of these machines before the lines in Flanders would have provided our troops with an impenetrable entanglement. At the sight of the craft before us, we put our heads on one side like puzzled terriers.

Presently the Longhorn’s engine was started up. It was a Renault of uncertain strength, eight-cylindered, air-cooled, small but wonderfully reliable. When running slowly it made a noise like a pair of alarm-clocks ticking upon a marble mantelpiece.

One of the instructors and a senior pupil picked their way through the wire entanglements, stepped over the wooden horns where they curved to the ground to become skids, mounted upon the wheels and clambered with a good deal of difficulty into the
nacelle.
No, it was not a body, nor a fuselage, nor yet a cockpit; it was a
nacelle.
The same name is used for the things that hang beneath balloons, but this
nacelle
was not of wicker. It was smooth and fairly solid-looking. It recalled the bath in which Marat was murdered. Doubtless to remove this ominous impression it had been painted a nice cheerful blue. . . . The pilot and his passenger settled down into their elevated seats, adjusted goggles, helmets, etcetera, and took a long look round as though it might be their last. After listening awhile to the engine, the pilot waved hands, attendant mechanics removed wooden blocks from beneath the wheels, and the machine moved forward slowly, lurching slightly over the uneven ground like a cow going out to pasture. The alarm-clocks ticked much louder; the mass of shipping, the network of piano-wire, the
nacelle
with its occupants, all hanging rather mysteriously together, moved away at increasing speed. The draught from the propeller rippled the grass, rushing back to make us duck and clutch at our caps.

When I looked again the Longhorn was scurrying across the aerodrome at the most alarming speed. It seemed impossible that the various parts should still be holding together. The machine hugged the ground; the curving horns, the wheels and skids, the tail-booms were all buried in the uncut grass through which the propeller seemed to be blazing a trail, and that and the noise of the receding engine made me think of nothing so much as a harvester running amok. I watched, holding my breath. And – lo! – it began to unstick from the earth. It rose a few inches; higher; it flew! O wondrous contrivance: “Hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert!” Shelley should have been a pilot.

iii

Nowadays such a machine in flight would seem ridiculous even to a child; but to us it was impressive enough. It was flying: that alone was sufficient. There in the sky was an aeroplane in which we could take a personal interest, in
which presently we too would ascend, not as passengers but as pupils. It was very thrilling.

We watched that antiquated cage of a machine as if it were our own property. We noted the manner of its leaving the ground, followed its course in the distance, observed how it banked at the turns, held our breath as it glided in to land as lightly as any thistledown. We forbore from criticism, we did not even remark to each other how, flying into the wind, this Longhorn appeared to have solved the problem of hovering like a helicopter, so low against the breeze was its forward speed. Nor did we discuss the value of such a craft in war. No matter what its limitations, this machine was to give up to us its one priceless secret, the mystery of how to fly. With luck we might some day progress to swifter, more deadly aircraft, but in this one we would first learn to grow our wings. She
(it
for such a venerable machine is not nearly enough) – she would foster the fledgelings. And out of a hundred craft, her we should never forget. . . .

We crowded round when she came to rest in front of the sheds. The instructor got down from the
nacelle
, gave orders for the machine to be put away and strode forward with an expressionless face. A pupil braver than the rest of us made so bold as to ask: “Will there be any flying today? Instructional flying?”

The instructor chewed a piece of grass.

“No,” he said curtly, “It’s not good enough.”

There was a thin layer of cloud at about a thousand feet from the ground; the wind speed was perhaps as much as ten miles an hour. Out to sea it was a little misty. No, it was clearly not good enough.

“You didn’t get very high during your flight,” another pupil remarked to the lucky one who had been passenger, a grave individual who seldom spoke to the novices because he had been a motor salesman before the war and had then taken a few lessons in piloting which placed him upon a higher level than the rest of us. He pushed his way through our crowd, looking rather grim and haughty.