Diary And Letters Of A World War I Fighter Pilot, The (31 page)

DIARY Saturday 21st December

Up to town by 10.15. Bought a record for Annie. Paid £46 Cox's drew £10, £16 left. In bed to 10 – awfully full. Down by 1.45 no lunch to notice. To dance practice at W Hall. None of us could dance! Chilly after lunch. Wrote Annie.

 

DIARY Sunday 22nd December

To Kirk in morning. Raining. Stayed in house in afternoon and read and wrote letters. Read aircraft book and the “Rough Road”.

 

DIARY Monday 23rd December

Pains within – felt rotten! Stayed in all day. Dud weather. Read and fooled about “Scrooge” in evening. Bad. Billinghurst in.

 

DIARY Tuesday 24th December

V cold. Quite o.k. To Woking in morning with Dad with £2.10. Came back with 4d! Letter from Annie – just ripping, oh she is the goods. Fixed up Xmas tree. Walked with Dad. “Scrooge” in evening.

 

DIARY Wednesday 25th December

A merry Christmas to everyone (including Annie!) Feeling v fit. To Kirk in morning v cold, presents at lunch. Lovely scarf from Mum, cigars from Dad, six silk hankies, socks and calendars. Present giving to kids after. Tea at W Hall. Sang songs with Gin after dinner. Walked home with Frederick and then Gin. Bed at 11.

 

DIARY Thursday 26th December

Fine frosty day – rather cold but lovely. All for a long walk in morning. Took some snaps. Read in afternoon, Dad chilly in evening. Retired to bed. I had pains and felt rather ill. Worse after supper. Bed early, felt awful _____! Was ‘orrid sick!! Slept fairly.

 

DIARY Friday 27th December

Much better! Up for brekker. Letter from Annie – bon. Raining, wrote to Annie. Out for a stroll. Dad in bed all day. To Bevingtons for supper. Eily arrived. To dance at village hall after supper. Great fun. Enid a lovely dancer – Miss Comerford v nice. Danced all but 2. Stopped at 1.15. Bed at 2. Slept well. Still a bit wonky within!

 

DIARY Saturday 28th December

Taxied back from Bevingtons. Dad up for lunch. To W Hall in morning. To see Major Landon for tea. Talked after supper and read. Eily to W Hall in taxi on a/c of rain. Long talk with Mum after supper. I am a selfish beast. Too much ego in my cosmos. Must change in New Year. Letter from Annie and Duggie.

 

DIARY Sunday 29th December – DADS BIRTHDAY GOD BLESS HIM

To Kirk with Mum and Eily in morning. Stayed to H.C. – only 3 there but v nice. Read in afternoon and played with kiddies. Packed after tea. Saw Eily to West Hall after supper and said goodbye all round. Awful posh those girls up there talk! Walked back. Bed. Last day of leave – rotten. God bless Dad on his 61st birthday and may he see many another.

 

DIARY Monday 30th December

Up by 10.15, missed Gin at Waterloo. Taxied to Kings Cross and had lunch. Met Bartlett. Gin turned up at 1. Train v full. Arrived Redcar at 10pm – just in time for a dance – heck! Annie all booked up! Had four with her. Bed at 3.30. Glad to be back.

 

DIARY Tuesday 31st December

Flew once in morning. High wind. I was C.O. Did nowt in afternoon. Supper at Annies and then to Welch Dance. The best ever in the world! Topping supper, bags of fizz – all full out. Auld Lang Syne and Cheers. Had 13 dances with Annie had a topping time. Sat out. Saw her home and kissed her at 4.30 am. Well jolly old 1918 began with a war and bullets and ends with Peace and a kiss. “and you find at the end of a perfect day the soul of a friend you've made”. A HAPPY NEW YEAR AND GOD BLESS US ALL.

“There's a Hun two-seater low over Passchendaele and a dozen Albatroses to the east and higher up. Can I get the two-seater without being jumped?” Down I go, full of optimism, but of course the Hun dives away east at once… and then all around come the well-known whip-lash cracking and the streams of tracer as the Albatrii come clattering down. I can see their black and white chequered wings and hooped fuselages and recognize them as Von Bulow's “Circus”... “Into a tight turn now and stay there... ah! there's a Hun straightening out ahead... let him have it!” Pop-pop-pop-plopple-lop-plop-plop go the two Vickers… “here comes another head-on... (no Hun will face a head-on shot; they always give way first… and that's what this one does, the blighter!)”... Crack-crack-crack and a bullet nicks the elbow of my Sidcot suit as I climb away in a turn. The Albatros overshoots and as he dives past I can see the pilot in his cockpit. He is wearing a light-coloured flying helmet like mine… “queer that there are actually people in those aeroplanes....” After that I go a little mad and try to collide with another Hun but mercifully miss him (no parachutes in those days). Then nose down and into a spiral dive (“never
spin
away”), with the wires screaming and the whole bus tense and rigid.... “I hope to God the wings stay on...!” Down I go to 20 feet above the shell-holes and back west as fast as the old Camel will belt. The Huns follow me down to 500 feet, but no lower. A shell bursts on the ground below me and scares the daylight out of me. And so back home, to shoot a line about it... but I wish I'd been a better shot....

“‘B' and ‘C' Flights will carry out independent patrols at 10,000 feet, giving each other mutual protection.”

Two flights of six aircraft, each flying in a tight formation of two threes, patrol up and down the Line. You are the inside man of the rear three of “B” Flight. There are broken cumulus clouds at patrol height and all seems quiet and peaceful until “B” Flight enters one of the clouds and to your dismay you see “C” Flight coming through the same cloud in the opposite direction. You clap your elbows to your sides, as if that would make your Camel slimmer, and hold your breath until you slide through the cloud and out into the sunshine again. And then you see bits of wing and wreckage floating down and you know that the man next to you has collided with the outside man of the other formation. Not very funny (no parachutes in those days).

Twelve Camels and as many Albatroses are milling round each other at 12,000 feet. After a few circles there seem to be twenty-four Huns and no Camels. Streams of white tracer and the red of Buckingham incendiaries cross and recross each other, and now an aeroplane breaks away from the mêlée with black smoke pouring from it. A Camel comes diving past you with both guns firing and the enemy on your tail pulls away. Another comes into the ring of your Aldis sight and you press both firing levers. Your guns rattle away and the Hun goes down in a vertical dive, but you can't tell if you've got him for someone else comes round onto your tail and the crazy dance starts again.... And then suddenly you are alone in the sky. You turn west and make for the Lines, looking for the rest of the formation, leaving a trail of “Archie” bursts to mark your errant passage.

It was not nice to see an R.E.8, flying at 8,000 feet and ranging an 8-inch howitzer battery get in the line of flight of one of its own battery's shells. It took a long time to flutter down, with one of its top planes flapping, like the broken wing of a duck... down, down down and then splash into a shell hole (no parachutes in those days).

We went out as a new squadron and suffered from the fact that very few of us had been out as pilots before, with the result that we had heavy casualties for the first six months without a corresponding dividend in enemy aircraft shot down. Nearly all of us were seconded from various regiments and corps and we had little idea of fighter, or as they were then called, scout tactics. Some of us were very young and nobody had sufficiently dinned into our heads (at least not into mine) that time spent watching the mechanics overhauling one's aircraft was time well spent or that a scout pilot, fly he never so well, who could not shoot straight was quite useless. The Balls, Bishops and McCuddens would spend hours lining up their guns and sights and doing practice attacks. As a result they would shoot down a Hun with half a dozen shots. I used to loose off 400 without the slightest apparent result and it never occurred to me that the fault was not bad luck but bad shooting. We learnt better later on and the squadron had the distinction of being credited with the destruction of 15 enemy aircraft in one day.

There is no doubt that Trenchard's policy of the relentless offensive was the right one, although on the occasions, when the Hun would not come up and play with us and the trail left by our coats, as we patrolled over the enemy lines, was marked only by black “Archie” bursts, we may have felt inclined to doubt it! Camel squadrons were usually compelled to fight at an initial tactical disadvantage. The enemy aircraft had the height and speed of a Camel, which with a 130 – 140 h.p. Clerget rotary engine, had a performance only slightly higher than a Tiger Moth. I can only remember two or three occasions when we actually dived on German fighters, so that it was they who could decide whether to engage or not. I must say they usually obliged! Once the battle was joined of course we could make rings round the Albatroses, which could however always break off at will by diving away. We could not catch them if they did.

Our C.O. was a bluff gunner major. He spoke to us all before we flew out and he said, “We are not going to France for the good of our healths. There are bound to be casualties, but I don't want them to be mentioned in the Mess: and call me ‘Major' and not ‘Sir'.” He was very brave and used to lead many of the offensive patrols himself and as a result collected a lot of Huns.

Two of our pilots had been observers, one having gained an M.C., but poor S. did not have much luck this time for the very first round “Archie” threw up, the first time we crossed the Lines got a direct hit on him (no parachutes in those days). The other ex-observer, who was also later killed and oddly enough also by a shell, had been with Alan Bott in 70 Squadron of “An Airman's Outings” fame. He was a droll Londoner, whose favourite form of abuse, reserved for his special friends, was “Do you want a thick ear and a mouthful of blood?” Another B. was a great character, known as “Old Bill” from his mossy appearance. Before we went out he used to delight in beating up a certain house in the neighbourhood, inhabited by a lady whom he called “my windy aunt.” The Recording Officer was the C.O.'s brother, a captain in the Liverpool Scottish and the guide, counsellor and friend of all us young ones. Our Equipment Officer was a mournful soul with a very long nose. We used to say that he wore a sock on it at night in cold weather. A replacement Flight Commander was a very gallant officer, who had been flying Martinsydes on a previous tour. He collected a dozen or so Huns with us and survived the war, but died in tragic circumstances afterwards. He was a great leader.

We used to paint names on our aircraft. One I remember was “Tid'apa,” which made more sense to me after I had been to Singapore, where its pilot had lived, than it did then. Another had his wife's name painted on his Camel. To each his fancy....

A Camel was a tricky little aircraft to fly, which spun very easily and fast, but it was much loved by those who mastered it. One lad had the distinction of flicking from one spin to another four times before he finally finished up in a wood from which he miraculously emerged unhurt, only to be killed in that collision in the clouds. Another bunted over onto his back while firing at a ground target. He righted it just in time. I myself had a close call when ground strafing. We used to strap in very loosely when on offensive patrol, so that we could look behind our tails frequently. The belts of those days were broad, lap-type affairs with a quick release, and not the shoulder harness worn nowadays. I had omitted to tighten my belt when flying low and on pushing my stick forward to dive at a ground target I got a “bump” under my tail which flicked the aircraft into a vertical dive, with the result that I was nearly shot out and found myself hanging over the gun. I just managed to reach the stick and pull it back to right the aeroplane. When it is realized that the replacement pilots used to arrive at the squadron with a total of only 25 hours solo flying, of which only five had to be on their Service type, the wonder is that so many survived. Alas, however, some did not even get as far as their first operational patrol.

In 1962 some 500 of the R.F.C. and R.N.A.S. met at Lancaster House at the Jubilee Party of the R.F.C. Very brisk most of us looked and very pleased we were to see each other. You could almost catch the whiff of burnt castor oil in those august precincts... It was a notable party.

Without the air mechanics, the “Ack Emmas” as they were always called, no squadron could have operated. Generally speaking they were a splendid lot of chaps in their khaki jackets, of the kind always known as “maternity jackets”, and their forage caps and the flight sergeants with a four-bladed propeller above the chevrons on their sleeves. The mechanics would cheerfully work all night in a freezing canvas hangar (for of course there was no “black-out”), changing a mainplane or fitting a new engine. When the aeroplanes for which they were responsible had been in a scrap they would gather round and proudly count the bullet holes and shake their heads over a damaged longeron or main spar, very much as their successors did a quarter of a century later. Mercifully the breed does not change. My batman was a dear old gentleman called Davies. He was an old soldier of the best type and I loved him dearly, except on the occasion when, arriving back in my Nissen hut late one cold night, I found that he had turned up my oil-stove too high and everything was about an inch deep in smuts! I did not love him at all then.... It is a great joy at unit reunions in these later days to meet again those good fellows who worked so hard to keep the aircraft in the air. On such occasions time goes into reverse and behind the old faces you can see the young men you knew so long ago; and I never cease to wonder, with humility, at the esteem in which the ground crews held and, it seems still hold their more fortunate comrades who flew the aeroplanes they maintained.

The Sopwith Camel was a small, open-cockpit biplane, usually fitted with a 130 and later 140 h.p. Clerget rotary engine. It had a top speed, low down, of about 110 m.p.h. It was extremely manoeuvrable and very light on fore and aft control. The rotary engine had considerable gyroscopic effect, so that you required full left rudder on both vertical turns. It was armed with two Vickers guns, which fired through the propeller. These were subject to a number of stoppages, most of which could not be rectified in the air. They would also freeze up unless fired periodically. A Camel was a very cold little aeroplane and it had the endearing habit of soaking your right foot in engine oil. We wore, at first, leather flying coats and later a lined, wind-proof combination suit called a Sidcot suit. On our feet we wore thigh-length, sheepskin boots and on our heads a fur-lined helmet with a chin piece and masked goggles. To leave off your chin-piece was to court a frostbitten chin, despite the whale oil with which most people smeared the exposed parts of their faces. Under the gauntlets we wore a pair of silk gloves. We had no parachutes, which did not come into general use until about 1924.

Our opposite numbers among the enemy flew the Albatros D.V and the Pfalz. Both these were biplanes with streamlined, monocoque fuselages and powered with 180 – h.p. Mercedes engines, water-cooled, which must have made them warmer than the Camel. Neither was anything like so manoeuvrable as the latter, but they were much faster, both level and in a dive. They carried two Spandau machine-guns, firing like ours through the propeller. The Fokker Triplane, which appeared early in 1918, was comparable with the Camel in performance, except that it climbed better. I only met them two or three times.