Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (9 page)

Not only did he have an altitude advantage, but Voss was also flying a new Albatros D-I fighter. Designed from the beginning as a fighter, the plane was unique in several ways. The fuselage was a plywood shell, not fabric over wood framing, so it was strong and light. The Benz Bz.III engine was a 150-horsepower, six-cylinder, water-cooled inline that gave the Albatros a maximum speed of 110 mph, a 30-mph advantage over the British plane.

Voss also had twin Spandau machine guns, firing through the prop at 500 rounds per minute. His first bursts tore through the other aircraft’s wings, and the plane dove toward the ground, streaming flames. Following it down, the German saw the plane flop into no-man’s-land very near the British trenches and fall to pieces. As one of the crew carried the other to safety, Voss wheeled overhead, pounding his knee in frustration. Procedures for claiming kills were very strict and required another flyer as a witness or corroboration from the German army.
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He had neither.

Shoving his goggles up to see better, Voss pulled the power and glided down. Skidding to a sloppy stop amid the barbed wire and shell holes, he jumped from the cockpit and sprinted toward the wrecked British plane. Yanking the quick-release pin, he pulled the rear machine gun out. As he stumbled back to the Albatros, bullets whined past his head and smacked wetly into the stinking mud. Wedging his trophy next to the bulkhead, Voss firewalled the throttle, bounced back into the air, and waved a cocky goodbye to the angry British infantry. Later that night, amid the beer and noise, the .303 Lewis gun was mounted in the Officers’ Mess of Jasta 2, giving the young pilot his first verified kill. It was the twenty-seventh of November, 1916.

Son of a wealthy dye factory owner, Werner Voss began his military career with the 11th Westphalian Hussars, subsequently fighting in the last big cavalry battle of the war.
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Then, hearing that Hussars were being converted into infantry units, he applied for a transfer to the air service and became an observer. But Voss wanted to fly and fight, not ride in the backseat and spot for the artillery. Trying again this time he was accepted for pilot training during the summer of 1916. Then as now, aptitude and instructor evaluations were critical if one wished to fly fighters, and Voss was impressive. By the fall of 1916, he’d been commissioned a
Leutnant
and assigned to Oswald Boelcke’s famous Jasta 2 along with von Richthofen and Erwin Boehme.

In stark contrast to his more reserved friend Manfred “The Red Baron” von Richthofen, Werner loved women, wine, and life. Surprisingly, Richthofen and Voss got on very well. Voss was one of the few pilots who were actually close to the Baron, and the two pilots even spent a leave together at Voss’s family home. Voss was a very skilled flyer and superb marksman who only wished to fight. He had no interest in administration or command, and though he embraced Boelcke’s principles, Voss showed no inclination toward the scientific side of air combat.

Nor was Richthofen the thinker his mentor had been. He was a killer. The von Richthofens were landowners and hunters, and Manfred regarded fighting as his duty and saw killing as an extension of blood sport. He didn’t appear to hate his enemies, nor did he suffer from a romantic view of war. It was simply his business, his true vocation. Once, as a young cavalry officer on the Eastern Front, he’d locked a village priest in a church and politely informed him: “At the first sign of hostility from your villagers you will be executed.”

The Baron was methodical and always had a plan. If he encountered an unknown situation, he sometimes became confused, disengaged, or both. Conversely, Voss would improvise, adapt, and overcome. He was an instinctive flyer who exhibited what would later be called excellent “situational awareness.” Both men were deadly serious about their work; they simply approached it differently. Werner Voss, however, was by far a better natural pilot and was held in very high regard by his enemies. After twenty-four kills he was awarded the Pour le Mérite in April 1917.

“Bloody April,” it was called by the British, and April 1917 was exactly that. Bloody
and
a turning point in the war—both on the ground and in the air. The new Allied leadership had promised results, and now they had to deliver. French general Robert Nivelle won approval for a plan that he vowed would break the stalemate and end the war. The British (meaning Colonial and Dominion troops, such as Canadians, Indians, and the ANZAC) would attack east of Arras and capture Vimy Ridge. This, they hoped, would attract German attention and troops away from Nivelle’s assault. The French would go over the top near the river Aisne and punch a hole in the German lines above the Chemin des Dames.
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The armies would drive north and east, respectively, and link up behind the German rear.

British and French generals alike had no confidence in the plan. It hadn’t accounted for the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, nor would there be any real cooperation between the BEF on the northern flank and the French to the south. The biggest reason that waiting made sense was the imminent involvement of the Americans.

Failing to defeat the Royal Navy at Jutland the previous year, the German High Seas Fleet had no real way to fight at sea except with its U-boats. To break the naval blockade and force the Allies to the bargaining table, Germany had resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917, and by the end of March seven American merchant ships had been sunk. Additionally, the Americans had decoded the infamous Zimmermann Telegram, which offered German support to Mexico against the United States if Washington declared war against the Central Powers.

April’s weather was also horrible, with rain, sleet, and even snow accompanied by gale-force westerly winds. There was no urgent strategic reason to attack the German positions and every incentive to wait. But Nivelle had a reputation from the Battle of Verdun and was intent on furthering his military and political ambitions. With his Gallic charm, unaccented English, and self-confidence, he’d persuaded the new British prime minister, David Lloyd George, that his plan would succeed. Lloyd George overrode the objections from his generals and placed the BEF under French command for the offensive. Understandably, the British, especially the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service, were incensed.

The attack was to commence on April 8 following days of concentrated artillery bombardments, extensive photo reconnaissance, and scores of army cooperation (close-air-support) missions to destroy ammo dumps, railroads, communications, and airfields. The RFC had a clear superiority in numbers with its 754 aircraft, of which about 350 were single-seat scouts. The Germans possessed 250 single-seat scouts out of 480 operational planes. Ironically, just as the Royal Navy had proven at the Battle of Jutland that quality defeats quantity, so now the Luftstreitkräfte would prove the same lesson with their superior aircraft.

Every hostile machine completely outmanoeuvred us and were capable of beating us in climbing, turning and speed.

—2ND LT. GEOFFREY COCK, 45 SQUADRON RFC

Though numerically larger, the forty-one squadrons of the RFC and RNAS generally flew obsolete aircraft such as the BE-2, FE-2, and DH-2. All had performed well enough during the battles of 1916, but German aviation had made tremendous strides since then. The imperative to regain air superiority that brought Boelcke back to the front and would permit von Richthofen to create the unit known as the “Flying Circus” was very much in force. The Albatros series of fighters, now at the D-III variant, was proof of this. If, the Germans reasoned, the Allies could be swept from the sky, then whatever they planned on the ground was unlikely to succeed. Such was the rise in importance of airpower in only two years.

To further complicate matters, the RFC commander, Hugh Trenchard, had decided to withhold his latest and most advanced aircraft until the offensive began. His logic was that if the planes were fielded too soon, the Germans would devise countertactics and the effectiveness of his new fighters would be minimized when it was most needed. The flip side was that if fielded early, the superior aircraft could clear the skies of enemy aircraft. It was a calculated risk; Trenchard, unlike most generals, was a very hands-on commander who knew his people and the environment in which they fought. He simply made the wrong decision and was so sick during the opening days of April that he couldn’t reverse it.

Photo reconnaissance was still a priority for the RFC so that it could ascertain exact enemy troop concentrations and carry out the absolutely critical task of artillery spotting. Aerial photography was not a new idea and had been around since the previous century. A Russian military engineer had developed the first semiautomatic aerial camera and the Germans perfected the technology. By the end of 1918 enlarged photos taken from above 15,000 feet would be good enough to reveal footprints. Over the course of the war, the British alone would process half a million photographs.

So they fought the winds, lousy weather, and German line patrols in an attempt to gather intelligence. Recon aircraft had to be unmolested, which meant a close escort of fighters to keep the Germans away. Even so, 60 percent of RFC casualties during the first four days of April occurred during photo recon missions. These dismal numbers led Hugh Trenchard to unleash the new Bristol F-2 fighter—what he hoped would be an answer to the Albatros.

The Bristol was built around a 275-horsepower, inline V-12 Rolls-Royce Falcon engine giving a maximum speed of 120 mph with a service ceiling of 18,000 feet. It had a forward-firing, synchronized Lewis machine gun and another in the rear, with a third gun mount over the wing. Relatively maneuverable and very tough, it was expected to be a big success. Inexplicably, however, a decision was made to equip an entirely new unit (48 Squadron) with both new planes
and
new pilots. Capt. William Leefe Robinson, who’d won a Victoria Cross for shooting down the SL 11 airship over London in 1916, was to lead.

Though a fine pilot and a brave man, Leefe-Robinson had never flown on the Western Front, nor had he ever flown against other fighters. At the beginning of the formal air offensive, six of the Bristols, flown by rookie pilots with an inexperienced combat leader, took off on the morning of April 5 to patrol over Douai—the lair of Jasta 11 and the Red Baron. Unfortunately for the RFC, Hugh Trenchard, and 48 Squadron, Leefe-Robinson flew directly into an offensive patrol of Albatros D-IIIs led by Manfred von Richthofen himself. The Baron’s subsequent combat report read:

It was foggy and altogether very bad weather when I attacked an enemy squad while it was flying between Douai and Valenciennes. I attacked with four planes of my Staffel. It was a new type of plane, which we had not known before, and it appears to be quick and rather handy, with a powerful motor, V-shaped and twelve cylindered. Its name could not be recognized. The D-III Albatros was, both in speed and ability to climb, undoubtedly superior.

Four of the six Bristols were lost, two of them to the Baron personally—a stunning blow for RFC morale and Hugh Trenchard. But the British still had teeth. Lt. Gordon Taylor was flying a Sopwith Pup and came across six Albatros fighters strafing British trenches. Without hesitation he dove into the middle of them, breaking apart their attack. He then managed to escape by diving for the dirt and running full throttle for the British side of the front.

The Pup was a definite success story for the time. It had been flying operationally, though in limited numbers, with the RNAS since October 1916 and would become the first aircraft to land on a moving ship.
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Formally called the Sopwith Scout, the story goes that during testing a pilot looked at the Scout next to the larger Sopwith 1½ Strutter and said, “Looks as though your machine has had a pup.”

Fabric over a wood frame, the Pup was only 1,225 pounds fully loaded (the Albatros D-III weighed 1,949 pounds). This lightweight construction combined with large, staggered wings and low wing loading meant it climbed very well. The Pup also had ailerons fitted to the outboard, trailing edges of the wings. When moved, the ailerons altered the lift over the wingtips, making the aircraft maneuverable enough to outturn any German fighter. In the quickly developing world of air combat, this was critical for several reasons. First, single-seat fighters only had forward-firing guns, so you aimed and attacked by pointing the plane at the enemy. Second, if you were reacting defensively to someone firing at you, then with a quick turning aircraft you could spoil the shot and, you hoped, stay alive a bit longer.

It had problems, though. The 80-horsepower Le Rhône motor was woefully underpowered and only worked because the aircraft was so light. By comparison, the Albatros D-III had a 170-horsepower Mercedes engine, permitting the German fighter to outclimb the Pup or run it down. The Albatros also mounted twin 7.92 mm, synchronized Spandau machine guns, versus one .303 Lewis gun for the Pup. So again we have the classic trade-offs of agility against speed and firepower.

The Pup had been developed independently by Tommy Sopwith in response to British Admiralty requirements (the Royal Naval Air Service was controlled by the Admiralty, while the Royal Flying Corps was run by the War Office). So it’s hardly surprising that the centuries-old rivalry between the army and the navy would manifest itself in this new technical arena. Perhaps it was the inherent unpredictability of the sea or the fluidity of naval engagements that made the Admiralty the more flexible of the pair. Or maybe naval officers were initially more inclined to think “beyond the box.”

In any event, the Admiralty purchased directly from various aircraft manufacturers and didn’t attempt to interfere with design and production. Private companies were free to think creatively and use efficient business practices to get their planes into the field. This resulted in superb aircraft such as the Sopwith Pup, Triplane, and Camel. Because of this, at the beginning of Bloody April, Hugh Trenchard had three squadrons of Pups (54 and 66 Squadrons, and 3 Squadron RNAS) and two RNAS squadrons equipped with the new Sopwith Triplane.