Cavalry of the Clouds E-Book

John Sweetman

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 498

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In 1917, David Lloyd George declared that airmen were 'the cavalry of the clouds … the knighthood of this war …'This romantic image was fostered post-war by writers of adventure stories and the stunts of Hollywood filmmakers, and yet it was far from the harsh reality of life of an airman. From their baptism of fire in 1914 carrying out reconnaissance and experiencing the first dogfights, to the breakthrough in 1918 which claimed heavy casualties, the aerial defenders of Britain were continually tested. In Cavalry of the Clouds John Sweetman describes the development of British air power during the First World War on the Western Front, which culminated in the creation of the first independent air force, the RAF. By making use of the correspondence of airmen and ground staff of all nationalities, he illustrates the impact this new type of conflict had on those involved and their families at home. Extensively researched, Cavalry of the Clouds is an essential reference work for any student of military history.

Leseprobe

CAVALRY

OF THE CLOUDS

CAVALRY

OF THE CLOUDS

AIR WAR OVER EUROPE 1914–1918

JOHN SWEETMAN

‘They are the cavalry of the clouds. High above the squalor and the mud … they fight out the eternal issues of right and wrong … They are the knighthood of this war, without fear and without reproach. They recall the old legends of chivalry, not merely by daring individually, but by the nobility of their spirit.’ (David Lloyd George, British Prime Minster)

‘Of the chivalry of the air, which is so fatuously and ignorantly written about, neither side could afford to indulge in.’ (Harold Harrington Balfour, Western Front pilot)

‘[War] is not as the people at home imagine it, with a hurrah and a roar; it is very serious, very grim.’ (Manfred von Richthofen, German ace)

First published 2010

by Spellmount, an imprint of

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2011

All rights reserved

© John Sweetman, 2010, 2011

The right of John Sweetman, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 7604 9

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 7603 2

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Abbreviations

List of Maps

Preface

Aerial Warfare

Chapter 1

Countdown to Conflict

Chapter 2

Baptism of Fire, August–October 1914

Chapter 3

Build-up: The First Winter

Chapter 4

Failed Offensives, 1915

Chapter 5

New Look: The Second Winter

Chapter 6

Hope and Despair, 1916

Chapter 7

Renewed Optimism: The Third Winter

Chapter 8

Months of Setback, March–July 1917

Chapter 9

Mounting Losses, August–October 1917

Chapter 10

Yet More Plans: The Fourth Winter

Chapter 11

German Offensive, March–May 1918

Chapter 12

Forward March, June–August 1918

Chapter 13

Breakthrough, September–November 1918

Conclusion

Peace at Last

Appendix A

Significant Dates

Appendix B

Sources and Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Abbreviations

ack ack

anti-aircraft (usually referring to fire)

ADC

aide-de-camp

AEG

Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft: German aviation firm and aeroplane

AFC

Air Force Cross

archie

German anti-aircraft fire

adolphus

British anti-aircraft fire

Air Cdre

air commodore

Avro(s)

A.V. Roe & Co. Ltd or aeroplane

AW

Armstrong Whitworth aeroplane

BE

Blériot Experimental aeroplane

Brig Gen

Brigadier-General

Capt

Captain

CAS

Chief of the Air Staff

CID

Committee of Imperial Defence

C-in-C

Commander in Chief

CO

Commanding Officer

Col

Colonel

DFC

Distinguished Flying Cross

DFW

Deutsche Flugzeugwerke: German aviation firm and aeroplane

DGMA

Director-General of Military Aeronautics, War Office

DH

de Havilland aeroplane

DSC

Distinguished Service Cross

DSO

Distinguished Service Order

FB

Fighting Biplane

FE

Farman Experimental aeroplane

Fg Off

Flying Officer

Flt Cdr

Flight Commander

Flt Lt

Flight Lieutenant

F/Sgt

Flight Sergeant

FSL

Flight Sub Lieutenant

GAF

German Air Force

GHQ

General Headquarters

GOC

General Officer Commanding

Gp Capt

Group Captain

HE

High Explosive

HP

Handley Page aeroplane

HQ

Headquarters

IAAF

Inter-Allied Independent Air Force

JWAC

Joint War Air Committee

KCB

Knight Commander of the Bath

kg

kilogramme

km

kilometre

kph

kilometres per hour

Lt

Lieutenant

2/Lt

Second Lieutenant

Lt Col

Lieutenant-Colonel

Lt Gen

Lieutenant-General

LVG

Luft Verkehrs Gesellschaft: German aviation firm and aeroplane

mag

magneto

Maj

Major

Maj Gen

Major-General

MM

Military Medal

mph

miles per hour

NCO

Non-Commissioned Officer

NPL

National Physical Laboratory

OBE

Officer of the Order of the British Empire

OC

Officer Commanding

Op

operation

ORB

operations record book

OTC

officers’ training corps

Plt Off

Pilot Officer

PoW

Prisoner of War

PR

photographic reconnaissance

pusher

aeroplane with engine behind wings

RA

Royal Artillery

RAF

Royal Aircraft Factory or Royal Air Force

RAFVR

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

RAE

Royal Aircraft Establishment

RE

Royal Engineers or Reconnaissance Experimental aeroplane

revs

revolutions

RFA

Royal Field Artillery

RFC

Royal Flying Corps

RFC HQ

Royal Flying Corps Headquarters

RGA

Royal Garrison Artillery

RN

Royal Navy

RNAS

Royal Naval Air Service

RNVR

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

rpm

revolutions per minute

RSM

regimental sergeant major

R/T

radio-telephony

SASO

senior air staff officer

SE

Scout Experimental aeroplane

Sgt

sergeant

sortie

single operational flight

SPAD

Société pour Aviation et ses Dérives: French aircraft firm or French aeroplane

Sqn

squadron

Sqn Cdr

Squadron Commander

Sqn Ldr

Squadron Leader

tractor

aeroplane with engine in front of wings

VC

Victoria Cross

WAAC

Women’s Auxiliary Air Force

Wg Cdr

Wing Commander

WO

War Office

W/T

wireless telegraphy

List of Maps

German Offensive August–October 1914

Major British Battles 1915

Major Battles 1916

Major Allied Attacks 1917

German Offensives 1918

Preface

Aerial Warfare

‘High Above the Squalor and the Mud’

During the First World War, the air emerged as a third dimension to armed conflict, and this new form of fighting was dramatically illustrated in North-West Europe, where Britain’s confrontation with Germany and defence of her homeland against airship and aeroplane attack took place. Beyond the more measured pages of official reports and statistical analyses, powerful images of the personal impact, sometimes exhilarating but often tragic, are contained in letters between combatants of both the British and German air forces and their anxious families at home.

With the passage of time, however, the dangerous aspects of operations have been over-shadowed by colourful misrepresentation of the reality of aerial warfare. After the Armistice, writers of articles in lurid ‘penny dreadfuls’, as well as authors of full-length adventure stories, concocted audacious tales of clashes in the sky. William Earl Johns wrote stirring novels involving his fictional hero Biggles, and contributed to a wide range of weekly or monthly publications such as The Gem and Boy’s Own, which idealised heroism, patriotism and pluck. Covington Clarke promised ‘a story of young warriors in the air, who thunder aloft to dizzy, breathtaking conflicts’. In the United States, Elliott White Springs, an American Western Front aviator, produced entertaining volumes about ‘those gallant adventurers The War Birds … packed with exciting episodes … dog-fights, 5,000 feet above the lines … six Camels attacking ten Fokkers’.

Hollywood soon discovered that cinema audiences preferred scenes of aircraft wheeling and spiralling overhead to ranks of mud-spattered infantry advancing towards rolls of barbed wire in the face of lethal machine-guns. The silver screen has even trivialised the perilous and often fatal efforts of aviation pioneers in such epics as Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. Evidently, flying before and during the First World War was rather fun, and to some extent aerobatic performances and wing-walking stunts at post-war public displays heightened the aura of retrospective levity. Today, spectators at air shows frequently break into applause at the approach of a ‘vintage’ biplane, the relic of a curious past. Maurice Baring, who served on the Western Front, reflected that ‘the image of goggle-clad aces peering over machine-guns or discharging revolvers as they wove across the sky had become ingrained in popular mythology.’

The fiction that airborne activity somehow constituted a detached, romantic adjunct to the traditional forms of warfare gained momentum while hostilities were in progress. In October 1917 the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, proclaimed airmen ‘the cavalry of the clouds. High above the squalor and the mud … they fight out the eternal issues of right and wrong … They are the knighthood of this war … They recall the old legends of chivalry.’

Such idealistic bombast airbrushed ‘the turmoil and sweat of actual combat’ according to Sholto Douglas, decorated airman and future high-ranking officer. As the British official history, The War in the Air, observed: ‘Life in the Service was lived at high pressure and was commonly short.’ Aviators dreaded fire, bone-crushing crashes caused by mechanical failure, the deadly impact of multiple-fighter clashes, or the prospect of being set upon by a swarm of enemy machines. Cecil Lewis, pilot of a slow reconnaissance aeroplane, recalled: ‘It’s no joke to be shot up by a dozen machine guns for half an hour, engaged in a running fight in which the enemy can outpace you, outclimb you and outturn you.’

Patrick Huskinson, who would survive to become an air commodore, expressed serious misgivings about the structural integrity of his biplane. Attacking a train near Le Cateau in north-eastern France from 200ft, to his acute discomfort the bomb-load exploded instantaneously on impact, ‘flinging me high like a jack-in-the-box. My wings … were nothing but a blur of flapping fabric, what I could see of the fuselage too closely resembled a sieve.’ On landing, ‘my aircraft … fell to pieces.’ Charles Portal, destined to command the RAF during the Second World War, was similarly unimpressed with the qualities of his monoplane. Take-off and landing, he discovered, could be hair-raising, and ‘the chances of death by misadventure on the aerodrome were infinitely greater than by enemy action.’

Once aloft, the vagaries of the weather in the absence of reliable navigational instruments proved a constant danger, and sheer fatigue caused by up to four operations daily quickly drained the first flush of innocence. The greatest fear of all was knowledge that, with no parachutes for aircrew, terminal damage to an airborne machine meant a long and terrifying plunge to crippling injury or death. Among the enemy, famous personalities like Manfred von Richthofen, Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann admitted to these same life-threatening concerns.

The hopes, fears and in so many cases, grief experienced by loved ones underlines the unending strain placed upon relatives left behind. Douglas Joy, Canadian-born pilot of English parents, acknowledged ‘the huge number of families that have been separated, and widely too’. To reassure his wife, when he was at the Front Joy wrote to her daily. His mother-in-law fought tenaciously to ensure that her sole surviving son did not even cross the Channel; the loss of his two brothers in action sufficient sacrifice. Philip Joubert de la Ferté, who would achieve high rank in the RAF, reflected on a particular aspect of marital stress: ‘my wife found her existence in hotels and lodging-houses when I was on home service, and with her relations when I was abroad, very little to her taste.’ Margaret Douglas, like the mothers of Richthofen and Immelmann, had two sons in her country’s air service, and Frau Boelcke had three. Each would lose one of them. Three of Mrs Amelie McCudden’s four boys, who served in the RFC or RAF were killed, and many families endured the despair of losing an only child. Sholto Douglas reflected too, on ‘the very high stress’ put on his former headmaster, many of whose former pupils were flying operationally.

Evidence of the appalling conditions on the ground and devastating losses incurred in repeated ‘pushes’ to break the trench deadlock on the Western Front (almost 60,000 casualties on the first day of the 1916 Battle of the Somme being but one depressing figure) is now well-known. So many writers, organisers of commemorative events and producers of television documentaries focus on the undoubted horrors of the land warfare without recognising, often without even mentioning, the contribution of airmen to the Allied cause.

Initially, British aeroplanes had a single 70hp engine, and their one-or two-man crew had only rifles, revolvers or shotguns for self-defence. Within four years, machines with four 375hp engines capable of reaching Berlin from England were ready for action, modified hand-grenades tossed over the side had given way to 1,650lb bombs dropped with the guidance of bomb-sights honed for accuracy, and machine-guns were synchronised to fire forward through propeller blades to enhance the aggressive potential of fighters. Such technical advances, however, were often matched and at times outpaced by the Germans, the progress of military aviation being by no means one-sided.

In the closing months of 1914, British airmen tracked the path of enemy troops advancing through Belgium towards Paris and crucially, detected their alterations of direction or tactical redeployment. The commander of the British forces at the time, as would his successor and subordinate commanders in the field, paid generous tribute to their valuable contributions to the campaign. When the number of British Army units multiplied, so squadrons expanded to become an accepted, integral part of warfare. In addition to reconnaissance, aeroplanes came to patrol the forward trench-lines, protect troops from hostile aircraft and liaise closely with the artillery, infantry and tanks. They bombed targets on the battlefield and attacked balloons from which observers directed German guns onto Allied positions. As early as November 1914, bombers attacked the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen inside enemy territory, and in 1916 they began systematic, long-distance raids against enemy manufacturing facilities; the forerunner of a more sustained bombing campaign two years later on Germany’s industrial heartland.

Whether by doing this ‘high above the squalor and the mud’, airmen recreated the legend of medieval chivalry is debatable.

1

Countdown to Conflict

‘Are you ready for War?’

On 24 November 1906, before either an airship (lighter-than-air machine) or aeroplane (heavier-than-air machine) had flown in the United Kingdom, the Daily Mail proclaimed:

Great Britain and the British Empire stand in the van of progress. We know more about the science of aeronautics than any other country in the world. As yet we have not attempted to apply our knowledge but silently and quietly we have been studying the subject.

At first sight, the newspaper’s claim appears outrageous, given that Ferdinand Count von Zeppelin’s airship, powered by two Daimler engines, had successfully taken to the air in 1900 and three years afterwards the Wright brothers flew an aeroplane. However, for almost two centuries, Britain had been actively involved in efforts to conquer the air, and the Royal Engineers been prominent in seeking to exploit its military potential. In 1784 a Royal Engineer officer ascended in a hot-air balloon from Moorfields in London, and British interest in aeronautical research gathered pace during the nineteenth century, Henry Coxwell and James Glaisher reached 37,000ft in a balloon. Sir George Cayley defined the fundamental requirements for an aeroplane to fly: the curvature and angle of its wings, lateral and horizontal controls, streamlining of the body, the ability to gain and maintain lift. He experimented with non-powered, man-lifting gliders, but died before invention of an efficient internal combustion engine. Orville Wright believed that Cayley, ‘knew more of the principles of aeronautics than any of his predecessors, and as much as any that followed him up to the end of the nineteenth century’. Wright also paid special tribute to the work of an earlier British scientist, John Smeaton, in connection with air pressure.

Operationally, during the nineteenth century, a British officer served with a Federal balloon unit in the American Civil War and observation balloons were used during British military expeditions to Bechuanaland (1884) and the Sudan (1885). In 1890, establishment of the Royal Engineers’ Balloon Section formalised the role of balloons for military use, and in the Boer War (1899–1902) the British deployed them to observe and photograph enemy movements and to transmit signals via semaphore flags and lamps. Shortly after the Boer War ended, tethered man-lifting kites were developed for the same purposes, and the Royal Engineers added these to their responsibilities.

In 1899, Percy Pilcher, university lecturer and former naval officer, was killed at Market Harborough, Leicestershire, when his rudder-controlled ‘soaring machine’ (glider) crashed. Sir Walter Raleigh, official British air historian of the First World War, speculated that had Pilcher survived ‘it seems not unlikely the he would have been the first man to navigate the air on a power-driven machine.’ And the Daily Mail’s reference to ‘the British Empire’ may have been prompted by a belief, until he refuted the rumour 25 years later, that a New Zealand farmer Richard Pearse had beaten the Wrights into the air on 31 March 1903.

Significantly, in 1906 neither Zeppelin’s nor the Wrights’ feats were universally recognised. LZ (Luftschiff Zeppelin) 1 flew for only eighteen minutes and was followed by less successful trials. Not until 1908 did LZ.3 attract firm German military interest.

During the morning of 17 December 1903, Orville Wright made the first controlled flight in an aeroplane. Above sand dunes on an island off the Atlantic coast of North Carolina close to the settlement of Kitty Hawk, he remained aloft for twelve seconds and travelled 120ft. Between them Orville and his brother Wilbur completed four flights that morning, the last covering 852ft. Wilbur Wright recorded that the brothers ‘returned home, knowing that the age of the flying machine had come at last’.

Others were less convinced. Their feats that day are now undisputed, but for some years afterwards considerable doubt existed about the brothers’ claims. Sceptics dismissed the Wrights as fanciful ‘bicycle mechanics’ (a reference to their regular occupation), and in 1906 the Paris edition of the New York Herald ran the headline ‘Flyers or Liars’. The following year the president of the French Aero-Club denounced the Wright’s ‘phantom machine’ and in 1908 L’Illustration declared hazy photographs of a Wright machine in the air a ‘fabrication’.

The Wrights did little to discourage such derogatory comments. Only five locals witnessed the historic events that chilly morning, and the brothers from Dayton, Ohio, refused to reveal technical data about either their achievement or their aeroplane. Starved of authentic information, reporters gave full rein to their vivid imaginations. In vain did Wilbur Wright condemn ‘a fictitious story incorrect in almost every detail’.

Despite the aura of disbelief, once news leaked out in 1904 that the brothers were conducting more flights near Dayton, two Royal Engineer officers, Lieutenant Colonel (Lt Col) J.E. Capper and Colonel (Col) J.L.B. Templer, travelled to Ohio. They were greeted politely, but the Wrights declined to discuss their work or even to show the two British soldiers their machine. Nevertheless, on returning to England, Capper warned that, if the Wrights were to achieve what they predicted

… we may shortly have as accessories of warfare scouting machines which will go at a great pace and be independent of obstacles on the ground, whilst offering from their elevated position unrivalled opportunities of ascertaining what is occurring in the heart of the enemy’s country.

In 1905, afraid that others might gain public recognition after copying their technique and deny them financial benefit for their achievement, the Wrights had a major change of heart. They approached their own and foreign governments for a commercial arrangement regarding use of their expertise. In 1906, their hand was legally strengthened when a patent was registered in the United States in respect of the three-control system they had fashioned: elevator to control pitch; rudder for stability; and wing warping for roll or banking. Similar patents were secured in several European countries including Britain. Between 1905 and 1909 either directly, via Capper or through an appointed agent, the Wrights sought to do business with the War Office four times and the Admiralty once. The stumbling block, which other European countries also encountered, was cost. Before the Wrights would even demonstrate their machine, allegedly they required a guaranteed order worth £20,000, plus a further sum to train pilots.

Moreover, quite apart from the Wrights, great strides were undoubtedly being made in France, where pioneers fitted front wheels to their machines instead of skids, allowing them to dispense with the rail along which the brothers launched their aeroplanes. Proud of his nation’s advances in aviation, the president of the French Aero Club, Ernest Archdeacon, declared that, ‘to the genius of France is reserved the glorious mission of initiating the world into the conquest of the air.’ After seeing Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont fly 80yds (73m) in a biplane powered by a 24hp engine in France in 1906, the British newspaper proprietor Lord Northcliffe concluded: ‘England is no longer an island … It means the aerial chariots of a foe descending on British soil if war comes.’

Yet official support for aeronautical research and experiment in Britain, echoing the Daily Mail’s earlier complacency, remained at best lukewarm. In 1907, the Secretary for War assured his department ‘that aeroplanes would never fly’, and the following year his successor, while conceding that they had, maintained, ‘we do not consider that aeroplanes will be of any possible use for war purposes.’ Nonetheless, some assistance was already being given to two contrasting figures. A serving officer, Lieutenant (Lt) John Dunne, was encouraged by the War Office to test his embryo aeroplane on a grouse moor in Scotland. In England at Farnborough, near Aldershot in Hampshire, a flamboyant former American circus performer and in 1911 naturalised Briton, Samuel Franklin Cody, was striving to perfect his own aeroplane after working on airships and man-lifting kites. Dunne’s efforts ended in failure, but on 16 May 1908 Cody travelled for 50ft an estimated 5–6ins above the grass. Precisely five months later, he made the first recognised aeroplane flight in England over 1,390ft.

Almost immediately, hopes of developing British military aviation were dashed. The year after Cody’s flight a committee, ‘dominated’ according to one critic by ‘some of the older Service men … [who] showed an extraordinary lack of imagination’, ruled against further War Office investment in aeroplane development. Thus far, German authorities had spent £400,000 on military aeronautics, the French some £50,000, the British £5,000; about half of that on aeroplanes. On 23 July 1909, a press release from Whitehall explained: ‘When it is possible to cross the Channel … and to land at a fixed point, the War Office may be able to regard recent experiments seriously’.

Two days later, Louis Blériot did just that by landing his monoplane near Dover Castle. He flew 33½ miles (54km) in 37 minutes and incidentally, pocketed a £1,000 prize. The Daily Graphic exclaimed that the aeroplane could no longer be regarded as ‘a toy … What M. Blériot can do in 1909 a hundred, nay a thousand, aeroplanes may do in five years time.’ The security implications were self-evident. Lord Montagu, a motor car enthusiast impressed by the military possibilities of aviation after watching Wilbur Wright fly in France in 1908, warned that ‘aerial machines [are] certain to play an important part in all future warfare’. The Times’ defence correspondent reinforced Montagu’s prediction by stressing the growing size of Germany’s air fleet, whilst an exasperated aviation pioneer Claude Grahame-White, who was among several Britons to qualify as pilots in France, toured the country with ‘Wake Up England’ painted on his biplane’s wings. Quoting an unidentified Russian, who insisted that ‘it is now clear that future wars will be begun in the air’, Graham-White forecast three types of machine: one carrying ‘a machine-gun or a gun throwing an explosive shell’; another capable of ‘detailed reconnoitring’; the third able to carry out ‘swift comprehensive survey work’.

Caution, however, was understandable and military scepticism predictable. Air power protagonists were claiming a revolution in warfare akin to the advent of battlefield artillery in the fourteenth century and the replacement of sail by steam 500 years later. Aero magazine reported that ‘an influential officer’ attending army manoeuvres had observed: ‘It is all very well saying that we should saddle ourselves with a lot of these aeroplanes. But in nine cases out of ten, they would not be a scrap of good.’ Cavalry commanders maintained they would go too fast to collect useful information about enemy troop movements and Field Marshal Sir William Nicholson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), deemed aviation ‘a useless and expensive fad, advocated by a few individuals whose ideas are unworthy of attention’. The Admiralty agreed; the aeroplane ‘would not be of any practical use to the Naval Service’. Tryggve Gran, a future RFC pilot, later reflected:

Unfortunately, the English State did not take aviation seriously. They [sic] regarded the flying machine and the airship as experiments with great possibilities perhaps half a century in the future. There was no need for haste.

Across the Channel, French aeronautical experiments before and after Blériot’s feat were conducted during well-attended demonstrations and international air shows. Advances south of the Alps, especially in military aviation, evolved virtually unnoticed until November 1911, when Italian airmen began dropping bombs (modified hand-grenades) in Tripolitania, North Africa. The previous month they had successfully used aircraft to observe and track Turkish troop movements after the Italian invasion of that territory. The Times acidly declared: ‘No one could have watched the work of the Italian airships and aeroplanes in Tripoli without being … firmly convinced of the practical value of aviation in war.’

In fact, despite the dismissive comments of senior military officers and lukewarm political opinion, faltering steps had already begun in Britain to acknowledge that reality. An Army Order of 28 February 1911 announced the aim of ‘creating a body of expert airmen … the training and instruction of men in handling kites, balloons and aeroplanes and other forms of aircraft’. A month later, the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers was established and thirteen months afterwards absorbed into the newly-created Royal Flying Corps (RFC). In recommending formation of the RFC, the Under Secretary of State for War, Col J.E.B. Seely, made clear that ‘actual warfare in Tripoli’ had been persuasive. So were ‘foreign manoeuvres’, France being the first European power to include aeroplanes in its annual manoeuvres in 1910. In addition to developing long-range airships, Germany too, had begun to pay more attention to aeroplanes in the face of evident French progress. Following a 30km (18½mls) flight by Henri Farman in October 1908, a member of the German General Staff remarked that ‘a new epoch of aviation had dawned’.

In January 1912, Seely warned of a serious deficiency in trained military pilots: ‘At the present time we have in this country … of actual flying men in the army about eleven and … in the navy eight. France has about 263, so we are what you might call behind.’ The Royal Warrant of 13 April 1912, which established the RFC with a Military Wing and a Naval Wing, foresaw the new body comprising 165 officers, 1,264 other ranks, 66 aeroplanes and 95 ‘mechanised transport vehicles’. Seven aeroplane squadrons, each with twelve machines, and an eighth equipped with airships and man-lifting kites were ultimately planned, of which only the latter (No 1) and two aeroplane squadrons (Nos 2 and 3) were formed by the end of 1912. Maj C.J. Burke, commanding No 2 Squadron (Sqn), warned of the need for effective training: ‘An aeroplane will live in any wind and a lifeboat at sea, but they both want good and experienced men at the tiller.’

The recruitment of aircrew for the RFC did not go smoothly. Officers had to seek approval from their superiors and many were deterred on the grounds that transfer or secondment would harm their promotion and long-term career prospects. If they persisted and passed the requisite medical, potential pilots had to qualify for a Royal Aero Club certificate at a personal cost of £75, refunded only when further military training had been successfully completed.

Nevertheless, the RFC slowly took shape. Two of its future commanders, Lt Col F.H. Sykes and Brigadier-General (Brig Gen) David Henderson (aged 49 and reputedly the oldest pilot in the world) learnt to fly in 1911. A third was 39-year-old Maj H.M. Trenchard. In July 1912, he began private flying lessons at Brooklands, near Weybridge, Surrey, where a grass airstrip lay in the centre of the famous motor racing track, with the fearsome warning that inefficient pupils frequently finished nose down in the output of a nearby sewage farm. He avoided that pungent disgrace and over thirteen days completed 1hr 4mins in the air to secure Royal Aero Club flying certificate No 270.

The Aero Club, granted the prefix ‘Royal’ nine years later, had been formed in 1901 to promote first ballooning then heavier-than-air flight. It rapidly acquired international recognition and the right to certify the competence of pilots, who had mastered basic flying skills. Trenchard’s certificate allowed him to attend the RFC’s Central Flying School (CFS) for military training, where his ‘enviable pluck and perseverance’ were noted. However, one instructor remarked that, perched in a Maurice Farman Longhorn biplane, he looked ‘as comfortable as a buzzard in a budgerigar’s cage’.

Hugh Trenchard was not given preferential treatment; tuition and qualification at this time were rudimentary. Also in 1912, Joubert de la Ferté qualified after 1hr 50mins in the air. On leave at the family home near Weybridge, the young Royal Field Artillery officer was inspired to fly after watching the ‘motley collection of stick and string kites, mostly unairworthy, but very exciting affairs’ wobble aloft from Brooklands. The following year the founder of the Supermarine aircraft company, Noel Pemberton-Billing, bet aeroplane designer Geoffrey de Havilland £500 that he could learn to fly in a single day. A fascinated spectator recorded: ‘We who were watching held our breath at the hair-raising behaviour of his machine as it stalled at every right-hand turn and performed other amazing and unrehearsed feats.’ But Pemberton-Billing won the wager.

The CFS opened at Upavon on Salisbury Plain on 19 June 1912. Its airfield astride exposed upland was dubbed ‘Siberia’ by disenchanted arrivals who found that their living quarters were at the foot of an uninviting, steep slope. The length of the first course, twelve weeks instead of four months, was determined by a shortage of available aeroplanes (just seven), which also meant halving the intended number of participants from the intended sixty. The following year, ninety pilots qualified, the bulk of them going to the Military Wing. The intention of making this particular training establishment smart as well as efficient was signalled by the appointment of a guards officer as its first adjutant.

Lack of aeroplanes for the CFS highlighted a major problem for both wings of the RFC. Britain undoubtedly lagged behind France in aeroplane manufacture and design, so the bulk of machines initially came from across the Channel. Significantly, French words like ‘fuselage’, ‘nacelle’ and ‘aileron’ have become accepted terms for parts of an aeroplane. By 1914, around twenty aviation firms had sprung up in Britain. Several were subsidiaries of large armament companies like Vickers and Armstrong Whitworth, some were grafted on to engineering concerns like J. Samuel White at Cowes, Isle of Wight, or the Coventry Ordnance Works. Many were small enterprises founded by military aviation enthusiasts. Alliott Verdon-Roe, who like Cody designed and flew his own machines, formed A.V. Roe & Co (Avro) with his brother Humphrey. Claude Graham-White, who had qualified to fly in France and sensationally publicised the cause of military aviation, established his firm at Hendon, Middlesex, the Bristol and Colonial Aeroplane was in that city, Supermarine Aviation at Southampton and William Beardmore & Co near Glasgow.

Whatever its size, every aviation business suffered from lack of government backing, and often had to fund the design and construction of its machines in the hope of securing a contract from one of the services. Firms built machines according to designs produced by the Royal Aircraft Factory (RAF) – the former Army Aircraft Factory renamed in 1911 – at Farnborough, like Armstrong Whitworth in the case of the BE2a, or their own staff in a private venture (pv). Orders for three machines at a time proved an exception, and design practices had yet to be refined. Aeroplanes were constructed by hand without standard drawings, so the last machine of a batch might vary substantially from the first. Without the aid of draughtsmen or technical drawings, Tommy Sopwith issued verbal instructions to six mechanics to build his first machine. Fortunately, the Admiralty was impressed, which allowed him to move from a rickety shed, lacking water and lit by paraffin lamps, to more substantial premises at Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. Vickers co-operated briefly but unsuccessfully with the Frenchman Robert Esnault-Pelterie before exhibiting its own pv two-seater FB (fighting biplane) 1 at the Olympia Air Show in 1913. Prior to the outbreak of war, Vickers, one of the larger manufacturers, completed just twenty-six aeroplanes. Avro, formed in 1910 and renting a shed at Brooklands, struggled to finance the production of its 504 biplane, which would prove invaluable in training and operational roles during the coming conflict.

At Farnborough, the RAF held a watching brief over all British aeroplane manufacturers. Initially, with a staff of 100 and responsible for aeroplane design, the RAF’s role was defined as research and development together with supervision of, and advice to, private firms. Through a legal loophole, officially only authorised to repair damaged aeroplanes, the RAF contrived to transform wrecks into virtually new aeroplanes. In 1911, for example, a Voisin pusher (its engine behind the wing) emerged as a BE (Blériot Experimental) tractor (the engine at the front of the fuselage). On another occasion, a damaged monoplane came out as a biplane. Effectively, the RAF had become another manufacturer by stealth. Its output, however, was not extensive, and overall British aeroplane production remained sparse. A post-war Air Ministry publication recalled these early days: ‘When aeroplanes were first put to military use, they could be kept in working order by a motor mechanic, a sail-maker (for the canvas) and a carpenter’. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, took lessons in one of these dubious constructions:

I noticed on several occasions defects in the machine in which we had been flying – a broken wire, a singed wing, a cracked strut – which were the subject of mutual congratulation between my pilot and myself once we had safely returned to terra firma.

Despite equipment deficiencies – No 3 Sqn had ten machines of different types and two motor vehicles for transport, one an officer’s Mercedes – within months of its formation the RFC began to prove its worth. During army manoeuvres in September 1912, seven machines were allocated to each of the opposing formations, the commanders of which lauded their achievements. The following year, crews managed to identify troop movements from 6,000ft, but over the four day exercise five of the twelve aeroplanes involved either crashed or force-landed.

Apart from this mechanical unreliability, the relay of information posed a major problem. With no air-to-ground communication system, machines had to land at headquarters, which in turn passed on the reconnaissance data to individual units. By the time that process had been completed, the cavalry and often infantry had vanished over the horizon. Attempts to drop messages in weighted bags to forward units had scant success.

Various other ideas were tested. No 3 Sqn used cameras owned by its officers to photograph the defences of the Isle of Wight from 5,000ft. At Hythe, Kent, trials were carried out on the feasibility of arming aeroplanes with machine-guns; weight and an adequate field of fire being primary concerns. On 13 April 1913, the first RFC night flight took place on Salisbury Plain, a perilous undertaking with inadequate instruments. Lighting of petrol flares on the ground to assist night landings together with illumination in the cockpit to show up the compass and tachometer only marginally reduced the danger. In May 1913, Captain (Capt) C.A.H. Longcroft flew 420 miles from Farnborough to Montrose, Scotland, in three stages. Six months afterwards, he managed a 500-mile reverse trip via Portsmouth non-stop, using a long-range tank of his own design.

The War Office soon recognised a need to co-ordinate the efforts to improve a military aeroplane’s capability and performance. Royal Engineer Capt Herbert Musgrave witnessed Blériot’s landing in 1909 and three years afterwards qualified as a pilot at the Bristol Flying School on Salisbury Plain, while on leave. In 1913, he was promoted temporary major in command of an RFC experimental unit at Larkhill. Musgrave’s remit was extensive: research connected with balloons, kites, bomb dropping, photography, artillery co-operation and wireless telegraphy. As back-up, Musgrave could call on the National Physical Laboratory for scientific work and squadron commanders for practical trials. On 1 September 1913, Brig Gen David Henderson was appointed head of a new War Office department (the Directorate of Military Aeronautics) signifying recognition of the importance of aviation in warfare. Until then the Master-General of the Ordnance (MGO), as head of the Royal Engineers, had officially retained control of army aviation.

This all seemed promising, but the RFC still had to rely heavily on other countries for aero engines (principally France) and magnetos used for ignition of an internal-combustion engine (Germany). Advances in Britain were further hampered by the effective creation of separate air arms for the two services. In 1909, an air enthusiast Frank McClean, bought a level tract of land at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, off the north Kent coast, and persuaded the Admiralty to allow four officers to receive flying tuition, which like the aeroplanes they used came free of charge. Henceforth, Eastchurch became the principal training centre for Royal Navy aviators. During Autumn 1912 an Air Department of the Admiralty was fashioned with Capt Murray Sueter RN as director, responsible ‘in regard to all matters connected with the Naval Air Service’. On 1 July 1914, the Admiralty went even further in declaring uni-lateral independence by renaming the Naval Wing of the RFC the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Apart from complicating strategic co-operation with the Army, this heralded four years of inter-service rivalry and fierce competition for manufacturing resources. However, one area of potential conflict was removed in 1913, when Army airships, their equipment and personnel passed to the Royal Navy, which would henceforth be ‘solely responsible for the development of lighter-than-air craft’ on the assumption that airships were more suited to fleet support than battlefield activity.

Against this background of bureaucratic manoeuvring and production shortcomings, war became increasingly likely and ultimately inevitable. Britain’s convention with Russia to solve their territorial disputes signed in 1907, had effectively divided Europe into two armed camps: the so-called triple Entente (bilateral agreements involving Britain, France and Russia) and the firm treaty commitments of the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy). A series of disputes in the opening years of the twentieth century, heightened by a dangerous naval race between Germany and Britain revolving round the construction of modern battleships or ‘dreadnoughts’, had made the political and military atmosphere poisonous. Britain was formally committed neither to France nor Russia should war break out, but from 1839 had been a guarantor of Belgian independence. More recently, staff officers had held exploratory military and naval talks with France. These exchanges were not legally binding, but it would be difficult to remain aloof in the event of hostilities.

Ever since Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, her relations with Serbia had smouldered and not been eased by that country’s active involvement in the 1912–13 Balkan Wars with Turkey. The assassination of the Austrian heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 began a train of ominous reactions. It saw Austria-Hungary issuing a swingeing ultimatum to Serbia on the basis of a shadowy connection with the assassins, Germany mobilising in support of Austria-Hungary, Russia backing Serbia and France honouring her treaty obligations to Russia. On 3 August 1914, Germany invaded Belgium, and the following day Britain entered the First World War.

As the countdown to conflict quickened, even before Sarajevo the Army Estimates for 1914 provided £1 million for the RFC – double that for the previous year and a far cry from the £5,000 set aside by the War Office for military aeronautics five years previously. British firms now received orders for up to a dozen machines at a time. In June Lt Col F.H. Sykes, its commander, gathered the military wing at Netheravon, Wiltshire, for a month’s intensive training, and steps were taken to publicise the RFC’s proficiency. On 22 June, twelve machines flew past the saluting base at the King’s Birthday Parade in Aldershot. Four days later, the Prime Minister reviewed the military wing at RFC headquarters at Netheravon. Five squadrons were on parade, a sixth (No 1) in the process of converting to aeroplanes from airships, and a seventh squadron was being formed at Farnborough. Ready to support the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) across the Channel, the RFC, in essence its Military Wing since the RNAS’s defection, formally mobilised on 3 August; a week after the RNAS had been put on a war footing.

When asked by Major-General (Maj Gen) Henry Wilson, Director of Military Operations at the War Office, on 25 July ‘Are you ready for war?’, Maj Sefton Brancker, a qualified pilot in the Directorate of Military Aeronautics, exclaimed: ‘Good God, no!’ Hostilities were ten days away.

2

Baptism of Fire, August–October 1914

‘A corps of adventurous young men’

Nominally, the RFC possessed 179 aeroplanes, the RNAS (including seaplanes) 93, but many counted on paper had not yet left the factory. An official post-war summary revealed that in reality, the RNAS could muster ‘about 50 … usable’ machines, the RFC only 90, of which 64 initially went to France, four more having crashed before leaving England.

In August 1914, the French Army possessed 317 front line machines; the German 245. Russia could reputedly field 244 (including four-engine machines designed by Igor Sikorsky). However, France had an extensive eastern frontier abutting Germany to protect. Facing war on two fronts, Germany opposed France and Russia, Russia had to deal with Austria-Hungary as well as Germany. The RFC’s role, to provide support for the BEF of four infantry divisions and one cavalry division, was altogether less demanding.

Aware that Germany might encounter opponents to her east and west, Field Marshal Alfred Count von Schlieffen, Chief of the German General Staff, had devised a plan which thereafter bore his name, based on the assumption that Russia would be unable to mobilise for six weeks. By then, German armies would have swept through the Low Countries, descended on Paris and forced France into submission.

Schlieffen died before the outbreak of the First World War, and his successor Helmuth von Moltke, afraid of Germany being cut off from overseas supplies by a naval blockade, excluded The Netherlands from the Schlieffen Plan to leave an ‘air hole’ for maritime trade. He would advance only through Belgium and Luxembourg. Moreover, Moltke deployed more troops than Schlieffen intended along the French border thus ignoring his predecessor’s alleged dying breath: ‘Keep the right wing strong.’ The French, meanwhile, had not read the script. They crafted their own Plan 17 rapidly to attack eastwards to recover their provinces of Alsace and Lorraine lost to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1). Nor did the Russians intend to play ball, being poised to attack Austria-Hungary in Galicia and Germany in East Prussia.

After a declaration of war, the BEF would deploy in support of the French left wing. Traditionally, protection of the national shores was the responsibility of the Royal Navy, with the War Office guarding against invasion and physical occupation of the homeland. The advent of air power blurred these divisions. Although the War Office did not formally surrender its historical role, a de facto agreement was reached between the two services. The RFC would support the BEF in the field, the RNAS look after home defence as well as serving the needs of the fleet, taking ‘action against Zeppelins’ and ‘bombing enemy places of military importance’. In August 1914, the RNAS had grenades or 20lb bombs with which to attack hostile airships, together with two aeroplanes and one airship equipped with machine-guns. Anticipating only a reconnaissance role, the RFC had provided its aeroplanes neither with machine-guns nor bombs.

On 9 August the BEF began to cross the Channel, protected by sixteen seaplanes and two airships of the RNAS, prior to deploying in an arc from Maubeuge to Le Cateau in north-east France on the left of French formations. In support, four squadrons of the RFC had been ordered to concentrate at Dover on 7 August and two days later cross the Channel. Their horses, vehicles and ground staff personnel would travel independently to designated embarkation ports. From ‘Southampton Docks’, two brothers ‘Willie and Jim’ with No 3 Sqn’s non-flying contingent wrote ‘just a line to say goodbye’ to their mother, adding: ‘We leave for somewhere in France, probably tonight’. William Thomas James and James Thomas Byford McCudden were the sons of a retired Royal Engineers’ sergeant major and both had joined that Corps as buglers. When living in Sheerness, they were enthralled by the antics of primitive machines from Eastchurch and both transferred to the infant RFC. William qualified as an NCO pilot, but due to a shortage of aeroplanes took charge of the non-flying contingent for the Channel crossing. His younger brother, James, was an Air Mechanic 1st Class and a specialised engine fitter. But he too was intent on flying and had already been aloft as a passenger, sometimes with his brother. In August 1914, though, a glittering career as a decorated pilot appeared highly unlikely.

His brother thought otherwise, making an extraordinary forecast in a letter to his father on 3 August 1914, the day before the declaration of war:

Jim and myself are very much in it at present, for we form part of the ‘expeditionary force’ and for the past week we have been busily fixing up everything, aeroplanes, motors, lorries and stores and we have everything ready.

William expected them to go to France on the following Tuesday or Wednesday. He protested that he could not reveal ‘much, but I must say that everything had been planned very cleverly. Half of our machines are already at Dover and Eastchurch.’ William enclosed £1 for his mother, ‘for I hear that food is going up already’. He promised to let his parents know as soon as they moved off, ‘and you can bet your boots that the McCudden Syndicate will not be missing when there is something doing’. He predicted: ‘I can see Jim coming home with a V.C. or something of the sort.’

In keeping with contemporary optimism, at Montrose in Scotland, No 2 Sqn aircrew locked their rooms and pinned notices on the doors stating that nothing must be touched; they would be back after Christmas. Each squadron decided what would be carried in its aeroplanes. No 2 Sqn opted for revolvers for the crew, binoculars, a spare set of goggles, repair tools, a water bottle filled with boiled water, a small stove, a haversack full of biscuits, cold meat, a piece of chocolate and packet of ‘soup-making material’. Setting out over the Channel was a precarious business. In No 3 Sqn Lt Philip Joubert de la Ferté was issued with a motor tyre inner tube to wear round his waist for inflation prior to an emergency descent onto water.

Passage of the squadrons did not go smoothly. Nos 2, 3 and 4 duly converged on Dover; though one No 3 Sqn machine crashed on take-off from Netheravon on Salisbury Plain, killing its crew. At Dover the squadrons were delayed four days beyond their scheduled departure, before which pilots were issued with six miles to one inch maps of France and Belgium in readiness for a dawn take-off. At 0820 on 13 August, Lt Hubert Harvey-Kelly of No 2 Sqn (according to another squadron member, a ‘noted individualist’ with ‘a lighthearted and gay approach’) was the first pilot to land a BE2a in France. Shortly after crossing the French coast some of No 4 Squadron mistakenly landed in a rough field causing damage to their machines. The fourth squadron, No 5, did not leave Gosport, Hampshire, until 14 August, and three of its machines came down on the way to Dover. Fortunately, their pilots were unharmed and later flew replacement aeroplanes to France. In the words of Duncan Le Geyt Pitcher, an observer at the time and later senior RFC officer, ‘a few BE2s and Avros … staggered across the Channel to co-operate with the Army in France’.

The RFC field headquarters (RFC HQ) under Brig Gen Sir David Henderson left Farnborough on 11 August to establish itself at Amiens two days later. On 15 August the Aircraft Park (the RFC’s supply and maintenance base in the field) went from Farnborough to its embarkation port, Avonmouth near Bristol, with only four crated Sopwith Tabloids. Of the other sixteen aeroplanes on strength, half had joined the front-line squadrons, the balance being flown directly to Amiens, which the main body reached on 21 August to co-locate with RFC HQ. Not without alarms. Its disembarkation at Boulogne caused army authorities to signal: ‘An unnumbered unit without aeroplanes which calls itself an Aircraft Park has arrived, what shall we do with it?’ The four operational squadrons had already settled at Maubeuge on 16 August in close contact with the BEF.

Despite the popular belief that the war would be short-lived, positive steps were made to train newcomers for an expanded force in England. On 7 August Maj (temporary Lt Col) H.M. Trenchard was moved from assistant commandant at the CFS to command the RFC (Military Wing) and depot at Farnborough. He found a sparse assembly of aeroplanes, ‘many being taken from the Central Flying School, others being bought from private collectors and makers’. With this unpromising collection, he was expected to build up new squadrons and train recruits, including non-flying personnel. Strenuous efforts were made to persuade ‘traded men’ in the Army to volunteer for the RFC. An applicant’s conditions of service would be modified to permit four years in the colours from the date of transfer. After undergoing a period of special instruction, the recruit would be required ‘to perform duties in connection with the management and navigation of all forms of aircraft’.

Non-flying personnel were also obtained via direct entry. One such volunteer was Charles Callender from Stockton-on Tees, who undertook to serve for the duration of the war as a mechanic. Sent to Farnborough for initial training, he had a rude awakening. Standing with other recruits outside the orderly office of the new barracks, he was startled by ‘a big, burly sergeant major’ bawling: ‘Jump to it, you’re in the army now … We tame lions here’. Callender recalled that, ‘soon we were to find the How, Where and Why’. The recruits were assured by the stentorian NCO that British discipline was ‘the finest in the world’ and 100 British Serviceman were worth ‘a couple of thousand of any other breed’. Intriguingly, Callender added: ‘Little did the sergeant major know that he himself would later be caught in the disciplinary machine, buttons cut off his tunic on the barrack square.’

Scarcely had the blood-curdling welcome abated than a corporal appeared clad ‘in khaki, breeches, puttees and double breasted tunic’. He wore a cap ‘with two brass buttons at the front that shone like diamonds’ and marched them off to the Quartermaster’s Store, where Callender was allocated a number (4953), ‘viciously stamped on the wrist with an indelible stamp and it seared to the heart’. He was issued with his RFC kit and instructed to pack his civvies in a parcel to send home – the last he saw of them for four and a half years. Fourteen days of ‘hellish training’ followed, ‘a man could never forget his training and number as long as he lived’.

As an Air Mechanic 2nd Class, Charles Callender received 2/- (10p) a day. Reveille was at 5am, first parade 5.45, by which time men had to be shaved. Drill continued until 6.30, ‘when your head was just like a spinning top, one of the humming variety … Dismiss and you had to run like hell to the dining hall if you wanted a cup of coffee and a biscuit.’

After Farnborough, Callender went to Brooklands, where another RFC training centre had been established. For the first two weeks he was on guard duty day and night, two hours on, four hours off. ‘I had often wanted to see the motor racing track at Brooklands, but at this time I was sick of the sight of it.’ He had never fired a rifle, but on guard was issued with five rounds in the magazine. The NCOs were ‘vicious’ and constantly tried to catch

… us rookies out at the most trivial thing. The language was a little bit alien to me. It seemed that every other word was profane but then I was to learn that this was part of the Serviceman’s stock in trade. It gave him height, strength and weight.

Callender was equally unimpressed on seeing in flight a Henri Farman biplane, which appeared ‘just a framework of wires, struts and tubes. The pilot sitting in a bucket seat among the bits and pieces liable it seemed to be thrown out at any time’. He added that ‘more modern’ machines were being built in small factories ‘dotted around the aerodrome on the concrete race track’; one being the Martinsyde Scout, which ‘would play a very important part in my life in the Service’.

At the Front, the first two RFC reconnaissance flights in France had occurred on 19 August. Capt Philip Joubert de la Ferté and Lt Gilbert Mapplebeck were ordered to identify the positions of Belgian troops in the Nivelle-Genappe area with Mapplebeck additionally required to locate German cavalry believed to be near Gembloux. Shortly after taking off at 9.30am, the two pilots lost contact in cloud. Joubert subsequently landed at Tournai and Courtrai, before returning to Maubeuge eight hours later with absolutely no information about the Belgians. Mapplebeck got lost over Brussels, but did find Gembloux and reported a small body of cavalry heading south-east. The reconnaissance exercise was not, therefore, an unqualified success. But the airmen were over unfamiliar territory equipped only with a map and compass.

Getting lost was not the sole hazard RFC crews faced. Joubert admitted to being ‘rather sorry’ as he watched British troops arrive in force. ‘Up to that moment’, airmen had only been fired on by their French allies. Now they were targeted by the British, who were wary of any type of aeroplane, a ‘playful habit … [which] did detract somewhat from our expectation of life’. Years afterwards, Joubert wrote that ‘to this day I can remember the roar of musketry that greeted two of our machines as they left the aerodrome and crossed the main Maubeuge–Mons road, along which a British column was proceeding’. Cautious aviators painted a Union Flag on the underside of their wings – to little avail. Such hazards were not confined to the RFC. When serving as a cavalryman before joining the air force, Manfred von Richthofen admitted to opening fire on anything that flew: ‘I had no idea that German machines bore crosses and the enemy’s cockades’.

The French Plan 17 was launched on 14 August; two days later Russian troops crossed the frontier of East Prussia. Both advances would ultimately fail, but in the short term they absorbed German airship and aeroplane resources to the detriment of support for the Schlieffen Plan. Although delayed by strong fortifications at Liège until 17 August, three days later the Germans took Brussels and by 22 August their columns had reached Charleroi in south-east Belgium. That day, the RFC carried out extensive reconnaissance operations. In a Blériot monoplane, Joubert and his observer flew at 2,000ft to the Charleroi region and reported that the French to the east were being driven back. British intelligence officers unfamiliar with aerial reconnaissance refused to believe them. That evening, therefore, British infantry marched towards Mons, unaware that their right flank was now unprotected. Another flight late in the day reported a strong body of enemy troops (General Alexander von Kluck’s First Army) advancing westwards out of Brussels. Sir David Henderson was so concerned that he personally took this report to Army GHQ, and it was subsequently decided that the British would hold Mons for another 24 hours to enable French redeployment. Had Joubert’s report been believed, the costly rearguard action at Mons on 23 August might have been avoided. But these were early days and the RFC had yet to prove its worth to many soldiers.

During the evening of 22 August, a German machine appeared over Maubeuge and Lt L. da C. Penn-Gaskell persuaded Second Lieutenant (2/Lt) Louis Strange to take his No 5 Sqn Henri Farman up in pursuit. Penn-Gaskell heaved a Vickers machine-gun into the observer’s cockpit, which meant that Strange could only reach 3,500ft, well short of the 5,000ft managed by the enemy machine, which serenely completed its reconnaissance. Penn-Gaskell’s commanding officer forbade him to take a machine-gun aloft again. The current tactic was to deter aerial incursions by menacing manoeuvres. Height was therefore at a premium, and undoubtedly the extra weight became a liability in this respect.

Having temporarily checked the enemy at Mons, on 24 August the BEF fell back to avoid being cut off and the RFC went with it – not always in an organised fashion given the fluidity of the battlefield. Its HQ, Nos 2–5 Squadrons and the Aircraft Park were frequently out of contact with one another and effectively operated as individual entities for long periods. The Aircraft Park was ordered from Amiens to Le Havre, and amid fears that the coastal area might fall, an alternative base for supplies from Britain was established at St Nazaire in western France.

Between 24 August and 4 September, RFC HQ occupied nine different sites. Staff officer Lt the Hon Maurice Baring recorded the first chaotic halt: ‘We slept, and when I say we I mean dozens of pilots, fully dressed in a barn, on the top of, and underneath, an enormous load of straw.’ Lack of map-reading skills resulted in transport confusion, and ground staff had often to improvise landing grounds at short notice. Finding somewhere to put down was a constant headache for pilots, they often did not know whether the spot from which they took off would still be in friendly hands on their return.

On the enemy side Oswald Boelcke, with Richthofen destined to be a high-scoring fighter pilot, revelled in the Allies’ discomfort. Like the McCudden brothers, fascinated at an early age by the sight of aircraft, Boelcke retained an active interest in aviation after joining the Army. Commissioned into a telegraphic communications unit, ‘I never get tired of watching [airships and aeroplanes] and always stare at them with eyes of longing’, he informed his parents. Transfer to the air service inevitably followed, but in training he experienced similar frustrations to RFC recruits. He disliked the 70hp Taube machine, which he declared a ‘brute’ unable to get airborne in adverse weather conditions, and experienced ‘great misery’ waiting for his turn to fly one of the few available aeroplanes. Boelcke therefore had only four solo flights before his first test, which entailed executing figures of eight and landing on a fixed spot. Once hostilities commenced, he fretted that the war would be ‘over before I get to the front’.

On 15 August 1914, Boelcke qualified as a pilot. After joining his elder brother’s front-line unit, with the Allied retreat now well underway, on 1 September he flew his first reconnaissance operation taking Wilhelm as his observer. While British and French forces continued to pull back, Boelcke’s unit moved further forward, but he complained that the Allies were ‘bolting so well’ that he despaired of ever catching them.