Cavalry of the Clouds

Cavalry of the Clouds.

by Alan Bott.

PREFACE

Of the part played by machines of war in this war of machinery the wider public has but a vague knowledge. Least of all does it study the specialised functions of army aircraft. Very many people show mild interest in the daily reports of so many German aeroplanes destroyed, so many driven down, so many of ours missing, and enraged interest in the reports of bomb raids on British towns; but of aerial observation, the main _raison d"etre_ of flying at the front, they own to nebulous ideas.

As an extreme case of this haziness over matters aeronautic I will quote the lay question, asked often and in all seriousness: "Can an aeroplane stand still in the air?" Another surprising point of view is ill.u.s.trated by the home-on-leave experience of a pilot belonging to my present squadron. His lunch companion--a charming lady--said she supposed he lived mostly on cold food while in France.

"Oh no," replied the pilot, "it"s much the same as yours, only plainer and tougher."

"Then you do come down for meals," deduced the lady. Only those who have flown on active service can fully relish the comic savour of a surmise that the Flying Corps in France remain in the air all day amid all weathers, presumably picnicking, between flights, off sandwiches, cold chicken, pork pies, and mineral waters.

These be far-fetched examples, but they serve to emphasise a general misconception of the conditions under which the flying services carry out their work at the big war. I hope that this my book, written for the most part at odd moments during a few months of training in England, will suggest to civilian readers a rough impression of such conditions.

To Flying Officers who honour me by comparing the descriptions with their own experiences, I offer apology for whatever they may regard as "hot air," while submitting in excuse that the narratives are founded on unexaggerated fact, as any one who served with Umpty Squadron through the Battle of the Somme can bear witness.

I have expressed a hope that the chapters and letters will suggest a rough impression of work done by R.F.C. pilots and observers in France.

A complete impression they could not suggest, any more than the work of a Brigade-Major could be regarded as representative of that of the General Staff. The Flying-Corps-in-the-Field is an organisation great in numbers and varied in functions. Many separate duties are allotted to it, and each separate squadron, according to its type of machine, confines itself to two or three of these tasks.

The book, then, deals only with the squadron to which I belonged last year, and it does not pretend to be descriptive of the Flying Corps as a whole. Ours was a crack squadron in its day, and, as General Brancker has mentioned in his Introduction, it held a melancholy record in the number of its losses. Umpty"s Squadron"s casualties during August, September, and October of 1916 still const.i.tute a record for the casualties of any one flying squadron during any three months since the war began. Once eleven of our machines were posted as "missing" in the s.p.a.ce of two days--another circ.u.mstance which has fortunately never yet been equalled in R.F.C. history. It was a squadron that possessed excellent pilots, excellent achievements, and the herewith testimonial in a letter found on a captured German airman, with reference to the machine of which we then had the Flying Corps monopoly: "The most-to-be-feared of British machines is the S----."

Our duties were long reconnaissance, offensive patrols around German air country, occasional escort for bombing craft, and occasional photography. I have but touched upon other branches of army aeronautics; though often, when we pa.s.sed different types of machine, I would compare their job to ours and wonder if it were more pleasant. Thousands of feet below us, for example, were the artillery craft, which darted backward and forward across the lines as from their height of vantage they ranged and registered for the guns. On push days these same buses were to be seen lower still, well within range of machine-gun bullets from the ground, as they crawled and nosed over the line of advance and kept intelligent contact between far-ahead attacking infantry and the rear.

Above the tangled network of enemy defences roved the line photography machines, which provided the Staff with accurate survey maps of the Boche defences. Parties of bombers headed eastward, their lower wings laden with eggs for delivery at some factory, aerodrome, headquarter, railway junction, or ammunition dump. Dotted everywhere, singly or in formations of two, three, four, or six, were those aristocrats of the air, the single-seater fighting scouts. These were envied for their advantages. They were comparatively fast, they could turn, climb, and stunt better and quicker than any two-seater, and their petrol-tanks held barely enough for two hours, so that their shows were soon completed. All these varied craft had their separate functions, difficulties, and dangers. Two things only were shared by all of us--dodging Archie and striving to strafe the Air Hun.

Since those days flying conditions on the Western Front have been much changed by the whirligig of aeronautical development. All things considered, the flying officer is now given improved opportunities. Air fighting has grown more intense, but the machines in use are capable of much better performance. The latest word in single-seater scouts, which I am now flying, can reach 22,000 feet with ease; and it has a maximum climb greater by a third, and a level speed greater by a sixth, than our best scout of last year. The good old one-and-a-half strutter (a fine bus of its period), on which we used to drone our way around the 150-mile reconnaissance, has disappeared from active service. The nerve-edging job of long reconnaissance is now done by more modern two-seaters, high-powered, fast, and reliable, which can put up a fight on equal terms with anything they are likely to meet. The much-discussed B.E., after a three-year innings, has been replaced for the most part by a better-defended and more satisfactory artillery bus. The F.E. and de Haviland pushers have likewise become obsolete. The scouts which we thought invincible last autumn are badly outcla.s.sed by later types.

For the rest, the Flying Corps in France has grown enormously in size and importance. The amount of work credited to each branch of it has nearly doubled during the past year--reconnaissance, artillery observation, photography, bombing, contact patrol, and, above all, fighting. Air sc.r.a.ps have tended more and more to become battles between large formations. But most significant is the rapid increase in attacks by low-flying aeroplanes on ground personnel and materiel, a branch which is certain to become an important factor in the winning of the war.

And this whirlwind growth will continue. The world at large, as distinct from the small world of aeronautics, does not realize that aircraft will soon become predominant as a means of war, any more than it reckons with the subsequent era of universal flight, when designers, freed from the subordination of all factors to war requirements, will give birth to machines safe as motor-cars or ships, and capable of carrying heavy freights for long distances cheaply and quickly. Speaking of an average pilot and a non-expert enthusiast, I do not believe that even our organisers of victory are yet aware of the tremendous part which aircraft can be made to take in the necessary humbling of Germany.

Without taking into account the limitless reserve of American aerial potentiality, it is clear that within a year the Allies will have at their disposal many thousands of war aeroplanes. A proper apportionment of such of them as can be spared for offensive purposes could secure illimitable results. If for no other cause it would shorten the war by its effect on civilian nerves. We remember the hysterical outburst of rage occasioned by the losses consequent upon a daylight raid on London of some fifteen machines, though the public had become inured to the million military casualties since 1914. What, then, would be the effect on German war-weariness if giant raids on fortified towns by a hundred or so allied machines were of weekly occurrence? And what would be the effect on our own public if giant raids on British towns were of weekly occurrence? Let us make the most of our aerial chances, and so forestall betrayal by war-weariness, civilian pacifism, self-centred fools, and strange people.

From an army point of view the probable outcome of an extensive aerial offensive would be still greater. Well-organised bomb raids on German aerodromes during the night and early morning have several times kept the sky clear of hostile aircraft during the day of an important advance. If this be achieved with our present limited number of bombing machines, much more will be possible when we have double or treble the supply. Imagine the condition of a particular sector of the advanced lines of communication if it were bombed every day by scores of aeroplanes. Scarcely any movement would be possible until bad weather made the attacks non-continuous; and few supply depots in the chosen area would afterwards remain serviceable. Infantry and artillery dependent upon this district of approach from the rear would thus be deprived of essential supplies.

Apart from extensive bombing, an air offensive of at least equal value may happen in the form of machine-gun attacks from above. To-day nothing seems to panic the Boche more than a sudden swoop by a low-flying aeroplane, generous of bullets, as those of us who have tried this game have noticed. No German trench, no emplacement, no battery position, no line of transport is safe from the R.F.C. Vickers and Lewis guns; and retaliation is difficult because of the speed and erratic movement of the attacking aeroplane. Little imagination is necessary to realise the damage, moral and material, which could be inflicted on any selected part of the front if it were constantly scoured by a few dozen of such guerilla raiders. No movement could take place during the daytime, and n.o.body could remain in the open for longer than a few minutes.

The seemingly far-fetched speculations above are commonplace enough in the judgment of aeronautical people of far greater authority and experience than I can claim. But they could only be brought to materialisation by an abnormal supply of modern aeroplanes, especially the chaser craft necessary to keep German machines from interference.

Given the workshop effort to provide this supply, French and British pilots can be relied upon to make the most of it. I am convinced that war flying will be organised as a means to victory; but as my opinion is of small expert value I do not propose to discuss how it might be done.

This much, however, I will predict. When, in some nine months" time--if the G.o.ds permit--a sequel to the present book appears, dealing with this year"s personal experiences above the scene of battle, the aerial factor will be well on the way to the position of war predominance to which it is destined.

CONTACT.

FRANCE, 1917.

INTRODUCTION

BY MAJOR-GENERAL W. S. BRANCKER

(DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF MILITARY AeRONAUTICS)

Every day adds something to the achievements of aviation, brings to light yet another of its possibilities, or discloses more vividly its inexhaustible funds of adventure and romance.

This volume, one of the first books about fighting in the air, is written by a fighting airman. The author depicts the daily life of the flying officer in France, simply and with perfect truth; indeed he describes heroic deeds with such moderation and absence of exaggeration that the reader will scarcely realise that these stories are part of the annals of a squadron which for a time held a record in the heaviness of its losses.

The importance of the aerial factor in the prosecution of the war grows apace. The Royal Flying Corps, from being an undependable and weakly a.s.sistant to the other arms, is now absolutely indispensable, and has attained a position of almost predominant importance. If the war goes on without decisive success being obtained by our armies on the earth, it seems almost inevitable that we must depend on offensive action in the air and from the air to bring us victory.

We in London have had some slight personal experience of what a very weak and moderately prosecuted aerial offensive can accomplish. With the progress of the past three years before us, it needs little imagination to visualise the possibilities of such an offensive, even in one year"s time; and as each succeeding year adds to the power of rival aerial fleets, the thought of war will become almost impossible.

War has been the making of aviation; let us hope that aviation will be the destruction of war.

W. S. BRANCKER.

_August 1, 1917._

CAVALRY OF THE CLOUDS

CAVALRY OF THE CLOUDS

CHAPTER I

FLYING TO FRANCE

All units of the army have known it, the serio-comedy of waiting for embarkation orders.

After months of training the twelvetieth battalion, battery, or squadron is almost ready for a plunge into active service. Then comes, from a source which cannot be trailed, a mysterious Date. The orderly-room whispers: "June the fifteenth"; the senior officers" quarters murmur: "France on June the fifteenth"; the mess echoes to the tidings spread by the subaltern-who-knows: "We"re for it on June the fifteenth, me lad"; through the men"s hutments the word is spread: "It"s good-bye to this blinking hole on June the fifteenth"; the Home receives a letter and confides to other homes: "Reginald"s lot are going to the war on June the fifteenth"; finally, if we are to believe Mr. William le Queux, the Military Intelligence Department of the German Empire dockets a report: "Das zwolfzigste Battalion (Batterie oder Escadrille) geht am 15 Juni nach Frankreich."

June opens with an overhaul of officers and men. Last leave is distributed, the doctor examines everybody by batches, backward warriors are worried until they become expert, the sergeant-major polishes his men on the grindstone of discipline, the C.O. indents for a draft to complete establishment, an inspection is held by an awesome general.

Except for the mobilisation stores everything is complete by June 10.

But there is still no sign of the wanted stores on the Date, and June 16 finds the unit still in the same blinking hole, wherever that may be.

The days drag on, and Date the second is placed on a pedestal.

"Many thanks for an extra fortnight in England," says the subaltern-who-knows; "we"re not going till June the twenty-seventh."