An Ordinary Pilot World War 1

Interesting articles from Flight Global 1918 Archives


AN ORDINARY SCRAP
IN THE LIFE OF THE ORDINARY PILOT.

I OFTEN wonder if other pilots hate the early O.P. (Offensive
Patrol) as much as I do. I always did dislike getting up
early in the morning, but it always seems doubly as unpleasant
if one has to get out of a fuggy warm bed, pull on clothes, heave
oneself into a machine, and crash into the atmosphere. On
the particular morning I am going to relate about, I simply
hated getting up, the weather was doubtful and very cold.
After having " clapped " up all my pilots from the remains
of a greasy breakfast, we all walked down to the sheds.
There was a glorious dawn but no one took any notice of it.
We were all far too " bleak " to speak to each other,"except
one Canadian, who was " hearty," as he always was on every
possible occasion. Sometimes we all cursed him for it. On
occasions everyone was grateful to him for unveiling humour
at times when we none of us could see any.
We ran up engines, taxied out, took off and got formation
over the aerodrome at about fifteen hundred feet.
I led the patrol away from the lines climbing hard, turned
east again, struck the lines at about nine thousand feet and
started our patrol. The Hun never starts his work for nearly
an hour after British machines have started, but if we once
started work later, he would at once get his artillery machines
up, so as to work unmolested.
We swept from the south to north-east of the lines, coming
down against the wind over the trenches. We repeated this
performance twice, and had done 50 minutes of our patrol,
when coming down south I saw two two-seaters about 5
miles over Hunland. I had a look into the sun for scouts
lurking high up, ready to pounce on us when we attacked the
two-seaters, but all was clear. The rest of the formation
closed up, having also seen the Huns. We worked our way
east and into the sun, and when about two thousand feet
above them we dived to attack. A fight is always a hard
thing to record accurately afterwards, as everything happens
so quickly. On this occasion I tried to take the two-seater
who says : " I insist in particular on the following
points :
The fuselage is very deep, and the top plane
is very close to it. The contour of the rudder and
its fin is very rounded and not polygonal as in the
reconstructed view. The tail planes are polygonal
in plan view, with the angles rounded off."
In reconstructing the machine the length of each
top wing was found to be 4 metres 70 from root to
tip. The span found for the bottom wing was in
the neighbourhood of n metres, and as, according
to all the observers who have had an opportunity
of seeing the machine, the bottom plane was of smaller
span than the top one, it was concluded. that there
must have been a fixed centre section in the top plane.
No trace has, however, been found of such a centre
section.
Our correspondent calls our attention to the deep
fuselage close to which is the top plane. On the other
hand our contributor, Jean Lagorgette, who, from
the hospital, follows closely any novelties, advances
the following hypothesis : If there was a fixed centre
section it would probably be made of steel tubes.
[The inference being that it would in that case have
survived the flames.—ED.] If no trace has been
found of it or of its cabane. this centre section does not
exist, and the top wings attach directly to the body
as in the Roland.
In any case, the fuselage being high, the rear gunner
would be able to fire upwards. According to observers
on the ground this machine is very fast and
has a high " ceiling."


THE ORDINARY LIFE
OF AN ORDINARY PILOT.

In his blind spot. He saw me, swung round, and I found
myself sitting on his tail, both my guns going hard, and the
Hun observer firing hard at me. I found this rather too hot
for my liking, so pulled away, just as another of my people
came down like a stone on to the Hun. I looked towards the
other Hun, and saw him going down east with two Camels hanging
on him like leeches. I took another look round, for in a
light if a pilot does not look round he may be leapt on any
minute, and to my immense surprise saw an Albatros scout
about 200 feet below me, west of me, and flying towards me.
I suppose he was flying to the rescue of the furthest two-seater,
for I am certain he never saw me from start to finish. I
waited till he came to within a hundred yards of me, dived
my machine steeply at him, pressed both gun controls, and
waited till he passed through my telescopic sight. I must
have ripped him open from end to end. I swung round,
unfortunately getting him underneath me where I could not
see him actually burst into flames, which is what occurred.
I flew back to the lines to our rendezvous, where I pick up my
formation again and reclimbed. By the time we had got
our height again, I had spotted another two-seater at about
the same place as our previous scrap.
The formation went at it, but it sighted us before we got to close range, put its
nose down, and ran away followed by bullets from 10 machine
guns, unfortunately at rather long range. The patrol had
by then more than done its time, so that we flew back to the
aerodrome and breakfast. As I stopped my engine in front
of the sheds the recording officer, who, in spirit, is an enthusiastic
war pilot, rushed up to tell me that a message had
come from the A.A. anti-aircraft batteries saying five Camels
had tackled three Huns. One Hun scout shot down in flames,
and one two-seater completely out of control, which had been
shot down by the two people I had seen tackling it.
We all felt that after all the early patrol sometimes was
not so bad as it was painted. H. B.


A FULL DAY.
BEING SOME MORE ORDINARY INCIDENTS IN THE ORDINARY LIVES OF
r ORDINARY (AND SOME EXTRAORDINARY) PILOTS OF No. X SQUADRON.


TO-DAY has been a great day for the squadron. The Major
has been away in hospital, so that I have been running the
squadron, consequently not definitely tying myself up to
fly on any special show. The morning had been " dud,"
but about mid-day the clouds cleared off, and the weather
settled down clear and sunny for the rest of the day. I had
arranged to fly down to see the CO. of another squadron,
whom I knew, but before I went, I " rushed off " six Camels
to meet two artillery machines at 8,000 feet over a given
spot, to escort them on a photographing work about four
miles east of the lines on the La B Canal.
I had engine trouble at No. — squadron, which prevented
me getting back home till two-thirty.
As I stopped my engine in front of my shed one of my
pilots held up eight of his ten fingers, and, while he nodded his
head hard, a large grin suffused his face. If one pilot lands,
and while he has been up some other pilot has got one or more
Huns, it is always a sign to the pilot who is taxying in that so
many Huns (according to the number of fingers held up)
have been knocked down while he has been up, when he
sees a grinning face, a nodding head, and one or more fingers
held up to him. In this case I thought someone was having
a joke with me in their own quiet way, and it sent me all
" naa-poo " when I heard the tail of the fight from W ,
the leader of the escort.
He had met the three photographing machines at the
rendezvous, the whole formation steering for the lines directly
afterwards. The photography machines crossed at about
8,500, while he led his other five above and behind at about
9,500. W had had a look out for Huns before he crossed
the lines, but as far as he could see the sky was clear. The
photography machines had just started the work, when
about ten Huns hove in sight coming from the east, and
above. Three of the Huns dived straight at the photographic
machines, followed closely by all six Camels, which
were in their turn followed by the remainder of the Hun
formation. A general melee ensued between the Camels
and the Huns, while the photographic machines were able
to finish their work, get their photos, safely back to the lines,
which was all important for them, and have a grand view
of the fight. As one of their pilots said afterwards, " It was
dangerous to be in the air because of falling Huns."
W— shot down one Hun out of control, which •was attacking
a photographic machine, and this Hun was seen to crash.
He then got on the tail of another Albatros scout and fired
a short burst into it at point-blank range. The Hun and his
machine just disintegrated in mid-air in a cloud of white
smoke, and an explosion, which everyone could hear above the
roar of their engines. Each of the other five pilots shot
down a Hun, all of which were crashed, and confirmed either
by the anti-aircraft batteries, or the photographic machines.
Some of these Huns went down side-slipping from side to
side on their backs, others spun to earth, one fell in flames,
while one wing came off another. L shot one down which
he could not watch crash, so, to ensure that it had, he came
down to two hundred feet, " contour chased " round the spot,
till he espied the wreckage lying in a heap on the ground,
then " contour chased " back over the trenches.
These Huns all appeared to be inexperienced pilots with
the exception of the red-nosed leader, who, however, was
the one shot down and blown up in mid-air by W—. Of
those ten or so Huns six were completely destroyed, while
two more were shot down out of control, and nearly certain
to have crashed. Our total damage was half a dozen bullet
holes distributed among our six machines.
The average Hun appears not to be keen on fighting,
although there are, of course, exceptions, and, in my humble
opinion, the Hun scout pilot of this time last year was in a
different class to the average of this year. They now seem
to aim at quantity not quality. As an instance of my statement,
I will quote the following two cases. O was a new
pilot with no war experience. On his first job he lost his
patrol, and for some time cruised up and down the trenches
trying to find them. At last he saw six machines about four
miles over the lines, which he thought must be his lost patrol.
He cruised over into the middle of them quite happily, until
he suddenly heard the rat-tat-tat of a machine-gun behind
him. He swung round, and at the same moment realised
he had run into the middle of six Hun scouts. O was a
sensible lad and kept his head. He knew it was hopeless to
run for it, so he charged right at the nearest Hun, firing both
his guns. The Hun turned over, spun down and was seen
to crash by out A.A. batteries. He twisted and turned in
the middle of the other five till he got down to 3,000 feet,
when he put his machine into a spin, spun right down to 200
feet and " contour chased " back between the trees, followed
by the five Huns above him as far as the trenches, the Huns
not daring, however, to come down as low as he did, but
keeping a respectful 500 feet above him.
The other incident was one of many adventures T had
before he went " West." T was one of our flight commanders,
a very gallant fellow and a great Hun strafer.
Whenever he had no job on in the morning he would take his
camel up to about seventeen thousand feet and wait for an
unsuspecting Hun to come over our lines on a reconnaissance.
On the particular day I am writing about, T was doing
his usual game, when he saw six Hun scouts dive on two of our
artillery machines our side of the lines in the L salient.
Without a moment's hesitation he dived straight into the
middle of them.
It was hopeless for him to try to sit on the tail of one
Hun, as he would at once be leapt on by all the others. He
wriggled, twisted, turned, and dodged, firing his guns when he
could, and several times being in imminent danger of colliding
with Huns. Meanwhile not only was the fight drifting east
over the trenches, but another six Huns had joined in. The
two artillery machines got safely away, but T was still
in the middle of what had now risen to a dozen Huns. There
must have been so many that they got in each other's way,
and baulked each other for shooting, for it was a miracle
T got away. If he had once hesitated for a moment, or
tried to run away, he would have been lost.
The Huns must have seen they were up against a tough proposition, for T •
flew wonderfully at any time, and must have flown superhumanly
on this occasion, for gradually he saw fewer and
fewer Huns, until suddenly he found he had fought till there
were no more Huns in the sky near him. He had no more
ammunition, and he was four miles east of the lines. He
flew back over the lines, made a priceless landing, and
stepped out of his machine very nearly as calmly as when he
went up.
H.B,

ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT IN THE
ORDINARY LIFE OF ORDINARY PILOT

Today we had a comic show, at least we only found it
comic afterwards. At first we thought it was going to be a
case of another of in the casualty list. However, all's
WBII that ends well.
This evening the Flight did a long O.P. (I am not going to
say again what O.P. means. Everyone who reads " FLIGHT "
ought to know by now, and if they don't they would be
better employed studying " Bassinette Literature" rather
than " FLIGHT " ) . The sun was well down in the west, there
was a cloudless sky, and a thick haze which made it impossible
to see anything at all of the ground, looking westward, in
fact one could only just see the ground below one, above
three thousand feet.
The patrol branched off down south, crossed the lines in
of A , with a good wind blowing them over into " Hunland,"
and a good haze which prevented " Archie " being able
to practise his wiles on the patrol. The only way the leader
could keep his bearings was to steer -by the sun, with occasional
glimpses of trenches or ruined villages below. After
going east for about five minutes, machines suddenly seemed
to appear from nowhere in ones or twos, both above and
below the patrol. The leader kept his eyes well open, and
watched Hun machines collecting by twos and threes up in
the sun between the patrol and the lines, about five thousand
feet above the patrol, which was then flying about nine
thousand feet. As the patrol got above D—— they saw a
formation of six Huns below them gliding down to their
aerodrome, and a comfortable hot tea, or whatever the Huns
have instead of tea. I have heard that their favourite dish
at about five " Pip Emma" is " Roast Rumpler," both
economical in ingredients and tasty to eat.
The recipe is as follows ; Take a crashed Rumpler, reduce
it to pulp (if this has not already been done by the pilot),
add boiling glycerine produce (Leave you to guess what
factory that comes from), stir gently and serve up same in a
well seasoned flying cap. This dish is highly thought of by
the Higher Command, being well "Forte " to the palate.
To continue; Tea seemed a long way off to all the pilots
just then. They were ten miles over, about eighteen Huns
above, between them and home, while there were six Huns
" cold meat" below them, but all knew it would be asking
for trouble to dive, because if the six Camels once started
down, all the Huns from above would come down like a ton
of bricks on top of them, and everyone would have a very
poor chance of getting back against the wind, and against
such odds. The leader did the only thing; he stuck his nose
down hard North-East, followed hard by the rest of the
patrol.
The Huns behind rushed along to overtake the patrol, and
got in a position due south of the Camels, but by the time
this had happened the patrol "was about seventeen miles
over Hunland. The leader then changed course to North-West.-
The Huns, not realising what the leader was up to, hesitated
for a second, in which time the Camels had got about a mile
and a half away. The leader held on his course, taking no
notice of two formations more of Huns below him, going
home to roost, which in the ordinary course of events would
have been rudely interrupted from their peaceful " end of
a perfect day " joy-ride. He held on his course, but when
about five miles from the lines, two Huns came down to the
Camels, and sat about three hundred yards behind the back
man, sniping hard' at him. The leader took in the situation,
and came to the conclusion it was no time for," comic heroics."
If he turned his formation back to help the back man, he
would give the pursuing Huns, who had now reached to the
number of twenty, the chance they wanted, and would
probably sacrifice his whole patrol for the sake of one man,
who was being " shot up " by two Huns. Not good enough,
he decided, and held on his course, but going as slowly as
he dared. When about four thousand feet up and about
two miles from the lines, the leader saw the back man put
down his nose, and dive steeply into the fog below the rest
of the formation.
The rest of the formation crossed the trenches safely, came
down through the fog, picked up their bearings, and tfew
back to the aerodrome. ,
When they got back, all corroborated the leader's report
about the Huns, but all differed as to what had occured to
H—, who was the back man. Some said he could not have
reached the lines, others that he would be in the trenches,
others that he would never be heard of again, that he was
certain to have been killed. Suddenly this "mothers'
meeting," where everyone was shouting and talking at once
was broken up by another pilot who rushed up, and gasped out
in short breaths the statement that H— had landed at CTO-
DAY we had a comic show, at least we only found it
comic afterwards. At first we thought it was going to be a
case of another of in the casualty list. However, all's
WBII that ends well.
This evening the Flight did a long O.P. (I am not going to
say again what O.P. means. Everyone who reads " FLIGHT "
ought to know by now, and if they don't they would be
better employed studying " Bassinette Literature" rather
than " FLIGHT " ) . The sun was well down in the west, there
was a cloudless sky, and a thick haze which made it impossible
to see anything at all of the ground, looking westward, in
fact one could only just see the ground below one, above
three thousand feet.
The patrol branched off down south, crossed the lines in
of A , with a good wind blowing them over into " Hunland,"
and a good haze which prevented " Archie " being able
to practise his wiles on the patrol. The only way the leader
could keep his bearings was to steer -by the sun, with occasional
glimpses of trenches or ruined villages below. After
going east for about five minutes, machines suddenly seemed
to appear from nowhere in ones or twos, both above and
below the patrol. The leader kept his eyes well open, and
watched Hun machines collecting by twos and threes up in
the sun between the patrol and the lines, about five thousand
feet above the patrol, which was then flying about nine
thousand feet. As the patrol got above D—— they saw a
formation of six Huns below them gliding down to their
aerodrome, and a comfortable hot tea, or whatever the Huns
have instead of tea. I have heard that their favourite dish
at about five " Pip Emma" is " Roast Rumpler," both
economical in ingredients and tasty to eat.
The recipe is as follows ; Take a crashed Rumpler, reduce
it to pulp (if this has not already been done by the pilot),
add boiling glycerine produce (Leave you to guess what
factory that comes from), stir gently and serve up same in a
well seasoned flying cap. This dish is highly thought of by
the Higher Command, being well "Forte " to the palate.
To continue; Tea seemed a long way off to all the pilots
just then. They were ten miles over, about eighteen Huns
above, between them and home, while there were six Huns
" cold meat" below them, but all knew it would be asking
for trouble to dive, because if the six Camels once started
down, all the Huns from above would come down like a ton
of bricks on top of them, and everyone would have a very
poor chance of getting back against the wind, and against
such odds. The leader did the only thing; he stuck his nose
down hard North-East, followed hard by the rest of the
patrol.
The Huns behind rushed along to overtake the patrol, and
got in a position due south of the Camels, but by the time
this had happened the patrol "was about seventeen miles
over Hunland. The leader then changed course to North-West.-
The Huns, not realising what the leader was up to, hesitated
for a second, in which time the Camels had got about a mile
and a half away. The leader held on his course, taking no
notice of two formations more of Huns below him, going
home to roost, which in the ordinary course of events would
have been rudely interrupted from their peaceful " end of
a perfect day " joy-ride. He held on his course, but when
about five miles from the lines, two Huns came down to the
Camels, and sat about three hundred yards behind the back
man, sniping hard' at him. The leader took in the situation,
and came to the conclusion it was no time for," comic heroics."
If he turned his formation back to help the back man, he
would give the pursuing Huns, who had now reached to the
number of twenty, the chance they wanted, and would
probably sacrifice his whole patrol for the sake of one man,
another large aerodrome near where the patrol had recrossed,
the machine had crashed, caught fire, H— was badly burnt,
and not expected to live. I went to the telephone, rang tip
and asked what had happened. An orderly answered
jne, and told me that H— had landed crashed, not caught
fire, but had been rushed off to hospital badly wounded.
I had hardly put down the receiver before the bell rang
again and a voice said " H— speaking, can you send over
a tender for me, please ? " It thought it must be his ghost
speaking, and could not believe it was really him till I had
heard his story.
To begin with H— had never seen the two Huns from start
to finish. He has been intent on keeping up with the patrol,
and had never thought of any Huns coming down behind
him, till he heard two bangs, and his engine stopped. He
dived down at once (which was when we had seen him go
below us). He pumped hard to get up pressure, but nothing
happened, so he turned on to his gravity tank, whereupon
his engine started up again. By this time he felt a burning
stinging feeling in a certain part of the anatomy which is used
to sit on and was in so much pain that he was sure he must
have been wounded. He made his way to aerodrome,
landed down wind, and turned " base over apex " in a ditch
at the end of the aerodrome. Mechanics had rushed up to
see if he was hurt, and by this time he was in such pain that
he shouted out, " Take care how you lift me out. I am
wounded in my back." One of the men rushed away and
got the ambulance tender out to the machine. They lifted
out the pilot, put him face down on a stretcher and took him
" all out " to the Casualty Clearing Station about a mile
away.
H— heaved himself out of the tender, walked with difficulty
into the receiving ward, when a doctor whipped off his pants
and found—nothing ! ! except a large red patch on H—\s
skin. H— said he had never felt such a fool in his life, until
the doctor told him that he must have been in more pain
than he would have been if he had been hit. All the back of
his flying kit and clothes had been saturated with petrol,
which had burnt his skin for the preceding half-hour, causing
him excruciating agony. Ten minutes later, H—, having had
some ointment put on his burn, went back to the machine,
and on examination found that his main petrol tank behind
his seat had two large bullet holes through it, and that the
whole machine was soaked in petrol.
An hour later H—was back at the squadron none the worse
except that he showed a marked reluctance to sit down on any
proffered seat.
I repeat again, " all's well that ends well."- ..
. .