About 50 shells burst all round us, the farthest from us being about 200 feet and some quite close. God knows how we were not hit. Funny noise those shells make when they burst, not a loud bang, sort of a ‘plop’ noise.
Lieutenant Kenlis Atkinson, 4 Squadron RFC – describing anti-aircraft fire
On 13 April 1912 the RFC was constituted by Royal Warrant, it consisted of a Military Wing and a Naval Wing, the Naval Wing becoming the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 July 1914. Nine days after the declaration of war on 4 August 1914 the vanguard – consisting of the aircraft of 2, 3 and 4 squadrons flew across the channel on 13 August to land at Amiens. The first to arrive at 8.20am was the 2 Squadron pilot Lieutenant Hubert Harvey-Kelly in his BE2a and by the evening of 15 August they had been joined by 5 Squadron and over fifty aircraft of all shapes and sizes were parked at the Amiens airstrip waiting to fly to the forward airbase at Maubeuge the next day.271
The four squadrons of the RFC were very much in evidence during first weeks of the Great War. They reported the German movements north of Mons, they observed the movements of German units before and after Le Cateau and detected von Kluck’s swing to the southeast which culminated in the Battle of the Marne. The eventual German retirement from the Marne towards the Aisne was confirmed by Captains Robert Boger and Robin Grey of 5 Squadron who watched the Germans cross the Marne. When one considers all this was carried out from the back of a collection of commercial lorries – some still sporting the company logos – and assorted other vehicles, and all reconnaissance flights were unaccompanied by other aircraft, the performance of the fledgling air service was impressive to say the least. But this Heath Robinson approach to war was soon to change.
Aerial co-operation with artillery was the subject of a communiqué from GHQ dated 13 September. It drew attention to an artillery action which had taken place in the Thiaucourt area on 8 September where, ‘about half the artillery of the 6th German Corps was destroyed by our field artillery’.272 The German batteries were discovered by aircraft of the French Aéronautique Militaire and it was based on their intelligence that an artillery fire plan was hastily put together – the effects of which were observed by French aircraft which continued to fly over the battlefield observing the ‘complete destruction’ of guns and limbers. GHQ made the point that, ‘this success shows the results which can be and must be obtained by co-operation of the artillery and aircraft during an action’. Haig’s reply on 14 September demonstrated his firm belief in the advantages of aerial observation:
‘The French system of employing aviators in action with artillery is a very sound one. I strongly agree that GHQ take the matter in hand at once and establish a similar system for the British Army area. An adequate number of machines should be permanently attached to each Corps and Corps commanders should be given a free hand to use the machines at their discretion.’273
Haig’s recommendations were fortunately taken seriously by GHQ and led eventually to the formation of corps squadrons – aircraft which were under the control of corps commanders. Corps aircraft were already in use by the Germans. In August 1914 the German Air Service had some 200 aircraft dedicated to short range reconnaissance and artillery control, considerably in advance of the BEF which was still desperately attempting to redress the balance when it arrived on the Aisne. However, as the lines of trenches along the Aisne valley became fixed, the RFC were soon mapping out the enemy positions and batteries along the German front line and in the rear areas, locating rail heads, aerodromes and supply dumps. There were also some early attempts to photograph enemy trenches as demonstrated on 15 September by Lieutenant George Pretyman, a pilot from 3 Squadron, who took five photographs of enemy positions with his own hand held camera and although of dubious quality, the images demonstrated that aerial photography was possible in a combat environment.274
Artillery observation from the air had been given little thought before war was declared. Both aircraft and ammunition were in short supply and the consensus of military thinking on the subject was still the subject of debate. However, two young Royal Engineers officers who had joined the RFC in 1913 had been giving a good deal of thought to air-to-ground communication between artillery batteries and aircraft. Both Lieutenants Baron James and Donald Lewis were firm advocates of the use of wireless telegraphy in transmitting information from aircraft to the ground and had in June 1914 successfully carried out a test flight during which they had maintained radio communication. James McCudden, who had transferred to the RFC in May 1913, had his first flight with Baron James and recalled the specially fitted aircraft which were being used in the wireless experiments:
‘About 5.00pm I saw Lieutenant B T James, RE, going up alone on a silver doped BE2a, fitted with the first wireless experimental set … I asked Mr James if he would take me up. With his usual good nature he said he would, so I had my first flight, about the first week of May 1913.’275
McCudden was awarded seven days detention and fourteen days loss of pay for his pains but his flight with James was the beginning of his career as a RFC pilot which began in June 1916 after he had successfully received his aero club certificate in the April of that year. Quite how McCudden squeezed into the observer’s cockpit space alongside the wireless equipment is not mentioned!
On the declaration of war the Experimental Wireless Flight which had hosted the experimental trials involving James and Lewis was absorbed into the strength of the four RFC squadrons, the wireless flight, its three pilots and its cumbersome equipment were attached to 4 Squadron and Lewis, James and Second Lieutenant Stephen Smith went to war on 13 August. Baron James was a mathematical scholar who, after graduating from Woolwich, was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1909. In June 1912 after only a few days instruction he was awarded his Royal Aero Club Certificate at Hendon and in April 1913 he transferred to the Military Wing of the RFC. He was joined eight months later by Donald Lewis and over the next year the two men developed a professional partnership which pioneered the use of wireless telegraphy culminating in what John Terraine described as, ‘a new co-operation with the artillery which began an intimate relationship between the air and the guns’.276
Effective indirect artillery fire was dependent on the gunners knowing not only their own position, but the position of the target. Once firing began they would make compensations for variations on wind, temperature, gun barrel wear and the type of shell being fired, thus observation of the fall of each shell became vital. We know that this was initially carried out by observers who reported back to the battery by telephone or other means. Initially artillery officers were taken up by the RFC in order for them to plot the positions of German batteries on the map and divisional CRAs would then allocate targets to their batteries. These flights were not without excitement as Lieutenant William Read of 3 Squadron discovered on 16 September:
‘At 2.00pm we got orders to do a reconnaissance between Soissons and Vailly, north of the River Aisne. When we were 4,000 feet over Vailly, the Germans opened fire on us with anti-aircraft guns and they made surprisingly good shooting for the first few shots. The first shell was the nearest, it burst about twenty feet below us and I felt the machine shake and the left wing was boosted up a little. I made rapidly for a thick white cloud on my right and as soon as I came out of it they were at us again, but the shots were wide …we got back to our landing ground at 4.15pm with our report.’277
Once the British batteries had opened fire on their targets it was possible for an aircraft to direct fire by a pre-arranged set of signals using an Aldis lamp or a Very pistol. Lieutenant Kenlis Atkinson of 4 Squadron took off from a field north of Bourg on the morning of 15 September to guide artillery fire onto German batteries near the Chemin des Dames:
‘Went out again with Roche [Lieutenant H J Roche] to observe effect of gunfire which they were going to fire in salvos for us and to try and find German heavy batteries which have been giving us hell. Did not see any salvos but found 2 batteries of heavy guns hidden in the corner of a wood and fired two Very lights over them to give our gunners the line.’278
On the same day an aircraft piloted by Captain Lionel Charlton from 3 Squadron was instrumental in successfully directing fire on enemy positions using Very lights whilst on 24 September, Lieutenant Damer Allen from 4 Squadron used flash signals – probably from an Aldis lamp – from the air to indicate the fall of artillery fire. It was hazardous work which demanded the aircraft remained aloft directing artillery fire whilst the German gunners below – and indeed any handy infantryman – loosed off in an attempt to bring the aircraft and its crew down.
Captain Henry Jackson, an observer with 3 Squadron, was only too well aware of the dangers of working with the artillery from the air. Writing home to his mother on 27 September he described the work he and the squadron were engaged in:
‘Our chief job is locating the position of the German hidden batteries, and correcting the fire of our batteries on them. It is most interesting. They have a fairly good anti-aircraft gun, which fires a shrapnel shell with which they make fairly good practice at us, but they have not actually brought anyone down yet. I had a bit of luck about three weeks ago, a bullet from a rifle went through the back of my seat, through my leather flying coat but was turned off by a steel rib in my Sam Browne belt and I was no more the worse except for a bruised back. There are generally shots through our wings but they do no harm and altogether the Flying Corps has been extraordinarily lucky.’279
RFC pilots and observers expected to be shot at by the enemy, after all, wrote Atkinson, ‘this was war!’. What did irritate British aircrew was the continual barrage of fire from their own side which greeted their appearance; British and French troops had little idea of aircraft recognition and to them every aircraft was potentially hostile. Even after the RFC took to painting a large union flag on the underside of each wing they were still peppered by the infantry – despite a demand from GHQ that this should stop immediately. The problem was only improved after it was pointed out that only the red cross of the Union Flag was visible when viewed from the ground and the troops were confusing it with the black cross used by the German Air Service. Eventually the British adopted the circular markings in use by the French Aéronautique Militaire, preserving national identity by transposing the blue and red to form the roundel which is still in use today.
To an extent one can sympathise with the British Tommies in their confusion. By September 1914 they were only too well aware that aerial observation was being used to great effect by the German Air Service. During the retreat it had been noticed that the appearance of a German aircraft – usually a Rumpler Taube – generally heralded an artillery bombardment. The Taube would indicate the direction of targets with smoke balls or Very lights and some time later German artillery would deliver an alarmingly accurate bombardment. Aylmer Haldane described an occasion at Bucy-le-Long on 17 September when the village came under a heavy bombardment from German howitzers after a visit from an enemy aeroplane:
‘For three-quarters of an hour the bombardment went on without interruption, and as it was the first time we had been subjected to the fire of heavy howitzers, it perhaps impressed itself more on our memories than did subsequent displays of a similar nature. Fortunately having had my suspicions of a hostile aeroplane, which the evening before had hovered over us and had seemed to pay special attention to the village which lay some 300 feet lower than the trenches, I had ordered the whole of the transport and the bivouacs of the two reserve battalions to be shifted before breakfast. When, therefore, the German howitzers opened fire, their shells, while causing great damage to the houses, failed to inflict much harm on the troops or transport.’280
We have no way of knowing whether the artillery bombardment on Bucy that morning was the work of the guns at Condé or not, but Haldane and the men of 10 Brigade would have been delighted with the results of a 3 Squadron reconnaissance of 24 September which they would have considered to be a justifiable reimbursement for their earlier discomfort. Taking off from Feré en Tardenois at 6.30am with his observer to map the exact locations of the German batteries operating on the Chivres spur, Lieutenant Read and his observer successfully mapped the battery positions and landed at the forward airstrip at Serches to confer with the battery commander:
‘On our report it was decided to bombard the fort with four 6-inch howitzers which have just arrived from England. We went up again to observe the effect of our shell fire on the fort. It was deadly accurate, every shell falling inside the fort doing deadly work as far as we could see. The enemy’s aircraft guns played on us once but we kept out of range of them. Returned to camp at 6.00pm.’281
Read’s flight over Condé was also observed by General Smith-Dorrien who extolled the virtues of aerial observation in a telegram to GHQ dated the same day, ‘I watched for a long time an aeroplane observing fire for the 6-inch howitzers of 3rd Division. It was at times smothered with hostile anti-aircraft fire but nothing daunted it’. The next day Read was in the air again over Missy directing the fire of a 60-pounder battery:
‘We got our battery onto them and our shells were just right, and I think we must have paid them back for the bad time they have been giving our troops in Missy. All the while we were circling about and observing, the enemy plastered us with their anti-aircraft guns until the air all round was thick with shell bursts. I kept turning, diving and climbing so as to offer as difficult a target as possible but we lost height a good deal, and when we were at 3,500 feet they managed to burst a shell near enough to put a piece of it through our propeller. So having got our battery the range we decided to get away and land.’282
As Read and others had demonstrated, the use of Very lights and flash signalling could be very effective, but as James and Lewis knew, wireless was far more accurate and much faster. Since their arrival in France new wireless equipment had been obtained in Paris which was much lighter and more powerful than the rather bulky Marconi wireless sets, but even with the smaller Rouzet sets the equipment still weighed around 70lbs and filled the observer’s cockpit area. In addition a 250 foot aerial had to be unwound from a reel fitted on the outside of the fuselage alongside the pilot before transmission could begin – a procedure which had to be reversed before the aircraft landed. The communication from air to ground was only a one-way signal using Morse code which was received by a ground station located near the battery. Replies from the ground used a combination of visual signals and flashing lights. However, despite the limitations and size of equipment, by late September wireless-equipped aircraft had established a new norm, and when one considers that this revolution in artillery observation had taken place using just two BE2a aircraft from the Wireless Flight; the magnitude of the achievement can be appreciated. John Mowbray was typical of many artillery officers in his enthusiasm of the potential of wireless observation:
‘Without air reconnaissance, accurate artillery work at long range is not possible. We have had some excellent results with an air observer who controls his machine, observes fire and signals results by wireless alone. An exceptional man is evidently needed for this … the other day James put a heavy battery on target in three rounds.’283
These small beginnings gave rise to the creation of a separate Headquarters Wireless Telegraphy Unit (HQWTU) on 27 September under the command of Major Herbert Musgrave. Musgrave was another Royal Engineers officer who had begun his career with 7/Field Company in 1896. Realizing the military potential of aviation he had learned to fly at the Bristol School on Salisbury Plain and was awarded his Royal Aero Club Certificate on 12 November 1912, joining the RFC a month later. Never a natural pilot, Musgrave’s talents lay in research and development and it is largely through his efforts in solving the myriad of technical difficulties involved in installing wireless equipment in aircraft that wireless observation became so successful.
One of the first series of communications sent down by wireless from an aircraft was recorded on 24 September, it was probably from one of the two BE2a aircraft flown by the pilots of the Wireless Flight, but exactly which pilot is not known:
‘4.02pm: A very little short. Fire Fire.
4.04pm: Fire again. Fire again.
4.12pm: A little short; line OK.
4.15pm: Short. Over. Over and a little left.
4.20pm: You were just between two batteries, search 200 yds each side of your last shot. Range OK.
4.22 pm: You have them.
4.26pm: About 50 yds short and to the right.
4.37pm: Your last shot in the middle of three batteries in action; search all round within 300 yds of your last shot and you have them.
4.42pm: I am coming home now.’284
The success of wireless observation and the increasing demand for dedicated corps wireless aircraft initially exceeded the RFC’s ability to fully satisfy all the army’s requirements. The four weeks the RFC spent over the Aisne had opened the door for a new age of artillery observation and had seen the beginning of a flying service which would grow from four squadrons into a significant force of some 300,000 officers and men and over 22,000 aircraft.