Chapter 23

April 1917

The Royal Flying Corps training aerodrome to which I was attached was located in a farmer’s field near Hythe on the shores of the English Channel, the 1st School of Aerial Gunnery. The location was the nearest to the Continent, which meant two things: that we were as close as anyone to the fighting and that, when graduated, we would be deployed to an aerodrome in France. I was not going to Africa or Asia.

“Pitman!” yelled the captain.

“Present!”

As one of fourteen prospective gunner/observers in training, I had been surprised at the sophisticated syllabus that seemed more consistent with an engineering discipline than with navigating an aeroplane.

“Now listen up, officers,” bellowed the captain. “Let me be the first to formally welcome you to flying school. You will find that becoming an aviator involves a degree of culture shock as most of you have come from the trenches. The contrast of being stationary in a trench versus traveling at high speed several thousand feet above can be daunting. For some of you that will be disorienting, perhaps overwhelming.”

“Will you be training us, sir?” questioned a newbie.

The captain walked down the line, stopping to address the trainee. “Sometimes, Lieutenant, and at other times you will be piloted by one of the other experienced officers.”

“Captain,” another emboldened recruit sputtered, “man has only been flying for about ten years, so how is anyone considered experienced?”

Our CO turned to the other end of our line, strutting through the grass. “You will find, cadet, that this technology is revolutionary in a permanent way, and once you understand the basic rules of flying, experience builds rapidly.”

“Exciting!”

“Yes, it is, and it is my job to make it safe as well. Traveling at eighty miles per hour some ten thousand feet in the air, any doubt will be replaced with courage, gentlemen. Accept that now and you—we— will win control of the skies.”

I caught myself gulping but was fairly sure no one saw. Standing out on that blustery spring day under billowy clouds amid blue skies, we periodically gazed upward as we heard the captain explain that our two-month training was to include reconnaissance and application of Morse code. For the first time during this dreadful war, I began to realize that the reason officers were selected as flyers was related to the need to grasp technical concepts, which sometimes coincided with advanced education.

The captain blustered, “Other skills taught here include navigation, bomb sighting, and machine gunnery—both on the ground and in aerial combat. But before you undergo your baptism of fire, there will be two weeks of classroom theory.”

A collective groan was expressed in typical schoolboy fashion, completely ignored by the captain. We were encouraged to poke around the aerodrome, observe the aeroplane in all aspects of flight, from takeoff to landing, and learn its mechanics, its very fabric, before venturing skyward.

The discipline in the RFC was casual when compared to the infantry, yet all of the cadets took their training very seriously because if we didn’t, the chance of surviving the skies was diminished. The end of each day was a pleasure. We would retreat to the mess for a few beers and a great cook up, and continue to learn from one another’s experiences.

. . .

Mail was dropped daily, left in the mess in time for midday dinner. Since the moment Daisy had acted as go-between, the most special days were when Cissy’s letters arrived.

Lieutenant Robert C. Pitman

C/O RFC Headquarters

London, England

22 April, 1917

Dearest Bob,

It was wonderful this morning to receive your weekly letter in the post. You are such a sweet man, and I always look forward to hearing about your training exploits. It must be so exciting that you are to soon soar high up in one of those majestic biplanes!

You have been so kind to me over the past weeks with your thoughts and wishes that keep me going and get me through each long day. Nottingham is terribly different from London, but the girls are nice and we have many friendly ventures out to the pubs and such.

The factory is a monster, employing thousands in pursuit of the war effort. Even with the problems you and I faced, perhaps more so because of them, I continue to take up my support for women of all classes and the inevitable vote we will soon be granted. I believe that.

And thank you for recognizing the Silvertown horror, as I was close to a few of the girls who perished. After crying for them, we are compelled to pick ourselves up and continue the work. It remains risky, and the pressure continues to produce more and more explosives, but I’m sure that now the Ministry will increase safeguards.

Do keep writing, my darling. Does it feel strange to hear me call you that? We have known each other for longer by letter than in person, yet I feel closer to you as the days pass.

Take care and be safe, my strong flyer! I so look forward to a reunion just as soon as you can manage a reprieve from your work.

Yours,

Cissy

I wallowed in that one word, yours. I was thrilled. I had known what I had to do those many weeks ago and was proud I’d had the courage to follow through. Reaching out to Daisy was the first and most difficult part, as I knew she would get a message to Cissy and I wasn’t certain about the response. In that first letter I was very blunt about my disappointment with being infected since that unbearable memory had usurped such a pleasurable, intimate meeting between the two of us. But it had to be addressed.

Yet I had held out an olive branch, stating that I understood how such grief could happen and that I believed in her and cared, not just in my heart but for her safety. I knew she had been granted a healthy discharge but also that she was ordered to relocate to the National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell, near Nottingham.

While we had not seen each other since our farewell at Mrs. Clarke’s, we so desired to. I could feel the passion in her letters, and I eagerly responded in kind. I dreamed of her beauty, of holding her. My days were filled—consumed—with thoughts of moving forward with each other. My training was enhanced as my heart was flying as high as the aircraft soaring above the aerodrome.

. . .

With the completion of classroom instruction, we were eager to get airborne. My first flight would forever be etched into my mind. The Avro 504J two-seater biplane was capable of traveling at ninety-five miles per hour, faster than any train I’d traveled in. I felt safe sitting in the seat behind my pilot, Captain Walker. It was almost like being enveloped in a cocoon except that there was nothing above my shoulders but open air.

The power of the 100 hp Gnome engine, as it noisily sparked to life after the air mechanic primed it with a spin of the propeller, was exhilarating. Vibration riddled the aircraft as the engine raced wide open until Walker “blipped” it down. I had been versed in this particular engine, which required the use of a Coupé button to continually blip the engine on and off, controlling its revolutions. While that now seemed awkward, I had been told that it made for smooth flying. The captain twisted to face me, giving a thumbs-up.

“Ready, Pitman?”

I felt the leather flying cap tighten against my forehead as I beamed a massive smile. “Yes, sir. Ready!”

“All right, let’s see what the heavens are up to today.” I hoped he meant the rhetorical version.

On command of Captain Walker’s controls and expert blipping, the craft moved forward across the flat, grassy plain. Racing toward the corner of the field, we cleverly spun around with a deft coordination of power blast and rudder control, facing into the wind. We momentarily sat there as the increased engine noise and a smoother vibration made it feel as though we were all-powerful, but going nowhere. Yet.

After straining, begging to move, the aircraft suddenly lurched forward and we were hurtling across the field toward the barracks. About two-thirds of the way across, the back end sank into the ground, or I thought it had, but it was the front end lifting up, and before I could think about anything else, we were above the barracks. Looking over the side, we seemed to be careening past the shoreline at a reckless pace, but that image slowed considerably as we gained altitude.

The sheer joy of losing myself in the moment was delightful, and looking at the billowy clouds set against the clear blue sky was breathtaking. As we increased height, looking down on those wisps of white was absorbing, making it feel as if we were floating in a timeless capsule. Turning this way and twisting that, dipping down and rising up, were all part of the experience. The wind sailing across my leather helmet and goggles and against my face was as pleasurable as anything I’d ever experienced. That is, once I learned to keep a closed mouth to avoid inhaling and gasping at the rushing air. At one point, Walker turned to look at me or to determine if I was still with him, I’m not sure which, but I gave a meek wave that he responded to with a determined thumbs-up.

Thoughts and feelings were buzzing through my mind at a speed seemingly as fast as the aeroplane. I felt free, as free as the birds I had watched for as long as I could remember, gliding through their own air space. In spite of this being the most dangerous thing I’d ever done, the flight gave me courage, a feeling of power. I realized that being aloft on that peaceful, lazy day would seem like child’s play against what was to come over enemy lands, but somehow I felt I’d be more in control flying over top of them than fighting on the ground.

Forcing my mind back to the task, I remembered to gaze at the few gauges and dials located in my seat, the observer’s office. I saw from the altimeter that at one point we reached eight thousand feet, and later, that the airspeed indicator registered seventy miles per hour!

After what seemed like five minutes, we began our descent. We had actually been airborne for thirty-five minutes. Approaching from the east along the English Channel coastline, we passed Dover, those white cliffs gleaming in the spring sunshine. Closer yet, we soared over the Martello Tower. We circled the aerodrome a few times, and with each pass, dropped lower until the people on the ground became larger than miniature toy soldiers. We were coming in off the sea, facing into the wind with the barracks in front of us.

Looking over the side, it seemed we were traveling at a horrific speed that could only end in a crash. We landed quite abruptly as the machine bumped down hard, flew up twenty feet into the air, and bumped hard again, followed by a series of smaller bumps until we were rolling across the grass in what I later learned was a perfect landing. We pulled up to the crowd of waiting men. After watching Walker climb down out of his cockpit, I copied his grace and also descended to the grass amid cheers and congratulations, the very same as those offered to the lads who had gone up before me.