The second day after my return, I began another three months of strenuous battles. The squadron had been assigned a new kind of work to do, in addition to regular patrol. This lasted throughout a great part of the month of June, and gave us some very strenuous mornings, although the afternoons were generally easier.
My first fight occurred in the early morning, about seven o’clock, when I was leading a patrol. The clouds were very low, being about four thousand feet, the lower part of each cloud having a thin hanging mist about it. This made it possible to fly just in the mist, without being seen at more than two hundred yards.
I had been gazing far into enemy territory, and suddenly saw five enemy scouts dive out of the clouds; then after coming in our direction for a moment or two, dive back into the mist. I thought they were trying to surprise us, and crawled up as close to the clouds as I could, heading in their direction. Suddenly they loomed up just in front of us, and evidently were more surprised than we were. I only managed to get in a short burst, when my machine gun jammed hopelessly, but the remainder of the patrol gave chase to the Huns, as they turned to run and scattered them helter-skelter. One man appeared to be hit, and one of my men went after him in a vertical dive to one thousand feet from the ground, when the enemy suddenly regained control, and darted across his own lines, escaping.
Later in the day I went out by myself, and, flying over Vimy Ridge and Lens, was watching a ground battle taking place there, when suddenly I saw a single scout of the enemy, underneath me. He did not see me, and I dived at him and managed to fall into the much desired position just behind his tail. I opened fire, and my tracer bullets could be seen going all around the pilot’s seat. I had considerable speed from my dive, and was going much faster than he was, so whirled past him. Then, to avoid getting him behind me, I “zoomed” up, and after reaching five hundred feet above, made a quick turn to see what had happened. To this day, I have not the faintest idea what happened. My enemy entirely disappeared from view. I looked all around underneath, and everywhere else, but could not see him. Later, I telephoned to the anti-aircraft batteries and infantry stations near the front line trenches, but they could give no information. That particular Hun must have dissolved.
Ten minutes later, I had another fight. I had seen, some distance away, two of the enemy. They were fighting machines, so I reconnoitered carefully, and a little later discovered two more Huns were flying two thousand feet above them. I climbed up, and looked carefully from a distance at these; then climbed a little higher, with the idea of attacking them, when I suddenly saw two more Huns, 3,000 feet above the second pair. It was a layer formation, and a favourite trap of the Huns, their idea being that our machines would come along and attack the lower pair, in which case the middle pair would come down on top of them leaving the highest pair in reserve. This had been tried innumerable times, and had been more or less successful, but, long since, our people had become wise and always watched for anything of that sort. By pure luck, that morning, I saw the top pair, and, flying away off to one side, climbed as fast as I could until two thousand feet above them; then followed along. I was quite certain there was no fourth pair, and also knew that the third pair would be very keen on watching underneath them to see that their comrades were not attacked. It was a case of the trappers trapped; and, successful on this occasion, I was always on the lookout for the same sort of thing after that day, and succeeded in bringing down some of the top-side people on several other occasions.
This day I dived down at the top pair, one of which was flying directly behind the other. I did not touch my trigger until I was fifty yards from him; then opened a stiff fire. This machine, as on the previous time I had used a similar trick, knew nothing of what was coming to him at all. He also probably never knew what hit him, because, slipping to one side, his machine went into a spin and fell completely out of control. I did not wait to attack the other man, as I was underneath him, and by the time he had turned to see what was happening, I was a quarter of a mile away, and going for home as fast as possible. It was the first machine to my credit since my return from England, and I was greatly pleased.
By this time I had become very ambitious, and was hoping to get a large number of machines officially credited to me before I left France. With this object in view, I planned many little expeditions of my own, and, with the use of great patience, I was very successful in one or two.
The next day I was out with my patrol again in the morning, and met six enemy scouts. There were six of us, as well, but, in the earlier part of the “scrap” which immediately followed, my gun, which seemed to be causing me a lot of trouble, again jammed, and I signalled to the others that I had to leave the fight. I dived away, and landed on an aerodrome nearby to correct the jam.
Three quarters of an hour later I was again in the air, but could not find the patrol, so I flew up over Vimy Ridge. There was one of my old friends, a big, fat two-seater, and I went after him with joy in my soul. Three times I managed to get in a burst of fire diving once from straight above, and once from either side, but I did not seem to be able to hit him at all.
Glancing suddenly over my shoulder, I saw two enemy scouts coming to the rescue from above. They had been sitting away up in the blue sky, in order to protect this machine, and, luckily for me, had not seen me sooner. I cleared off, and carefully thought how I was to get my revenge. Nothing in the world but that fat-two seater attracted my attention. I was annoyed at having missed him, after such good chances, and was determined I was at least going to have another good go at him before giving up. The only trouble was the two enemy scouts above, and I did not know how to get rid of them. They had seen me, and probably had their eye on me at the moment.
I flew away, and came back in five minutes. Luck was with me; another one of our machines had flown slightly above the two enemy scouts, who had turned and fled from him. He had chased them, and they had made a detour, evading him. All this I took in at a glance, and saw that they were trying to get back to protect their two-seater comrade, and had no desire to fight, themselves. Seeing my opportunity, as the two-seater did not seem to know that the scouts had temporarily deserted him, I dived at him again, and this time closed up to within fifty yards before opening fire. Then, taking an accurate aim, I pulled the trigger. I can remember to this day how carefully I aimed that time. I was dead behind him, and I picked out the finest point in the pilot’s body where I wanted my bullets to hit. The observer in the two-seater ceased firing at me a moment before I opened, and began to work frantically at his gun. It had the jamming habit, too. A few rounds were enough. The machine put its nose down, dived vertically a short distance, then went into an uncontrolled spinning dive, and I watched it as it fell racing down towards the ground, with the engine full on. As is always the case, it seemed to take an age before it reached the ground. Finally it crashed into the centre of a village, striking between two houses.
Ten minutes later I had climbed up and was above the two scouts, so decided to give them at least a scare. I opened fire at long range, and, for a moment, thought I had hit one of them. He went into a spin, but two thousand feet below flattened out and flew away. The other one climbed, and I could not catch him, so turned and flew north.
Another two-seater, who had been flying along the lines, was now three thousand feet above me. I opened fire at him from underneath, at very long range, but, of course, could not hit, the range being too long.
Many exciting fights occurred with the machines doing artillery observation. They were a very difficult proposition. They knew for a certainty they would be attacked, and would fly in threes and fours, or more, going about on their beat all together, and helping their own lines, and at a height of three thousand feet. It made it very difficult for us to attack, as, the height being low, we would have to make a dash across the lines at them, and then back again. Over and over again one would carefully figure out where they would be nearest the lines, then, at that moment, dash across at full speed. The enemy, immediately upon seeing the anti-aircraft shells burst around you, would turn east and fly towards home, going as fast as they could, and at the same time losing height. It meant that to really destroy or damage them, one had to fly ten or twelve miles in to catch them; then they would only be at a height of some five hundred or a thousand feet. This was our task. The anti-aircraft fire was terrific; going in not as bad as coming back, but the moment we turned to come home all the guns in the neighbourhood would open at us, and, if we were low enough, we would also be subjected to the most intense machine-gun fire from the ground.
This did not occur once a week; it was a thing that happened to each one of us three and four times, or even more, in the course of a morning’s work, and was the most trying job we had to do. Most of the fights followed the same lines, three or four of us crossing at full speed, zigzagging slightly in our course to upset the aim of the “Archies,” and then following closely the enemy machines, which were all the time directing a steady machine-gun fire at us. Our object was more to frighten them away than really to bring them down. Then would come a quick turn, and a dash back home. This would be very hard to do. One would turn suddenly to the right or left, trying to evade the bursting shells, but they were cracking on all sides. It would seem that one could not possibly get through them, and the thought that one little bit of shell in the engine would put the whole machine out of business, was enough to give anybody nerves. As it was, we were nearly always hit by small fragments, but this was considered nothing, and, of course, no reason for not liking the job. My previous experience in escorting the photography machines had taught me that other people have to stand anti-aircraft fire, as well as ourselves, and for them, being larger and slower, it is a thousand times worse.