Sixty Squadron 1

Sixty Squadron 1

Sixty Squadron R.A.F., by Group-Captain A. J. L. Scott PREFACE This book tells the story of Squadron No. 60 of the Royal Flying Corps, afterwards of the Royal Air Force. When the war began, in August 1914, the Royal Flying Corps was a very small body which sent four squadrons on active service and had a rudimentary training organisation at home. In those days the only functions contemplated for an airman were reconnaissance and occasionally bombing. Fighting in the air was almost unknown. The aeroplanes were just flying machines of different types, but intended to perform substantially the same functions. Gradually as the war continued specialisation developed. Fighting in the air began, machine guns being mounted for the purpose in the aeroplanes. Then some aeroplanes were designed particularly for reconnaissance, some particularly for fighting, some for bombing, and so on. It was in the early part of this period of specialisation that Squadron No. 60 was embodied. And, as this narrative tells us, its main work was fighting in the air. It was equipped for the most part with aeroplanes which were called scouts--not very felicitously, since a scout suggests rather reconnaissance than combat. These machines carried only one man, were fast, easy to manœuvre, and quick in responding to control. They were armed with one or two machine guns, and they engaged in a form of warfare new in the history of the world, and the most thrilling that can be imagined--for each man fought with his own hand, trusting wholly to his own skill, and that not on his own element, but in outrage of nature, high in the air, surrounded only by the winds and clouds. The embodiment of the fighting scout squadrons was part of the expansion and organisation of what became the Royal Air Force. Among all the achievements of the war there has been, perhaps, nothing more wonderful than the development of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service, and their amalgamation in the great Royal Air Force which fought through the last year of the war. When the war opened, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were bodies of few units, ancillary to the Army and the Navy, of which the control was in the hands of the Army Council and the Board of Admiralty. It was not realised that warfare in the air was a new and distinct type of warfare. Generals who would have laughed at the idea of commanding a fleet, Admirals who would have shrunk from the leadership of an army corps, were quite unconscious of their unfitness to deal with the problems of aerial war. Every step, therefore, of the organisation and expansion of the flying services had to be conducted under the final control of bodies, kindly and sympathetic indeed, but necessarily ignorant. That the Royal Flying Corps attained to its famous efficiency and was expanded more than a hundredfold should earn unforgetting praise for those who were responsible for leading and developing it. The country owes a great debt, which has not, perhaps, been sufficiently recognised, to Sir David Henderson, whose rare gifts of quick intelligence and ready resource must have been taxed to the utmost in his dual position as head of the Flying Corps and member of the Army Council; to Sir Sefton Brancker, who worked under him in the War Office; and to Sir Hugh Trenchard, who, from the date that Sir David Henderson came back from France to that of the amalgamation of the flying services in the Royal Air Force, was in command in France. It was the administrative skill of these distinguished men that stood behind the work of the squadrons and made possible their fighting or bombing or reconnaissance. And this background of administrative skill and resource must not be forgotten or suffered to be quite outshone by the brilliant gallantry of the pilots and observers. But in this book we read, not of the organisation of the Flying Corps or the Air Force, but of the actual work done in the field. We catch glimpses, indeed, of the expansion and organisation which was going on, in the mention of new armament, new machines, new units; and we are able to gauge the importance of the work done at home and at Headquarters in France by the effect produced on the fighting capacity of Squadron No. 60. For example, we hear how machines supplied from France at one point proved untrustworthy in structure, and how the fault was detected and put right. But in the main attention is concentrated on the thrilling story of the achievements of No. 60 against the enemy. I think every reader will agree that he has seldom known a story more moving to the imagination. Many people even now feel apprehensive at flying at all, although familiarity has produced a juster estimate of the degree of risk attending that operation than used to prevail. But to fly and fight, to sit alone in an aeroplane thousands of feet above the ground, to catch sight of an enemy, to go to attack him, flying faster than an express train moves, to venture as near as may be dared, knowing that the slightest collision will cast both helpless to the ground, to dodge and dive and turn and spin, to hide in clouds or in the dazzle of the sun, to fire a machine gun while not losing mastery of the control and rudder of one’s aeroplane, to notice the enemy’s bullets striking here and there on one’s machine, and know that if a bullet hits the engine it means either death or a precarious landing and captivity, and if a bullet hits the petrol tank it means being burned alive in the air, and yet to fight on and, escaping, go forth afresh next day--surely to read of this is to realise with new and penetrating force the stupendous measure of what human skill can do and human courage dare. The picturesque effect of the fighting is enhanced by the security and comfort in which the pilots rested when they were not in the air, and from which they went up day by day to their terrific duties. Anyone who visited the Flying Corps while the war was going on must have been struck by this poignant contrast. The visitor saw a comfortable mess and billets, roughly organised indeed, but for young men in the height of their strength a pleasant place to live in. Good food and drink, cigarettes to smoke, newspapers to read, and all the fun and merriment that are natural to a group of young men between eighteen and thirty years old. And for most of such squadrons the surroundings seemed peaceful: around were the smiling, highly-cultivated fields of France--perhaps the most evidently civilised country in the world--with nothing to witness of war except the distant booming of its guns. Yet from this abode of youth and ease and joy the dwellers went forth into the abyss of the air, to face danger at which imagination quails and of the reality of which they were grimly reminded by missing week by week some familiar face, gone for ever from their circle. This was what was done and felt by Squadron No. 60, and here is the story of it. I am sure this book will interest those who read it, but I would have it do something more. Even already the memory of the war is beginning to fade. And it is happy that it should: may its orgy of hate and blood pass from our minds as from our lives! Yet, while the healing, deadening waters of oblivion are only drawing near, let us save from them with careful hands some jewelled memories, that by them we may be profited; and, amongst them, this of the men of No. 60, who fought a new warfare with old but unsurpassed courage and found the way of glory among the untrodden paths of air. Many died and many suffered, but they bought for us the unpriced treasure of their example. This is like sunshine to us, giving us life and killing all diseases of the soul. Let us, then, read these pages that we may learn from our hearts to honour the fighting airmen of No. 60, and grow ourselves in honour as we read.             HUGH CECIL.   21 ARLINGTON STREET.     _July 1920._ AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT It has only been possible to produce this book at all by reason of the help that so many old friends have given me. My thanks are due to many of them, but in particular to Flight-Lieut. G. W. Dobson, who has himself contributed the account of the squadron at Savy, and has assisted with much of the more arduous work in connection with the preparation of the appendices, which we both hope are now correct in every detail, though we really know quite well that errors will, in fact, be found. Capt. W. E. Molesworth also has helped very greatly by allowing me to use his vivid letters and by giving the four drawings by himself, which, I venture to think, are of considerable merit. To Mr. R. J. Maclennan, Mr. W. A. H. Newth, and Mr. W. T. Howard, and also to Mr. G. S. Armstrong, father of the late Capt. D. V. Armstrong, perhaps the finest pilot the Flying Corps ever produced, I owe letters and photographs which have been invaluable. In conclusion, I would ask those many others whom I have not space to mention to believe that I am sincerely grateful for their help.             J. S.   4 WILTON STREET, S.W.1.     _June 28, 1920._ CONTENTS                                                                     PAGE   PREFACE                                                            vii   AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT                                                 xiii   AN EXPLANATION OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED                             xix   CHAPTER I   THE FORMATION OF THE SQUADRON                                        1   CHAPTER II   THE SOMME                                                           11   CHAPTER III   ARRAS                                                               30   CHAPTER IV   PASSCHENDALE AND THE NORTHERN BATTLES                               65   CHAPTER V   THE MARCH OFFENSIVE (1918)                                          92   CHAPTER VI   DEMOBILISATION                                                     125   APPENDIX I   A LIST OF THE OFFICERS WHO SERVED IN 60 SQUADRON DURING THE WAR    128   APPENDIX II   A LIST OF BATTLE CASUALTIES                                        134   INDEX                                                              139 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS   BALLOON STRAFING                                        _Frontispiece_                                                              FACING PAGE   PATROL OF MORANE “BULLETS” ABOUT TO LEAVE THE GROUND, VERT       GALANT, JUNE 1916                                                6   H. BALFOUR AND D. V. ARMSTRONG, JULY 1916                            8   CLAUDE A. RIDLEY, D.S.O., M.C., IN A MORANE “BULLET”                 8   SUMMERS STANDING BY HIS MORANE “PARASOL”                            16   MAJOR R. SMITH-BARRY IN A MORANE “BULLET”                           16   BROWNING-PATERSON WITH HIS MORANE “PARASOL”                         20   CAPT. D. V. ARMSTRONG                                               20   SOME OF THE OFFICERS OF 60                                          24   MORANE “BULLET” CRASHED BY SIMPSON. BOISDINGHEM, JUNE 1916          24   “A” FLIGHT AWAITING SIGNAL TO PROCEED ON PATROL, MAY 1917           28   THE KAISER DECORATING VON RICHTHOFEN, WHOSE AEROPLANE APPEARS       BEYOND THE GROUP                                                28   MOLESWORTH, BISHOP, AND CALDWELL, APRIL 1917                        40   BISHOP, CALDWELL, AND YOUNG, APRIL 1917                             40   THE HARD TENNIS-COURT AT FILESCAMP FARM, MAY 1917                   58   60 SQUADRON’S NIEUPORT SCOUTS LINED UP IN THE SNOW AT LE       HAMEAU AERODROME, NEAR ARRAS, JANUARY 1917                      58   A DOG-FIGHT                                                        100   “ARCHIE”                                                           100   GERMAN MACHINES                                                    112   AN S.E.A. WITH LIEUT. ROTH, A PILOT OF 148 AMERICAN SQUADRON,       STANDING                                                       118   S.E.5A. WITH 200 H.P. HISPANO SUISA ENGINE, ARMED WITH ONE       VICKERS AND ONE LEWIS GUN                                      118   MAPS: ON THE WESTERN FRONT   SITUATION ON SEPTEMBER 25, 1918                                    116   THE BATTLES AND THEIR EFFECTS                                      126 AN EXPLANATION OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED The line drawing below of a typical tractor biplane will explain to the non-technical reader the meaning of many terms used hereafter which are difficult to describe without the aid of a diagram: [Illustration] A monoplane has no lower planes, while the top planes sprout from the side of the body like the wings of a bird, but are rigid. In either type of aeroplane it is the action of the air on the wing surfaces, both upper and lower, when the machine is travelling forward at a minimum speed of about forty miles per hour that keeps it in the air. If the speed is allowed to drop below this minimum (known as the flying speed) the machine “stalls,” i.e. becomes uncontrollable, drops its nose and dives to regain flying speed. If this happens near the ground--within a hundred feet--a serious, and often fatal, crash is the result. Among the types of aeroplanes used in France during 1916-18, and mentioned in these pages but not described in detail, are: B.E.2C., R.E.8, AND OTHER TYPES OF TWO-SEATER MACHINES All two-seater machines carrying one pilot and one observer which were chiefly used for artillery observation, i.e. correcting, by observation from the air, the fire of batteries on the ground. These were tractor biplanes, i.e. the engine and propeller were in front, while the observer and pilot sat tandem in two cockpits, or nacelles, in the fish-shaped body. F.E.2B. A two-seater fighting biplane of the “pusher” type with the engine behind the pilot, who with the observer sat in a cockpit which protruded beyond the leading, or forward, edges of the planes. This aeroplane was used for day and night bombing, for fighting in 1916 and the first half of 1917, and also for reconnaissance and photographic work. DE HAVILLAND 4 A high-speed tractor two-seater biplane used for bombing, reconnaissance work, and photography. NIEUPORT, S.E.5, AND SOPWITH CAMEL Single-seater fighting scouts, all tractor biplanes. SIXTY SQUADRON R.A.F. CHAPTER I THE FORMATION OF THE SQUADRON To create a new flying unit is a task which entails much thought and labour, and the formation of 60 had been a matter for the careful consideration of the R.F.C. authorities for many months before the squadron number could appear on any of those manifold returns, without a bountiful supply of which no country seems able to go to war. Vital points for preliminary consideration are: The type of aeroplane and the numbers of this type likely to be available in the future; the engines, and, no less important, the spares which must be procured in adequate quantities if these engines are to be kept in running condition. The training units, too, must be increased in order to keep the new service formation up to strength in pilots. A sufficient number of trained mechanics must be got from somewhere, and these have usually to be wrung from the commanders of other units, themselves already short of trained personnel, and as a rule most reluctant to part with good men. All these matters were at last decided, and 60 Squadron was formed on May 1, 1916. At that time there were in the Royal Flying Corps about thirty-five service squadrons all told, of which by far the greater number were in France. The Royal Naval Air Service had at this date considerably fewer service units. When the Armistice was signed, there were well over two hundred service squadrons in the Royal Air Force, which had come into being as an independent entity distinct from the Army or the Navy on April 1, 1918. During the months previous to the formation of 60, the Germans, with the aid of the Fokker monoplane, which they produced in the autumn of 1915, had begun seriously to interfere with our artillery observation machines. At this period of the war--early 1916--we had no complete single-seater fighting scout squadrons, but achieved the protection of the artillery machines, mostly B.E.2C.s, by having a few Bristol and other scouts in each two-seater squadron. As a result of these losses, General Trenchard decided to form some new scout squadrons, of which 60 shortly became one, and also to re-equip some of the existing squadrons with scouts. No. 1 Squadron, for example, was given Nieuports (a French machine), at that time the equal of any German fighter. No. 60 was formed from No. 1 Reserve Aeroplane Squadron at Gosport. Major F. Waldron, known to his friends as “Ferdy,” was the first commander of the new unit. He had previously commanded No. 1 R.A.S., and was a cavalry officer who had been seconded from his Hussar regiment (the 19th), some time before the war, to the R.F.C. He was one of the earlier military aviators. He had been an instructor at the Central Flying School at Upavon and was a first-class pilot. The three original flight commanders (Capts. R. Smith-Barry, A. S. M. Somers, and H. C. Tower) were all three old Etonians. The original flying officers were: Capt. D. B. Gray; Lieuts. H. A. Browning-Paterson, J. N. Simpson, G. F. A. Portal, H. H. Balfour, H. Meintjies, A. D. Bell-Irving; 2/Lieuts. C. A. Ridley, D. V. Armstrong, H. G. Smart, and G. D. F. Keddie. The observers were: Lieuts. R. H. Knowles and G. Williams; 2/Lieuts. L. L. Clark, H. J. Newton, H. H. Harris, H. Good, C. F. Overy, J. I. M. O’Beirne, W. E. G. Bryant, J. Laurie-Reid, J. N. O. Heenan (A.E.O.), and J. Bigood (A.E.O., wireless). Usually a new squadron received its machines in England at its home station and flew them over to France. 60 Squadron, however, was to be equipped with Moranes, French machines which were not built in England at that time. Consequently the squadron, with its motor transport, stores, etc., crossed to France by sea, and went to St. Omer, where its equipment was completed. An R.F.C. squadron had two sergeant-majors: one disciplinary, the other technical. Waldron, when forming 60, chose these warrant officers with considerable discretion. Sergt.-Maj. Aspinall, an old Guardsman brought into the Flying Corps by Basil Barrington-Kennet in the very early days, was the disciplinary warrant officer. He had qualified as a rigger and had tried to learn to fly, but it was as a disciplinarian that he really shone. He played no inconsiderable part in the achievement of whatever success the squadron may have had. He was a first-class soldier, and his instructions to flight commanders in the form of little typewritten lectures were gems of their kind. It should be remembered that at times the casualties in the squadron were very heavy, and officers became flight commanders at an age which would have been regarded as absurd before the war. “The Great Man,” as we called him, would explain with profound respect to a captain promoted, most deservedly, at the age of nineteen the necessity for assuming a judicial demeanour when an air mechanic was brought up before him on some minor charge; he would, further, instruct the young flight commander most carefully in the punishments appropriate to each offence, and all this without in the smallest particular transgressing that code of military etiquette which regulates so strictly the relations between commissioned and warrant officers. Only his successive commanding officers know how much of the tranquillity and contentment of the men was due to “the Great Man.” The technical sergeant-major, Smyrk by name, was a wizard with an internal combustion engine. He had been employed at the Gramophone Co.’s factory at Hayes in civil life before joining the R.F.C. in 1912, and had a gift for teaching fitters their business. During almost all the war, two fitters a month had to be sent home to assist in the manning of new units, while the squadrons in the field had, in consequence, always to carry a percentage of untrained or partially trained men, who had to be made into experts on the engines with which they were equipped. The technical sergeant-major had to train these men, and was also the specialist who was called in whenever one of the flights had an unusually refractory engine which had baffled both the flight commander and his flight sergeant. Smyrk was always equal to every call upon him, and a long line of pilots should, and no doubt do, remember him with gratitude, for, after all, the degree of efficiency with which the engine was looked after often meant the difference between a landing in Hunland and getting home. After a few days at St. Omer we received our machines, which were Moranes of three different types: “A” Flight had Morane “bullets,” 80 h.p.; “B” Flight, 110 h.p. Morane biplanes; and “C” Flight, Morane “parasols.” Of the “parasol,” a two-seater monoplane, it is unnecessary to say very much, as they were soon replaced by “bullets,” and “C” Flight did practically no work on them. The machine is best, perhaps, described as a biplane without any bottom planes, by which is meant that the wings were above the pilot’s head, a feature which suggested its nickname. It had an 80 h.p. Le Rhone at that time, almost the best air-cooled rotary engine. They were good for artillery registration, as the view downward was excellent; they were very stable also, easy to fly and to land, and, in fact, were “kind” machines, giving their pilots the sort of feeling afforded by a good-tempered, confidential old hunter. The Morane biplane had a more powerful engine, the 110 Le Rhone, also an air-cooled rotary, and was quite an efficient “kite,” as the R.F.C. called them, with its inveterate habit of inventing pet names for its aeroplanes. It was draughty and cold to sit in, but was light on the controls and had a reasonably good performance. This machine was also a two-seater, like the “parasol,” with the observer’s seat behind the pilot’s. [Illustration: PATROL OF MORANE “BULLETS” ABOUT TO LEAVE THE GROUND, VERT GALANT, JUNE 1916.] The Morane “bullet,” with a 80 h.p. Le Rhone engine, was quite a different proposition. This was a monoplane with a fuselage (body) of the monococque, or cigar-shaped, type and very small wings, giving, therefore, a very high loading per square foot of lifting surface. The speed near the ground was not too bad for 1916, being about ninety to ninety-five miles per hour, but, owing to the high loading on the wings, the machine became inefficient at a height. It had the gliding angle of a brick, as a pilot moodily complained after an unsuccessful forced landing. It is obvious that, if a machine has a very small wing surface, it must be kept going fast, when gliding without the engine, to preserve its flying speed, and this can only be done by keeping the nose well down; hence the unfriendly description quoted above. Above 10,000 feet it was difficult to turn a “bullet” sharply and steeply without “stalling”; moreover, in bad weather it was very uncomfortable to fly, giving the impression that it was trying its best to kill the pilot all the time. The lateral control,[1] of the “warp” type, was to some extent responsible for this. The armament was a fixed Lewis gun firing through the propeller, which was fitted with a metal deflector--a steel wedge which prevented the propeller being shot through. There was no synchronising gear on any of the Moranes. By this is meant the device by which the detonation of the gun was harmonised with the beat of the propeller; actually the gun is blocked when the blades of the propeller are in the line of fire. Later on we were given some “bullets” with 110 h.p. Le Rhones, but these were no better, as the loading was even higher with the heavier engine, and their performance above 8,000 feet was consequently poor. The climb for the first few thousand feet was wonderful, as the engine seemed almost to pull the machine straight up. Generally speaking, the “bullet” was not a success, as it was too difficult to fly for the average pilot. Nevertheless, as several of our pilots, notably Smith-Barry, Gilchrist, Foot, Grenfell, Meintjies, and Hill, and in particular D. V. Armstrong, were considerably above the average, some useful work was accomplished on these machines. The equipment having been completed, we moved to Boisdinghem, between St. Omer and Boulogne, for a few days’ practice with the new machines. This was very necessary, as hardly anyone had flown Moranes before. On June 10 we were ordered to Vert Galant, an aerodrome astride the Doullens-Amiens road, and joined the 13th Wing of the 3rd Brigade R.F.C., operating with the 3rd Army. War flying was started a few days later, and it at once became apparent that our anti-aircraft batteries found difficulty in distinguishing our “bullets” from the Fokkers. In consequence the black cowls of our machines were painted red to help the “archie”[2] gunners, who had been assiduously firing at 60’s machines. [Illustration: H. BALFOUR AND D. V. ARMSTRONG, JULY 1916.] [Illustration: CLAUDE A. RIDLEY, D.S.O., M.C., IN A MORANE “BULLET.”] The work at this time chiefly consisted of offensive patrols, which were supposed to keep the air clear for our corps and bombing machines. Numerous reconnaissances were also carried out. In these days scouts usually worked in pairs, but larger formations of five and six machines were becoming more common; later in the war it was the rule to send out a whole squadron, or as many of its machines as were serviceable, over the line at once; but in 1916 aeroplanes and pilots were, usually, too scarce to send more than two off the ground at once. On August 3, 1916, Claude Ridley had a forced landing near Douai through engine failure when dropping a spy over the lines. His adventures were remarkable. His spy got out, told Ridley to hide for a little, and presently, returning with civilian clothes and some money, told him that he must now shift for himself. Ridley did so with such address that he eluded capture for three months on the German side of the line, and eventually worked his way via Brussels to the Dutch frontier and escaped. This was a good performance, none the worse because he could speak neither French nor German. The method he adopted was a simple one--he would go up to some likely-looking civilian and say, “I am a British officer trying to escape; will you help me?” They always did. He had many interesting adventures. For example, he lay up near the Douai aerodrome and watched the young Huns learning to fly and crashing on the aerodrome; here he saw one of our B.E.s brought down, and the pilot and observer marched past him into captivity; later the conductor of a tram in the environs of Brussels suspected him, but, knocking the man down, he jumped into a field of standing corn and contrived to elude pursuit. This method of landing spies was not popular with R.F.C. pilots, as there was always quite a chance that one might not be able to get the machine off again, and, anyhow, it was a nerve-racking experience to have to land in a field after a necessarily hurried survey from the air, and wait while your spy climbed slowly--very slowly--out. Later, different and, from the pilot’s point of view, improved devices were adopted; the spy was made to sit on the plane with a parachute and to jump off when told. Occasionally they refused to jump, nor is it easy to blame them, so a further improvement is said to have been introduced by which the pilot could pull a lever and drop the wretched agent out through the bottom of the fuselage, after which he parachuted down to earth. They were very brave men, these French spies who voluntarily entered the occupied territory in this hazardous manner. They were usually dropped either in the late evening or early morning. CHAPTER II THE SOMME Sixty had not to wait long for its first taste of serious fighting. The “aerial offensive,” which always precedes any “push,” was already well developed when the squadron commenced war flying. Casualties were heavy, and on July 3, two days after the official commencement of the Somme battle, Ferdy Waldron was shot down and killed on the “other side.” He considered it his duty to try and do one job per day over the line, and on this particular morning he led “A” Flight’s 80 h.p. “bullets” over at 4 a.m. in perfect weather. The other members of the patrol were Smith-Barry, Armstrong, Simpson, and Balfour. The last-named thus describes the fight: “Both Armstrong and Simpson fell out, through engine trouble, before we reached Arras. Armstrong landed by a kite balloon section and breakfasted with Radford (Basil Hallam, the actor), whose kite balloon was attacked a few days later, and who met his death through the failure of his parachute. Waldron led the remaining two along the Arras-Cambrai road. We crossed at about 8,000 feet, and just before reaching Cambrai we were about 9,000, when I suddenly saw a large formation of machines about our height coming from the sun towards us. There must have been at least twelve. They were two-seaters led by one Fokker (monoplane) and followed by two others. I am sure they were not contemplating ‘war’ at all, but Ferdy pointed us towards them and led us straight in. “My next impressions were rather mixed. I seemed to be surrounded by Huns in two-seaters. I remember diving on one, pulling out of the dive, and then swerving as another came for me. I can recollect also looking down and seeing a Morane about 800 feet below me going down in a slow spiral, with a Fokker hovering above it following every turn. I dived on the Fokker, who swallowed the bait and came after me, but unsuccessfully, as I had taken care to pull out of my dive while still above him. The Morane I watched gliding down under control, doing perfect turns, to about 2,000 feet, when I lost sight of it. I thought he must have been hit in the engine. After an indecisive combat with the Fokker I turned home, the two-seaters having disappeared. Smith-Barry I never saw from start to finish of the fight. I landed at Vert Galant and reported that Ferdy had ‘gone down under control.’ We all thought he was a prisoner, but heard soon afterwards that he had landed safely but died of wounds that night, having been hit during the scrap. “About twenty minutes after I had landed, Smith-Barry came back. He had not seen us, but had been fighting the back two Fokkers, which he drove east, but not before he had been shot about by them, one bullet entering the tail and passing up the fuselage straight for his back until it hit the last cross-member, which deflected the course of the missile sufficiently to save him.” This was the end of a first-class squadron commander, and, coming so early in our fighting career, was a heavy blow. If he had lived, Waldron must have made a great name for himself in the R.F.C. Smith-Barry now took over the squadron. He was a great “character”--an Irishman with all an Irishman’s charm. A trifle eccentric, he was a fine pilot. He had crashed badly near Amiens in the retreat from Mons, the first Flying Corps casualty, breaking both his legs, which left him permanently lame. Although beloved by his squadron, his superiors sometimes found him a little trying officially. It is often said, half admiringly, of a man by his friends that “he doesn’t care a damn for anyone.” I believe this to have been almost literally true of Smith-Barry. He could do anything with an aeroplane, and delighted in frightening his friends with incredible aerial antics. He was a fine, if original, squadron commander, almost too original, in fact, even for the R.F.C., where, if anywhere in the fighting services, originality was encouraged. At a later stage (in 1917) in Smith-Barry’s career he rendered a very great service to the Corps and to the country by bringing his contempt for precedent and genius for instruction to bear on the question of teaching pilots to fly. It is no exaggeration to say that he revolutionised instruction in aviation, and, having been given almost a free hand by General J. Salmond, he organised his Gosport School of Special Flying, which afterwards developed into a station where all flying instructors were trained. He has been seen to walk down the Strand in full uniform with an umbrella. When promoted in 1918 to the command of a brigade, he, having come into conflict with authority, dispatched the following telegrams on the same day to his immediate superior: (1) “Am returning to Gosport. Smith-Barry, Brig.-Gen.” (2) “Have arrived at Gosport. Smith-Barry, Lieut.-Col.” Smith-Barry’s batman was a French boy named Doby, a refugee from Lille, whom Nicolson, sometime private secretary to General Seely and one of the early pilots of the R.F.C., had picked up during the retreat from Mons and taken back to England with him. When Nicolson was killed at Gosport, Smith-Barry appointed Doby as his batman and, in order to take him to France, dressed him in R.F.C. uniform and called him Air Mechanic Doby. This boy was most useful, being competent to bargain with his compatriots for the goods which the mess required. When a year had gone by and there had been several changes in command, nobody knew his history, and he was regarded as a genuine member of the Corps. History does not relate how he was eventually “demobilised.” This, then, was the kind of man who took over the squadron on Waldron’s death--at a critical point in its career. Those who were most conspicuous during the battles of the Somme were: Ball (who joined from 11 Squadron in August), Summers and Tower (two of the original flight commanders), Gilchrist, Latta, Grenfell, Meintjies, A. D. Bell Irving, Phillippi, Hill, Foot, Vincent, Armstrong, and Walters. Foot, as one of the most skilful pilots, was given a “Spad,” on which he did great execution during the autumn. The fighting was mainly over places like Bapaume, Courcelette, Martinpuich, Busigny, St. Quentin, Cambrai, Havrincourt, etc. Ball began to show very prominently about this time, several times destroying two or more hostile aeroplanes, and hardly a day passed without at least one Hun being added to his bag. Much has been written about Albert Ball, so much that at this date it is difficult to add anything of interest to the accounts which are already so widely known; but this at least can confidently be said, that never during the war has any single officer made a more striking contribution to the art of war in the air than he, who was the first to make what may be called a business of killing Huns. He allowed nothing to interfere with what he conceived to be the reason of his presence in an aeroplane in France--the destruction of the enemy wherever and whenever he could be found. He was a man--a boy in truth--of a kindly nature, possessed by a high sense of duty and patriotism. These months (August and September 1916) saw Ball at his best, and though it is true that he was awarded the Victoria Cross after his death in an heroic fight in the spring of 1917, when he was a flight commander in 56 Squadron, yet it was in the summer and autumn of 1916 in 11 and 60 Squadrons that he began to show the Flying Corps what fighting in the air really meant. The copy of a report rendered to R.F.C. H.Q. is given below: [Illustration: SUMMERS STANDING-BY HIS MORANE “PARASOL.”] [Illustration: MAJOR R. SMITH-BARRY IN A MORANE “BULLET.”]     “Lieut. Ball has had more than twenty-five combats since May 16 in     a single-seater scout.     “Of these thirteen have been against more than one hostile machine.     “In particular, on August 22, he attacked in succession formations     of 7 and 5 machines in the same flight; on August 28, 4 and 10 in     succession; on August 31, 12.     “He has forced 20 German machines to land, of which 8 have been     destroyed--1 seen to be descending vertically with flames coming     out of the fuselage, and 7 seen to be wrecked on the ground.     “During this period he has forced two hostile balloons down and     destroyed one.             “(_Sgd._) J. F. A. HIGGINS,                 “_Brigadier-General,_               “_Commanding 3rd Brigade R.F.C._   “IN THE FIELD,     “_Sept. 1, 1916_.” Of the others, Latta became a wonderful pilot; Gilchrist, a gallant South African, commanded 56 at the end of the war and became one of the very best instructors under Smith-Barry at Gosport; Roderick Hill, a fine pilot, is also an artist of no small reputation; A. D. Bell Irving worthily upheld the traditions of an heroic Canadian family whose name will always appear prominently in any history of the Air Force; while Meintjies, also a South African, though young, himself displayed an infinite patience, together with a wisdom far beyond his years, in the introduction of new pilots to the hazardous game of aerial fighting as practised on the Western Front, of which he himself was a first-class exponent. As for D. V. Armstrong, a South African, who was killed in a crash just as the war had ended, and who after leaving 60 became a brilliant night-flying pilot, the following letter from Col. Small will give some slight idea of the work done by him in 151 Night Fighting Squadron.     “At 10.40 on the night of September 17/18, whilst on patrol east     of Bapaume, Capt. Armstrong observed a Gotha biplane caught in a     concentration of searchlight at 8,500 feet, with a Camel machine     behind it.     “Seeing the Camel was not engaging the E.A. (enemy aeroplane) from     a sufficiently close range, this officer dived down, coming in on     the E.A.’s right. He closed right up under its tail and fired 100     rounds into it. The E.A. then burst into flames and dived to the     ground, where it burst into pieces just east of Bapaume.     “On the night of September 10/11, 1918, on receipt of a report that     E.A. was over the 4th Army front, Capt. Armstrong volunteered to go     up, although the weather was practically impossible for flying, the     wind blowing at about fifty miles an hour, accompanied by driving     rain storms. In spite of this, Capt. Armstrong remained on his     patrol 1 hour 5 minutes, although his machine was practically out     of control on several occasions. On landing, his machine had to be     held down to prevent it being blown over.     “On the night of August 6/7, 1918, Capt. Armstrong attacked     Estrees-en-Chaussee aerodrome. After dropping three Cooper bombs on     the hangars from 600 feet, he observed an E.A. coming in to land.     Capt. Armstrong then closed under the E.A.’s tail and opened fire     from fifteen yards’ range when at 700 feet. The E.A.’s observer     answered the fire, and then suddenly ceased altogether. Capt.     Armstrong continued firing until the E.A. suddenly turned to the     right with nose down and crashed on its aerodrome, bursting     into flames as it struck the ground. This officer then dropped     his fourth bomb on the wreck and fired a further burst into it,     returning to his aerodrome with all ammunition expended.     “On the night of August 8/9, 1918, although the clouds were at     about 500 feet, this officer flew to the same hostile aerodrome,     but finding no activity there and seeing no lights whatever, he     flew to Cizancourt Bridge, dropping his four bombs upon it from 500  feet.