First Combat

We recommenced patrols after a few days of bad weather but nothing of an exciting nature occurred other than the pursuit of a two-seater on one occasion, and the shooting up of enemy trenches just for fun from the safe height of about three thousand feet. Be assured that we nearly twisted our heads off watching the sun and in keeping an eye on our tails. We were in no danger of forgetting our lessons.

Then the squadron got its first Hun. Arthur O’Hara Wood attacked an enemy two-seater and crashed it near La Bassee after a short fight. The squadron had drawn blood, and we were most anxious to know all about how it was done, but it appeared that there was nothing to tell. O’Hara Wood just remarked that after a couple of bursts, the machine had gone into a spin and hit the deck.

We carried on with offensive patrols for some days without any particular action. Many times enemy formations were sighted, but they were either too far off to force into battle, or perhaps they were not in a fighting mood. Anyhow nothing eventuated. On all these patrols we finished by firing several hundred rounds into the enemy lines or billets, not with any hope of doing particular damage, but just to let him know there was still a war on. Our friends in our trenches frequently told us what a rotten feeling it gave the troops to be fired on even back “in rest”, so as a matter of habit we gave the Bosche some just for luck. I often wondered what kind of trouble we gave him and gathered from reports that sometimes filtered through to us, that it was most annoying if nothing else. Now and again we would catch something moving on the roads and then we would give them a little hurry-up. The results on these occasions were probably only slight, but they tended to build up a spirit of aggressiveness that was a most valuable asset.

On February 3rd, Arthur O’Hara Wood was the cause of me getting into my first scrap. I have an idea that he thought it was about time “A” Flight got into some serious business, so he said that he would take some of us over the line for a bit of a gallop, with the object of catching some unsuspecting Hun looking the other way. He nominated Tab and me to accompany him, and gave us some very strict instructions about sticking to him and doing as he did. We were a bit uneasy about deliberately going out to look for a fight, for we knew what an aggressive kind of cove old O’Hara was, but we could not do anything but look the part, even if not consumed with eagerness.

“If we get home without being shot up the whole way”, said Tab, ”I’m a Dutchman, and I’ll buy the boys a drink. ” I myself would have been quite content to get back in one piece and forego the drink.

We left Bruay at somewhere near twenty-five past nine on this stunt, on the morning of February the third, and climbed toward La Bassee, which was on the line about fifteen miles away, and by the time we arrived there, we were about twelve thousand feet up. Wood was in front and still climbing with Tab and I behind and to either side of him. We kept on climbing and going further east until we two had difficulty in maintaining the same angle of climb. I might mention that it is much harder for those following to keep position and climb, than it is for the leader just to go on climbing, especially if you are climbing flat out, the tendency being to try to climb too steeply with a consequent slowing up of the rate of climb due to partially stalling.

The result is that every now and then the machine goes into a spin and the struggle to regain lost height starts all over again. O’Hara was manoeuvring round and round all the time he was climbing and was frequently out of sight , being blanketed by our top wings, and this coupled with our several spins, in which we lost a couple of hundred feet each time, had made us both a bit “bloody-minded. ” Tab had just gone into another spin and was about two hundred feet below me, when suddenly Wood kicked his machine over into a dive to the left. The fact that Tab and I were so much below the leader now became an advantage, as we were able to get into position without much loss of distance and we went “lickety-split” after him. I had no idea what the business was all about, but I clung to the tail of the machine in front. It seemed funny to me to be put to so much effort and time into getting to such a height (we were somewhere near seventeen thousand feet when we started to dive) to throw it all away again in this dive in which we were indulging.

All in a moment I saw the reason for it. Right ahead of O’Hara Wood was an enemy two-seater and he was diving right at it. A little further away and scooting east for all it was worth was another one, so I moved in its direction. It had no chance of getting away without my having a shot at it owing to the tremendous speed that we had developed during our long dive. It was by far the fastest that I have ever dived a machine before.

The enemy, which I now discovered to be a D. F. W. , a type usually employed on photographic work, was about 2,000 feet below me and to the east a little when I first saw it, but it was only a matter of split seconds before I was almost on top of it and approaching from its left-hand side. Then suddenly there appeared to be too many things to do at once. I had to ease off my engine to steady the vibration down, otherwise I might shoot my propeller off owing to the way it was shaking, and my bullets would have gone all over the place; then I had to sight my guns and allow for the angle of attack and the speed of the enemy machine.

I found that I had started a bit too late to settle my sights on the right place, and had to put on the right rudder to bring my guns past the pilot. I pressed the triggers when only about twenty feet away and just managed to get one burst in before pulling out of the dive and skimming across with my wheels a few inches above the wings of the enemy. The German observer had been firing at me all the time I had been coming down on him, but as I pulled up into a zoom I saw him slump down in his cockpit.

As I had half expected, I had not aimed off sufficiently to get the pilot, but knowing that I was safe from the rear gun, I half-rolled and came down again, but this time dead behind and just below the tail of my opponent. I fired four or five bursts at close range from this position, but nothing happened and the enemy machine just tootled off on its way home. I then thought it time to look around and see where my comrades were, but not a sign of them could I see and suddenly I felt very much alone. I could not recognise where I was, but from the position of the sun I knew which was west, so I pushed off towards where I gathered the line was.

After some minutes I saw another Camel down below me, flying roughly south, so I went after it, imagining that it would be O’Hara Wood, but even using all my engine I was unable to come up with him and get into a position where I could see his identification marks. Presently he circled as though to land and I shot across in front of him and to my extreme surprise it was my old pal Tab. Then-whizz!-past my nose shot another Camel and this time it was Wood. Tab and I formed up behind him in our appropriate positions and we were led home like a couple of lost lambs, making good signs as to wetting the scrap in the approved manner when we got home, and describing in mimicry what we had been doing. Unfortunately, O’Hara had an idea that we had left him in the lurch, and catching sight of some of our fooling, thought that we were having a joke on him.

As soon as we got out of our machines, he stormed over and wanted to know “What the —— hell do you mean by dodging the fight and leaving me on my own? You two goats can push back to England and get a bit more training, you are no damned use out here. ” We were astounded. Tab and I both argued the point about leaving him to carry on by himself and both said our pieces. Tab apparently had had a scrap with another machine and said that it had spun down out of control, but the rest of us had not seen anything of it. I for one was too busy to have had time to look out for other people’s scraps, and besides was under the impression that both Tab and O’Hara Wood were looking after the first two-seater, and if any looking after was to be done, I was the one to receive the benefit. I could see that Wood was more or less sceptical of all that we had told him, but he was too much of a sportsman to condemn us out of hand. “Perhaps some of the observation posts on the line might have seen something of what happened”, he remarked. “I’ll get in touch with the line and see what’s what; the visibility was pretty good and we were only as far over as Douai. ”

Tab and I repaired to the Mess and had a couple of spots in honor of our safe return, ignominious though it appeared.

“I am damned certain the machine I had a go at went down in a spin”, Tab insisted. “I admit that I did not wait to see if it crashed, and the pilot may only have done it to get away, but I’m willing to bet a pound that half the line saw it. ” “You’re lucky if they did”, was my reply. “In the first place, my bloke went off unhurt as far as I could judge, except that the observer was definitely shot up. I am not sure where it happened as I lost touch with where we were, other than we must have been somewhere about twenty miles over Hunland from La Bassee when I left. ”

I was upset with the reception that had greeted my explanation, and as far as I could see there was no means of proving the truth of it. Tab would not for a moment admit that one should feel concerned about it. His contention was that as far as he was concerned, he had done as good a job of work as he could and if they did not believe it they could do the other thing. After a few drinks with the· chaps, I went down to the Cerniclet for lunch. I prefer my own company at the moment.

When I came back an hour or two afterwards, there was a different atmosphere in the mess. Tab and the remainder of the flight were in the middle of a “binge” and greeted me with a chorus of yells. In my absence, word had come in from the front line confirming our statements in every particular, except that in my case I was not as far over as I had thought. What was more satisfactory still was the fact that we had all got our machines. Tab had crashed his just across the line from La Bassee, O’Hara Wood had shot his down near Brebieres and mine had burst into flames just near Douai when still about a thousand feet up, apparently having done so soon after I had turned away from it.

The reaction was almost as bad as the depressed feeling of the morning. We all had bad heads next day, but they were worth it to have merely regained our standing with the rest of the squadron. It was the first “notch” to the Flight and we had our tails well up in consequence. To get three Huns in our first scrap was much more than we had ever dreamed of, and the thought left an abiding feeling of well-being with us.

From HIGH ADVENTURE. Copyright 1981 by Kookaburra Technical Publications Pty. Ltd. The complete book is available from the Publishers at PO Box 648 Dandenong for $19. 95 post-free.