Having just finished a 7000 word history on No.2 Sqn Australian Flying Corps, I can sympathise with F.M. Cutlack in the difficulty he faced in translating the history of the Australian Flying Corps without it being a series of combats. Cutlack wrote the eighth volume of the; "Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918". Charles Bean was the editor for the history and wrote six of the volumes himself. In his 1916 book on the ANZACs he wrote;

".... it was on 25th April, 1915, that the consciousness of Australian nationhood was born."

Charles Bean was largely responsible for beginning the myth of the ANZACs, but to focus on the myth of nationhood through blood-letting is to lose the true value of the ANZACs in Australian history. Never before had so many Australians left the country's border at the one time, nearly 9% of the nation - they left thinking they were Britons, and came back knowing they were Australian. The ANZACs and the Australian Imperial Force's experience of World War I was a cultural revolution.

The ANZAC Spirit

One of my favourite Australians is Richard Williams - he was a century ahead of his time, being completely devoid of any cultural cringe. His firm belief in the principle that Australian solutions to Australian problems were superior led him through World War I as one of Australia's greatest leaders to the Air Marshall position in the Royal Australian Air Force.

It comes as no surprise the Robert Menzies removed Williams in the 1930's from Air Marshall and replaced him with a retired British hack that the Royal Air Force didn't even want. In the Menzonian world-view, the British did it better, whereas the ANZAC spirit determined that Australians do it better.

One of the areas that point to the cultural shock and cultural clashes the ANZACs went through was in discipline. The battles the British hierarchy and Australian soldiers had with each other were largely cultural battles over how things should be done. Australia provided a great deal of the teeth, while the British had a good deal of the Commonwealth's tail. So there was bound to be clashes in this area with British Officers commanding Australian soldiers.

Not all British Officers were blind to the Australian culture of collective discipline; Lt Colonel Louis Strange who commanded 80 Wing in France had two Australian squadrons under his command. He commented;

In individual squadron fighting these Australians had no equals in their best days, and more than once they raised the record for numbers of enemy aircraft destroyed in one day by any squadron. The secret of their success was, in my opinion mainly due to their sense of initiative ....

Nevertheless, we had our differences of opinion at times. One of them was due to the unofficial use of service cameras, and another time there was the trouble over the bartering of rations with the local inhabitants. No one minds the swapping of a tin of bully beef for a few fresh eggs, of course, but a Wing Commander has to draw the line somewhere when he finds one of his Australian Squadrons running the village grocers shop and general store. Even so, my Australians were discreet enough in the way they went about their business, so that I might have ignored it, had it not been for the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages. When the latter got to hear of the bargains, they turned our place into a sort of fair and market on Sundays, and so I was compelled to put my foot down.

I do not want this to be considered a reflection on Australian discipline, which was good - good enough in fact, to ensure the highest efficiency in their work, but it was a different standard of discipline to that in force in our own squadrons. I cannot put down Tom Purdey's remarks about the combat reports sent in by these Australian Squadrons; suffice to say that they were couched in such language which would have shocked the sedate officials of the War Office, but the number of victories they related covered a multitude of sins.

What Strange recognized, was that Australians held themselves to a different form of discipline. It was a collective form of discipline that was without the strict hierarchy of British discipline. The Australians were without the respect that the British officers believed that they were due simply because of their rank.

One commonality that is the usual is that of the uncouth, larrikin Australian soldier who doesn't care for regulations, convention or rules. This is an outgrowth - if stereotypical - view of the culture clash. Australian World War I history is full of these anecdotes. Cobby relates;

It was near the end of May that the GOC Army, General Plumer, visited us [4th Squadron AFC]. He inspected the squadron and addressed the officers, apologising with frequent grunts for the fact that the Distinguished Flying Cross, which a number of us had gained, was not available to hang upon our chests.

He was particularly interested in "X", one of our on-flying officers, who wore the King's and Queen's South African ribbons [from the Boer War], until he questioned him as to the unit he served with in South Africa. It appeared that the officer concerned had been a sergeant and later reduced to a trooper by the General himself, the reason was asked.

When that it was for riding along the lines in voluminous underwear, obviously at some time the property of a Dutch Vrau, the General gave another "Howk" and moved off. It was the only time we saw him.

Another funny story from Private Miles of the Royal Fusiliers;

The Colonel decided that he would have a full dress parade of the guard mounting. Well, the Aussies looked over at us amazed. The band was playing, we were all smartened up, spit and polish, on parade, and that happened every morning. We marched up and down, up and down.

The Aussies couldn't get over it, and when we were off duty we naturally used to talk to them, go over and have a smoke with them, or meet them when we were hanging about the road or having a stroll. They kept asking us: 'Do you like this sort of thing? All these parades, do you want to do it?' Of course we said, 'No, of course we don't. We're supposed to be on rest, and all the time we've got goes to posh up and turn out on parade.' So they looked at us a bit strangely and said, 'OK, cobbers, we'll soon alter that for you'.

The Australians didn't approve of it because they never polished or did anything. They had a band, but their brass instruments were all filthy. Still, they knew how to play them.

The next evening, our Sergeant-Major was taking the parade. Sergeant-Major Rowbotham, a nice man, but a stickler for discipline. He was just getting ready to bawl us all out when the Australians started with their band. They marched up and down the road outside the field, playing any old thing. There was no tune you could recognise, they were just blowing as loud as they could on their instruments. It sounded like a million cat-calls.

And poor old Sergeant Rowbotham, he couldn't make his voice heard. It was an absolute fiasco. They never tried to mount another parade, because they could see the Aussies watching us from across the road, just ready to step in and sabotage the whole thing. So they decided that parades for mounting the guards should be washed out, and after that they just posted the guards in the ordinary way as if we were in the line.

Both those stories represent the cultural clash at its core. The basis for British and Australian society were different at their core. The Australian behaviour in a group was much more egalitarian and easy-going. It should be noted, that the Australian attitude did not stop the Australian units or soldiers from achieving on the battlefield either. The Australia Corps on the ground, the Lighthorse in Palestine and the Australian Flying Corps in the air, all earned well deserved reputations for military effectiveness.

The ANZACs were the first to put Australian culture under the spotlight - on the world stage - and in large numbers. Australian culture and the Australian manner of doing things was put under the incredible stress of combat, with average Australian folks. In this stressful and dehabilitating environment, the Australian way of doings things - not only survived - but was sufficient for Australian units to over-achieve.

The Australian, General John Monash wrote on this issue;

Very much and very stupid comment has been made upon the discipline of the Australian soldier. That was because the very conception and purpose of discipline have been misunderstood. It is, after all, only a means to an end, and that end is the power to secure co-ordinated action among a large number of individuals for the achievement of a definite purpose. It does not mean lip service, nor obsequious homage to superiors, nor servile observance of forms and customs, nor a suppression of individuality... the Australian Army is a proof that individualism is the best and not the worst foundation upon which to build up collective discipline.

The ANZACs, the Lighthorse, the Australia Corps, the Australian Flying Corps and the Australian Navy all validated the Australian manner of action and achievement during World War I. In essence, they validated Australian culture. This is the true value of the ANZACs - not the creation of a nation - but the domestic cultural validation of Australian values, action and beliefs. They achieved by doing it the Australian way.

We often treat ANZAC Day selfishly. Trying to determine cultural meaning from our celebration of it. I am guilty of this too. We throw an ANZAC Day party each year in the US; inviting our friends along to partake in meat pies, sausage rolls, pavlova and ANZAC biccies. In our selfishness we often rob the ANZACs and other former veterans of their humanism. This diminishes their efforts, and often sacrifice.

I spent several years researching the Australian Flying Corps. I published between 1999 and 2002 on a website, and then later between 2002 and 2004 on a different website. It is currently a dynamic site in the hopes it will morph into a historical journal with a vibrant research community. So far that has not happened.

Researching an area of history puts you in touch with the words of those that were a part of that history. It is humanising, often emotional and always leaves you in wonder for the daily courage of the folks that made history. Last year I wrote about the cultural aspects of the ANZACs, this year I think it fitting the WWI veterans have their own voice.

Captain John "Jack" Wright

John Wright was a pilot who flew with No.4 Squadron Australian Flying Corps (AFC). He flew the Sopwith Camels with the squadron in 1918, and then later became a flight commander when the squadron moved to Sopwith Snipes.

Wright was originally a member of the 12th Australian Light Horse. The AFC recruited heavily from the Lighthorse believing horse hands made for a better pilot. The Australian air services were no different from others in this respect. The famous Manfred von Richthofen aka "The Red Baron" had been a member of the cavalry before flying.

My favourite recollection of Wright's was his memory of what happened on September 11th, 1918;

On the morning of 11th November, 1918, I was sitting in my Snipe at 8 a.m just about to "wave the chocks away" and take off to bomb and shoot-up the busy rail junction of Ath, which was an important link in the German line of communications. Just as I was about to give the signal to the other five machines, I noticed signs of a commotion on the tarmac, a lot of waving of arms by the people there. A figure detached itself and with much furious waving of arms, came galloping out on the airfield in my direction. I waited until an orderly from the Sqd. office arrived very much out of breath, and gasped out his message, "Flight 'washed-out' Sir, Cancelled! Peace has been signed!" When he got his breath back, he gave me more details. The Armistice was to operate from 11.am, no more offensive moves were to be made.

I sat for a minute or two in the machine while the news sank in, trying to grasp all the implications, while my prop ticked over. I thought to myself, "perhaps its only a false alarm, but it washes out this flight, anyhow". I detached my Verey pistol [flare] from the fitting, inserted a white cartridge, and aiming into the air away from the other machines and the Airfield buildings, fired the regulation signal "washing-out" the flight, and taxied back to the tarmac in front of our hangar, followed by the other five Snipes. I still felt dubious about it, I felt there must be some mistake.

For the rest of the morning, I, with most of the other pilots of the Sqd. zooned around the airfield buildings and our quarters feeling like fish out of water. We still doubted the news, we really were unable to think clearly. However, when 11 a.m. came we began to show a little more interest. We began to notice the unearthly silence from the direction of the front line, where previously the dull roar of guns, and crackle of musketry fire was the familiar sound; there was now a dead silence. We began to think, it must be right after all; the war could be over!

The aircraft in World War I didn't have radios. The pilots communicated by hand signals or flares in the air and the ground.

Lt Colonel Richard Williams

Richard Williams is in the running for the greatest Australian in the short history of this country. His firm belief that Australian solutions to Australian issues led him to lead the Australian Air Force for many years. He was laid low by political manoeuvring by Robert Menzies, at a time when Australia needed someone like Williams the most. Williams was a century ahead of his time, and an inspiration for Australians today. In his auto-biography he recounts an episode in the air over Palestine in 1916.

The next day, accompanied by Lieutenant S. Headlam as observer, and with [Lieutenant Adrian "King"] Cole in a Martinsyde as escort, I reconnoitred the Hareira-Shellal area. This time Cole was hit by anti-aircraft fire and forced to land. This he did on a good piece of ground in enemy country and we went down and landed alongside. Cole set his aircraft alight by firing a Verey light [flare] into it, then dropped the pistol and ran toward us. I knew we were short of Verey pistols in the squadron and sent him back for it. He did not take long to get it and we took off before any Turks got near enough to stop us, but I think Cole thought it a bit tough to be sent back for that pistol.

This understates the level of danger that is involved in landing a WWI era aircraft behind enemy lines on an uneven desert surface. Many aircraft that tried this after Williams suffered from their undercarriage breaking and the aircraft and crew being captured. It takes a pilot of great skill and courage to not only undertake such a rescue effort on the spur of the moment, but also to carry it off. Richard Williams earnt the Distinguished Service Order for this.

Aircraft Mechanic Joe Bull

Joe Bull was a Queenslander who worked on the aircraft of No.1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps. During most of 1918 he maintained the Bristol "Biff" Fighter of Ross Smith. Smith was the leading ace in the Palestinian theatre, and later was the first to fly from England to Australia. On Bull's ocean trip back to Australia in 1919 he wrote in his diary for the 19th of March;

There seems to be some dissatisfaction among the men on account of the O.C. [Operational Commander] going ashore whereas we had a cable posted stating that noone was to go ashore on account of the Spanish Flu. When he went ashore the second time, they pelted him with vegetables and counted him out. Left Colombo at 10.

When Bull reached Melbourne at the end of the sea trip he was quarantined along with others because of an outbreak of smallpox. In the Australian Flying Corps the enlisted men were at most danger from disease, whereas the officers, who did the majority of the flying, were in most danger of dying a violent death.

Lieutenant E.J. Goodson

In a world of air-bags and airlines which will cancel a flight if there is a crack in anything, it is hard to imagine the level of danger the pilots of World War I faced. Their aircraft were wood and linen; held together by wire. They wore no parachutes and their aircraft broke up if subject to high g-forces or high acceleration.

Goodson was flying in a flight of Sopwith Snipes in early November 1918. His aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he was captured. He recorded the details of the day in his repatriation report;

I was one of a patrol of four machines that left the aerodrome at Ennetieres at 9 am on the 4th of November 1918, led by 2/Lieut Cato, to do a line patrol. Whilst patrolling the line we were being shelled by anti-aircraft guns from the German artillery. When at 13,000 feet I was hit in my lateral controls and bottom of control lever. The machine immediately went into a left hand spin from which it did not recover. When at about 3,000 feet, I received two more direct hits under the right wing. I spun into the canal between two bridges in the centre of Tournai. One wing of the machine was carried away by the bridge and the machine became a total wreck on striking the water.

I was pulled out of the canal by some German soldiers. I was wounded slightly by a piece of shell in the head and badly shaken by the fall of the machine.

Remarkable accuracy by the German anti-aircraft gunners to hit his aircraft twice, even more remarkable that he survived a spinning aircraft that fell from 13,00 feet, hitting a bridge before leaving him in the water.

Captain Arthur "Harry" Cobby

Cobby ended up being the Australian Flying Corps' leading ace in World War I, Rod Dallas and Robert Little recorded more victories than him, but they flew in the Royal Naval Air Service. Cobby was described as an "imp of mischief" in later years when he rose through the ranks of the Australian Air Force. With his mate, Roy "bow" King, they formed a larrikin cabal in No.4 Squadron.

In 1919, shortly before many of the Australians were demobilised, the Australian Imperial Force marched through London to commemorate the landing's at Gallipoli. This is probably the first ANZAC Day march, where the tradition stems from. The Prince Of Wales and General Birdwood were to salute the march in front of Australia House at the Strand.

The Australian Flying Corps pilots had been told they could do a flypast as well, and aerodromes with a choice of aircraft were available. The pilots took advantage of the celebratory nature of the march by filling up the local pubs before picking up their airplanes. Cobby relates;

We had won the war and could now bid farewell to Blighty, where we had had such a glorious time. One could not think of anything more fitting nor anything more stupid than the authority that permitted it [the flypast].

The head of the march would reach Australia House at 2.30 pm. At 2 o'clock odd aircraft started to appear over the Strand, getting lower and lower. At 2.30 about fifty or sixty machines were jockeying around the sky over Australia House, and more kept on arriving. Aircraft were looping and rolling and spinning everywhere, but the libations of the morning [drinking] had added more verve than sense to the manoeuvres. As the head of the column approached the saluting base, there was a mad scramble to pass the Prince, and some of us went down into the Strand in order to do the thing properly. It was probably the most foolish thing I have ever done, but having got down, I had to stay down for about three quarters of a mile before I could get out again.

Somebody else in a Pup, well known to those who participated, also got down, but fortunately some distance behind me. If he had been in front, we would have been involved in a frightful smash as I was in a Camel, which was of course much faster than a Pup and I would have run him down in a couple of hundred yards. The overhead wires from building to building kept us down and I would not have been able to avoid him, and with the roads packed like sardines with onlookers, the casualties would have been terrible. Finally I was able to zoom up just short of Trafalgar Square, but by that time all I wanted to do was get back onto the ground as soon as possible, and I did. The first ANZAC Day will live long in the minds of many people. The other chap got out too - but how I don't know.

The Pup and Camel were rotary engine aircraft, and have no throttle. Richard Williams was the officer who made the request for aircraft, but on the proviso that the pilots maintain a safe height. When Williams saw the aircraft dip out of sight below the buildings he worried that they had made forced landings, but when he saw them pop out again he was relieved. The next morning he met Wing Commander E.L. Gossage at the Air Ministry; Gossage remarked to Williams, "I didn't mind your fellows looking through my window when they were passing yesterday, but I did object to the fellow who winked at me".

Lest we forget.

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I have written on the Australian Flying Corps [AFC] since 1997, producing approximately many hundred pages of web based content through the years. I have done so as an amateur historian, who, until recently was not aware of historical methodology such as modernism, postmodernism, great dates or multiple narratives. So what did I learn and what was my approach to recording this niche area of Australian history?

Firstly the great dates style of history, while a triumphalist form, is not very compelling to read. It is fine for a summary, but it tends to focus on the events or dates of note such as; squadron formed, squadrons first victory, squadron's one hundred victory, aces twentieth victory etc.

C.E.W. Bean of the official history of WWI fame wrote to F.M. Cutlack who wrote the AFC volume of the official history;

You have avoided [in writing the 8th Volume of the official history] the great danger of making it a mere string of dogfights. You have obtained breadth and possess modesty - two qualities which make the book attractive. You have told the story in a manner neither to grandiloquent nor yet in any way unappreciative - just the mean which is so difficult to obtain.

One of the easiest pieces of data to get in the histories is the Combat in the Air Reports. These were filed by pilots whenever they had a dogfight, so there is plenty of this style of narrative available for anyone wanting to do a great dates style of dogfight history. Bean is congratulating Cutlack on avoiding that.

Dates are integral to history, after all, it is the study of what happened and when, but this raises the issue of narrative and how to approach the telling of history in such a way as to impart knowledge to the reader in a manner that is compelling rather than soporific.

I feel for those researching Aboriginal history as the written word is exceptionally minimal and the primary sources cannot be quoted to support the history. Since I am recording an early 20thC event there was not only written records, bureaucratically collected data, personal diaries, etc; but there was also photographs and in one rare occasion video.

Primary sources become an important part of the narrative. They allow the participants to tell their story in their own words and have it placed into a wider historical context by the author.

For instance this repatriation report by Lt Rintoul shows how effective the Royal Navy's blockade of Germany had been in limiting food supply by late 1918 - Germany was on the point of starvation;

was then in turn taken to the following lagers - Karlsruhe (1 month), where the treatment was considerate. Landshut, Bavaria (6 Weeks), where I met Lieutenant Flight and Lieutenant Feez (now repatriated). There the treatment was harsh. Fort Prince Karl Ingolstadt (3 weeks) with French Officers. Fort Ten (1 month) in the same district, where we had fair treatment although on one occasion we were fired upon by German sentries, for cheering three re-captured prisoners. Kamatigall (East Prussia) 6 weeks until the Armistice was signed when all restrictions were withdrawn.

Food was very bad, but the Red Cross parcels were good though not too regular, being occasionally held up owing to German methods. Medical treatment was bad, also the sanitary arrangements.

Or this quote by Captain John Wright on the Sopwith Snipe which adds first person data and experience to the historical controversy over whether the Sopwith Snipe was an improvement over the Sopwith Camel;

They [Sopwith Snipe] were of slightly more robust construction than the Camel, but were a little less maneuverable. However. their rate of climb was better than the Camel, a ceiling of 15,000 feet could be reached in 30 minutes, a Camel took upwards of 45 minutes.

Then there becomes the problem of who's story are you telling? Is it your story? Is it the nation's? Is it those that took part in that history as individuals or as a group? The title of the history gives insight into how it was approached but sometimes the data and primary sources leave the historian in a conundrum of which way to approach it.

A good example is the nomenclature of the AFC squadrons. The AFC used the British logistics and book-keeping in the Middle East and Europe. While there was an AFC Headquarters, the AFC used the British Wings for data processing and archival.

Australia raised No.1 Squadron at Point Cook and then sent them off to Egypt to be equipped with combat aircraft from British supplies. The Royal Flying Corps [RFC] stamped this squadron as 67 Sqn RFC in their book-keeping.

There were a couple of reasons for this; one, to avoid confusion with the No.1 Sqn RFC which was currently in France, but two, because many in the RFC command though Australia was raising a dominion squadron for the RFC, rather than an AFC squadron for the Australian Imperial Force [AIF].

This is much like the Article XV squadrons from WWII which came from the Empire Air Training Scheme [EATS] where Australian pilots from the Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] were grouped into Royal Air Force [RAF] squadrons and given RAAF designations in the RAF nomenclature. Confusing. Especially as many of these Article XV squadrons were Australian in name only and half their air and ground crew complement in some cases were English, Canadian, New Zealand etc.

To make matters worse in the AFC nomenclature, the Australian book-keeping was less than rigorous and the AFC raised two "2nd Flying Squadrons" at the same time. One in Egypt and one in Victoria. Once this error was discovered, the squadron in Egypt was named 2 Sqn, while the one in Victoria was named 3 Sqn. This is despite the Victorian squadron being raised before the Egyptian one.

Then the British slotted those squadrons into their book-keeping, and they called No.2 Sqn AFC in their records No.68 Sqn RFC. No.3 Sqn AFC became known in the British records as No.69 Sqn RFC. A similar thing occurred when Australia raised a fourth AFC squadron for combat in France.

Once the Australian civil and military leadership found out that Britain had renamed their squadrons they immediately complained. The Australian leadership in WWI was very protective of the national character of their forces and would not allow the British to transfer Australian pilots to British squadrons.

Unlike the Canadians and New Zealanders who allowed the RFC to recruit directly in their forces, the Australians would only allow infantry and lighthorse to join the AFC. This is in direct contrast to WWII when Australian civil and military leadership in most instances handed over sovereignty of their forces to the British - the EATS being the dominant example.

After the Australian complaints the British relented a little and decided that the Australian units would be known as Australian Flying Corps, but they would keep the British numbering. So;

• No. 67 RFC became No.67 AFC in British book-keeping
• No. 68 RFC became No.68 AFC in British book-keeping
• No. 69 RFC became No.69 AFC in British book-keeping
• No. 71 RFC became No.71 AFC in British book-keeping

Yet to the AIF these units were known as No.1 through 4 squadrons AFC. The numbering still wasn't to the Australian leadership's satisfaction so they continued to complain and finally the RFC relented. British and Australian book-keeping finally came into synchronisation;

• No. 67 AFC became No.1 AFC in British book-keeping
• No. 68 AFC became No.2 AFC in British book-keeping
• No. 69 AFC became No.3 AFC in British book-keeping
• No. 71 AFC became No.4 AFC in British book-keeping

The damage had been done. When you go through the Australian Nominal Roll, the air and ground crew in it are recorded as being in every possible unit from No.67 to No.1 to AFC, RFC, etc. This is in addition to the normal areas of known AFC members being mistakenly recorded in machine gun Battalions etc.

So, apart from recording the controversy over nomenclature, what is a historian to do?

I took the stance that I am writing on the AFC from their perspective, so the AFC nomenclature is dominant. On the AFC pages I call the squadrons by their AIF and AFC names.

I am backed up in this by Richard Williams who wrote on the issue in his diary;

Neither AIF Headquarters in Egypt nor 5th Wing RFC there was aware of our imminent arrival although 5th Wing had advice of the formation of a squadron in Australia which would join his command and be known as No.67 (Australian) Squadron, RFC. There was no more authority for calling us a squadron of the RFC than there was, for example, for calling the 9th Battalion AIF the 23rd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment.

This was what might be called a "flow-on" of the wish expressed in London that Dominion personnel should serve in the RFC and it took much correspondence before we were referred to by the RFC in official correspondence (in January 1918) as No.1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps

And Williams again on the issue;

About this time too, we were advised that henceforth we would be known officially as No.1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps - it had taken almost two years to get rid of the RFC No.67 and even this was for some unexplained reason done in two bites, for during 1917 an AIF order stated that we were to be known as No.67 Australian Flying Corps. I cannot imagine who was clever enough to work out a reason for that.

A friend of mine is researching Combat in the Air Reports in the RFC, RNAS, RAF and AFC for World War I. He has discovered combat reports from No.2 Sqn AFC that have been filed under No.2 Sqn RAF. So the issue is never simple.

But all I have learned, and the approaches I have had to take, are the right ones for the subject in my opinion. I have come to them independently without academic or political guidance which suggests neither is necessary to be a historian or recorder and narrator of history.

This has led to my narrative on No.2 Squadron's history. This includes dates, primary sources, historical narrative that is neither grandiloquent or unappreciative. I think it tells Australian history well without any academic or political baggage.

Which national flag did the Australian Flying Corps use in World War I?

The Australian national flag wasn't formalised until 1953 with the Flag Act and up until then a mixture of the British Union Flag, the defaced Blue Ensign and the defaced Red Ensign was used. Early photography allows us to pick which ensigns were blue and which were red despite being black and white because of the orthochromatic technology used in making photos.

Note the dark flag in the bottom right. It is a red ensign. Orthochromatic film makes warm colours appear black and cool colours appear pale. The top flag looks to be a blue ensign. This is pretty normal for World War I as the blue flag represented government and the red flag was the civil flag. Formal military functions often mixed all three.

A good example of the orthochromatic effect is the Belgian roundel which is black, yellow and red. On film it appears as a black disc.

An issue in World War I aviation history which gets revisited occasionally is the question of the Sopwith Snipe as successor to the Sopwith Camel. In particular one prominent World War I Aviation historian has put forward that the Sopwith Snipe was not up to 1918 or 1919 standards for performance and would have resulted in the Sopwith Snipe Squadrons failing operationally through 1919. The alternative viewpoint is that the Sopwith Snipe allowed the allied squadrons to meet the German fighters and in particular the Fokker DVII scout on equal terms at heights where the Sopwith Camel was outclassed.

The Sopwith Camel

The Sopwith Camel was a dogfighter in the same manner that the modern General Dynamics F16 Fighting Falcon is. The Sopwith Camel was inherently unstable with the weight of the engine, the pilot, the twin machine guns and the fuel in a small area around the center of gravity. To add to this the rotary engine's torque meant that the aircraft turned rapidly to the right. The P-factor of the big, slow rotating propeller caused the nose of the Camel in right turns to dip and in left hand turns raise the nose. The Sopwith Camel like most Sopwith designs was also blessed with an undersized rudder which gave little lateral authority to the pilot. In the hands of a skilled pilot, this instability of the Sopwith Camel meant it was a highly maneuverable aircraft only rivaled by the famed "Red Barons" aircraft, the Fokker Dr.I Triplane.

The Sopwith Camel "Cadet Killer"

The legend of the Sopwith Camel is that it killed as many trainees as it did score victories over opposition aircraft. Arthur Cobby was one trainee pilot that achieved ace status, he recorded his first flight of the Sopwith Camel in his memoirs;

"... and after several flights in a [Sopwith] Pup, I was sent off in the rather frightening Camel. The machine had a bad name as so many fellows, even experienced pilots managed to get piled up in them. And you could not be trained by anyone else in their tricks, only by word of mouth on the ground as they were single seaters. ..... So I duly went off in one, and the experience was strange. It climbed unusually fast without my help. Not only that but I seemed to be going straight ahead and the ground passed by slightly sideways, until some time later the aerodrome appeared in front of me again, so I glided in and landed. Longton told me I just went slowly round in a large circle in a flat turn, and he also corrected the foot pressure fault that caused it."

Many modern historians believe the main cause of accidents was the tail heavy nature of the Sopwith Camel which they were rigged in. As the Camel left the ground it required a fuel mixture adjustment, many inexperienced pilots would look down to adjust mixture and the tail heavy nature of the Sopwith Camel would cause it to climb to a stall. The aircraft would then spin into the ground, possibly killing its pilot. Many of the photos of crashes which seemed to be a favorite subject for servicemen with cameras show the wings twisted around the fuselage which suggests a spin over a crash.

In the Hands of an Ace

Once a pilot had mastered the flight characteristics of the Camel, the quirks were put to good use in combat. Aces disproportionately contribute to the Sopwith Camel's victory totals. One area the Camel lacked was in speed, the Australian ace Edgar McCloughry wrote of the Camel's lack of speed;

"I at once turned but they did not wait, one of the horrible characteristics of a camel being, as I will describe later, that it is unable to catch any other machine with the exception of the Fokker Triplane on the level."

and;

"One word on the 'Camel': There is not one pilot in the squadron who would not argue to the end for a Camel. Although slow, she could get around anything, also one could not run away from anything, which rather aimed for success."

Which is a polite way of saying it was unable to outrun anything and a Sopwith Camel pilot if cornered or trapped would have to fight his way out of the situation or engagement. Arthur Cobby another Australian ace also commented on the inability of the Sopwith Camel to catch and engage enemy aircraft;

"In this manner we accounted for a few of the enemy, but they could dive faster than our Camels. Unless we got close to them early in their dive, they would just keep on diving and so get away. ... If we were only able to encourage the enemy to get in a dogfight, things were easy, as a Camel could out maneuver anything."

It should be noted that different allied air forces received Sopwith Camels with different engines. The Royal Naval Air Service received Camels with 150 hp Bentleys, while the Royal Flying Corps, Australian Flying Corps and United States Air Services received 130-140 Hp Clergets of different strokes. The RNAS definitely got the best engines and the highest performing Sopwith Camels of the air services which used it operationally.

The SE5a and Spad XIII Energy Fighters

The allied contemporaries to the Sopwith Camel in scout and fighter design where the British SE5a and the French Spad XIII. The SE5a rivaled the Camel in the number of British squadrons which used the aircraft operationally, further the SE5a was used by the Australian Flying Corps and the United States Air Service as well as the British Flying Services. The main fighter of L'Aeronautique Militaire and the United States Air Service was the Spad XIII. Both the SE5a and Spad XIII were developments of 1916 designs like the Camel was. However the SE5a and Spad both used the Hispano-Suiza engine which was a water cooled V8.

The Hispano Suiza was a powerful water cooled engine of Spanish design which in 1916 was producing 200 hp in comparison to the Mercedes 160 hp. Even in 1918, the high compression BMW engines which were prized by the Luftstreitkrafte were 185 hp. This gave the allied energy fighters a huge advantage. The experienced SE5a and Spad pilots told new pilots not to dogfight with Fokker Triplanes, instead the pilot would get height on the Triplane and then dive through it firing and then climb above for another run. This is also commonly known as energy fighting or boom and zoom tactics.

The Sopwith Camel, like its predecessors from the Sopwith factories, used a rotary engine. The rotary engine was an extremely lightweight solution as it was air cooled. The downside, which became a benefit in the Sopwith Camel, was the rotary engine rotated with all cylinders spinning at the same rpm as the propeller adding the handling of the engines rotational torque to the aircraft's stability. The other component of a rotary engine was that it was a complete loss system with the oil being mixed with the petrol as part of the combustion process. In World War I the best lubricant was Castor Oil in rotary engines. A common myth is that the pilots all got the runs from consuming the castor oil. This doesn't seem to be the case from historical records or modern empirical observations.

After the shock of Bloody April in 1917 when the German Albatros Scout wreaked havoc on the British Front, the British re-organized themselves into Wing formations and equipped their squadrons with aircraft such as the SE5a and Camel. The French were less effected by Bloody April as their aircraft weren't as obsolete as the BE and FE aircraft the British were flying in large numbers. Plus throughout the war the French aviation forces enjoyed large numerical advantage due to the sheer size and the innovation of the French aviation industries. The United States Air Service organized themselves in the French manner, having superiority of numbers locally but the USAS did not adopt the highly aggressive British doctrine of engaging the Luftstreitkrafte deep in German airspace. The Luftstreitkrafte organizing into Jadgdeschwaders to obtain local air superiority required the British to re-organize their local forces into Wings to maintain numerical superiority along with the British offensive doctrine.

The Sopwith Snipe Specification

It was in this environment the British Air Board wrote the specification for the Type 1.a in 1917 for what would become the Sopwith Snipe. The type 1.a specification required that the aircraft would be capable of 135 mph at 15,000 ft and a climb rate of not greater than 10 minutes between 10,000 feet and 20,000 feet. The specification was obviously for a scout aircraft to replace the Sopwith Camel and RAF SE5a.

In 1916 Sopwith had achieved a quantum jump between generations of fighters in the Sopwith Pup to the Sopwith Camel. It is possible they assumed that their next generation of rotary fighter would have the same jump in performance, subsequently they designed a rotary engined fighter with the 230 hp Bentley that was typical to Sopwith designs in having little rudder authority and being tail heavy. The problem was that the Sopwith Snipe wasn't the same level of increase in performance as the Camel over the Pup. Fortunately its main competitor which was to replace the SE5a, the Martinsyde Buzzard, a 400 hp energy fighter was facing similar engine development difficulties. It originally was assumed that the Sopwith Snipe would be powered by the 320 hp ABC Dragonfly radial but the Dragonfly was a failure as an engine and was not put into production.

The Sopwith Snipe went through numerous revisions before being put into production for operational deliveries. Its rudder surface area was increased as were the tailplanes, and the ailerons were balanced to give greater roll control. However as the Camel was having difficulty with the new Fokker DVII scouts the Sopwith Snipe was rushed into production and the initial operational squadrons received the Snipes with undersized rudders and unbalanced ailerons.

The Sopwith Camel Outclassed by the Fokker DVII

The Sopwith Camel in 1918 was outclassed once it met the Fokker DVII at height. The Fokker DVII was a remarkable aviation design for its time incorporating the thick airfoil design which gave the Fokker DVII stable stall capabilities and allowed average pilots to fly closer to the edge of the flying envelope. In comparison the Camel, SE5a and Spad had very thin airfoils in an attempt to maximize speed. The Spad in particular was known for dropping out of the sky once it lost airspeed, in the words of the American Ace Ray Brooks, "It flew like a brick". This was due to the Spad's thin airfoil's low tolerance for lack of airflow across it. The Sopwith Camel with it's concentrated weight and torque heavy rotary engine was more likely to stall and spin when it exceeded it's flight envelope, whereas the Spad fell out of the air. Spads, unlike most other aircraft of the time had to be landed under power due to its high stall speed.

The Fokker DVII's thick airfoil was one of the great engineering advances in aviation in World War I and gave the DVII an advantage at height despite its underpowered 160 hp BMW and Mercedes engines. Later in the Fokker DVII's operational life it received high compression 185 horsepower engines which gave it an even greater advantage at heights greater than 12,000 feet. At this height the SE5as and Spads were the only aircraft capable of competing with the Fokker DVII on an equal level. The Sopwith Camel was outclassed by the DVII, Arthur Cobby related the problems faced;

"We had not come into contact with it [Fokker DVII] to any extent as most of our patrol work was being done at lower altitude, but our fellow Australians in No.2 [No.2 Sqn Australian Flying Corps] were continually meeting them. Their SE5a's could get to greater heights than our Camels, which were at their best up to about 12,000 ft. We could get much higher of course, but the performance fell off rapidly above this level, and against the new Fokker, would put up an indifferent show. Later on we did meet them up higher and managed by sheer hard flying to hold our own, but unless one was an exceptional good pilot the odds were definitely not good."

Arthur Cobby was a member of 4 Squadron Australian Flying Corps which was one of three squadrons to be re-equipped with the Sopwith Snipe before the armistice. The other two squadrons were 43 squadron Royal Air Force and 208 Squadron Royal Air Force. No. 4 Squadron Australian Flying Corps was re-equipped with the Sopwith Snipe on the 4th of October 1918, giving just over one month of operations with Sopwith Snipe before the armistice. The squadron is also the best to determine the effectiveness of the Sopwith Camel in comparison to the Sopwith Snipe as they produced several leading Camel and Snipe aces and through 1918 and where the highest averaging Sopwith Camel squadron on the Northern Front in terms of victories per month.

The Snipe Replaces the Camel at 4 Squadron AFC

The Sopwith Snipe was met in No.4 Squadron with approval, through many of the pilots were sad to give up the quirks of the Sopwith Camel which had made them such devastating dogfighters. The pilots were aware of the benefits of the Sopwith Snipe over the Camel. The C Flight commander John "Jack" Wright wrote;

"Here, 4th Sqd. exchanged its Camels for Sopwith 'Snipes', then the last word on the British side in Scout and Fighter design. It was really a larger edition of the 'Camel', but without the 'hump' which gave the Camel its name. Powered with 200 hp Bentley Rotary engines ( which developed 260 hp at 1400 revs ) they had a ceiling of 19000 feet and a top speed of about 127 mph, flying level with a war load. This gave them a slight advantage in speed over the Fokker, but we still could not get as high as the Fokkers. They were of slightly more robust construction than the Camel, but were a little less maneuverable. However. their rate of climb was better than the Camel, a ceiling of 15000 feet could be reached in 30 minutes, a Camel took upwards of 45 minutes."

Notice Wright's statement in claiming the Snipe was unable to get to the same height as the Fokker DVII's. This is a result of the DVII's thick airfoil and inline engine design giving it greater high altitude performance. The rotary engines had great difficulty as height increased because of the density of oxygen reducing with altitude. An oxygen starved rotary was an inefficient engine. Wright however mentioned the quantitative improvements the Snipe gave over the Camel particularly in respect to climb. The ability to get to height quickly before crossing the front lines meant greater time could be spent in an offensive patrol in German airspace.

The addition of the Sopwith Snipes to 80 Wing RAF which 4 Squadron Australian Flying Corps was a part of, entailed 80 Wing changing it's wing sweep formations. Previously the Wing had placed either the SE5a aircraft of No.2 Sqn AFC or No.92 Sqn RAF in the highest position of the sweep with the Sopwith Camels of No.4 Sqn AFC and No.43 Sqn RAF in the lowest positions. With the Sopwith Snipe 4 Sqn AFC became the highest component of the sweep formation being utilized in a role the Sopwith Camel was unable to fulfill.

Factory Performance Figures vs Field Observation

One of the common derogatory comments against the Sopwith Snipe is that it was offered 1917 performance in late 1918. This is true when compared to allied fighters, the SE5a and Spad were capable of 140 mph in 1916 while the Snipe was only good for 120-130 mph in late 1918. In 1919 the Martinsyde Buzzard with it's 400 hp engine would have been even faster, most likely topping 150 mph. However the Sopwith Snipe was not designed to be an energy fighter, it was a dogfighter, plus the German aircraft it was facing were slower than the Sopwith Snipe. Due to German industry lacking resources from the Royal Navy's blockade, no German aircraft would have improved in their speed capability significantly in 1919.

The Fokker DVII the powerful BMW 185 hp engine was capable of 122 mph, the Fokker DVIII monoplane was capable of 115 mph at sea level which would suggest a performance of under 100 mph at height. The DVIII's performance was in many respects no better than the Sopwith Camel or Fokker Triplane. The Albatros DV and Pfalz DXII were both only capable of 110 to 120 mph. The Sopwith Snipe in comparison had a published performance figure of 120 mph at 10,000 feet which places the speed performance of the Sopwith Snipe in a similar area to the Snipe's German opponents. It is obvious though from these figures the speed advantage the SE5a, Spad and the Italian Ansaldo Ballila pilots enjoyed over their opposition.

It is worth reviewing the Sopwith Camel's published speed results. The trials for the Sopwith Camel was done with an 150 hp Bentley of which only the Royal Naval Air Service squadrons were equipped. The RAF, AFC and USAS squadrons equipped with the Sopwith Camel had 130 or 140 hp Clergets. The Bentley trials gave the Camel a top speed of 114 mph at 15,000 feet while the Snipe at the same height had a speed of 113 mph. However this statistic is meaningless as the Sopwith Camel was obsolete in comparison to the Fokker DVII above 12,000 feet. As Cobby wrote the performance of the Sopwith Camel deteriorated rapidly from that height on. George Jones another Australian wrote in a post-war staff college report;

"The Squadron[4 Sqn AFC] was equipped, in the first instance, with Clerget Camels and it continued to use this type until eight weeks before the Armistice, when it was re-equipped with Sopwith Snipe. It was, I believe, the second Squadron to receive them, and is therefore one of the few Squadrons which enjoyed their superiority over the Fokker D7."

This leaves little doubt that the pilots in the squadron believed from their experiences that the Sopwith Snipe was superior to the Fokker whereas pilots in the same squadron considered the Sopwith Camel obsolete in a dogfight with a Fokker above 12,000 feet.

After the war 4 Sqn AFC served in Cologne as part of the occupational forces which were testing German technologies against their own. John Wright relates one conversation he had with a German pilot at Bickendorff;

"While at Bickendorff in Cologne where 14 other British Squadrons were stationed as part of the Occupational Forces, the pilots were testing their equipment against captured German equipment, Wright wrote; "One German pilot, swaggering with three decorations which had been awarded him for his skill in shooting down a number of British machines, on viewing for the first time this aerial exhibition of British machines at Bickendorff, asked open-mouthed the name of the type of 'plane with which 4 Sqn was equipped. When informed they were Sopwith Snipes, he remarked with heart felt emphasis; 'I thank God I did not meet any of them before the Armistice.'""

The State of Testing and Quality Control

The testing figures for all the World War I aircraft can be doubted as to their accuracy, they were at best an honest attempt to obtain quantitative data from an industry that, while high tech for its era, was still a craftsman's industry that produced one off products. Quality Control was by visual inspection with jigs and templates which, while rigorous, still allowed lemons out of the factories and gave high variance to the machines which reached operations.

As an example one squadron received an aircraft whose wings flexed. Naturally none of the pilots liked flying it. They stripped the aircraft down to discover that the aircraft's wing timbers were oil soaked. The squadron struck the aircraft off strength.

As the machines were simple construction of timber, wire and dope painted linen, it allowed for pilots to hot rod their aircraft as well. One naval pilot borrowed the aircraft of Robert Little and was shocked to see his landing speed to be 10 mph higher than normal, it turned out Little had lowered his seat to lower the center of gravity so that he could go into a dive faster. An aircraft that is 1000 lb, moving a 200 lb pilots location in the aircraft can change its flight characteristics significantly.

Of all the World War I qualitative tests it is my opinion that the speed figures for both the Sopwith Camel and Fokker Triplane are the most at odds with observations and writings of both pilots from World War I and modern replica pilots. The Sopwith Camel in particular was known for it's lack of speed. Comparing the Sopwith Snipe and Sopwith Camel purely on the basis of climb and speed data from the period paints an incomplete picture as the test data is in contradiction to the observations of the pilots who flew those aircraft in World War I.

There is one area of performance figure where the Sopwith Snipe did show its 1919 performance and that is in the area of Weight to Power ratio's. This is a figure which shows an aircraft's ability to accelerate which can be especially useful at the end of an energy draining maneuver as acceleration is what gets the aircraft it's speed back. The Sopwith Snipe had a weight to power ratio of 8.98 from 2020 lbs over 230 hp. In other words every horsepower was pulling 8.98 pounds of weight through the air. The Sopwith Camel had ratio of 10.77 for the 140 hp Clerget. Some other comparisons, the Spad had a ratio of 9.44,the SE5a had a ratio of 9.7, the Bristol Fighter a ratio of 10.18, the Fokker DVII a ratio of 10.48 and the Albatros D.Va a ratio of 11.47.

November 4th 1918. 4 Squadron AFC meets Jasta Boelcke

Where the Sopwith Camel was failing the allied forces was in combat with Fokker DVII aircraft at height. The Sopwith Snipe did solve this issue for the allied squadrons who were equipped with the Snipe. The Australian squadron in the final weeks of World War I claimed twenty-one aircraft Destroyed, one Balloon Destroyed and fifteen Out of Control. Of these thirty-seven victories, thirty-five of them were against Fokker DVII's. This suggests that from operational claims, the squadron enjoyed a superiority over the Fokker DVII. During that period of claims the squadron lost three pilots killed and three pilots as Prisoners Of War. Of those six losses, five of them occurred on one day.

November 4th was a very black day for 4 Squadron as they lost five pilots from their mess room in two offensive operations. Most references place the losses from the Australian squadron in two combats with the elite German fighter squadron, Jasta Boelcke who was active opposite the Australians. However of the six losses only three can be ascribed to Jasta Boelcke. Of the morning combats the losses of Lt Goodson and Lt Rhodes as POWs are both given to the German ace Karl Bolle, however both Australian pilots in the repatriation papers said they were shot down by German anti-aircraft fire. Goodson's in particular makes for remarkable reading;

"I was one of a patrol of four machines that left the aerodrome at Ennetieres at 9 am on the 4th of November 1918, led by 2/Lieut Cato, to do a line patrol. Whilst patrolling the line we were being shelled by anti-aircraft guns from the German artillery. When at 13,000 feet I was hit in my lateral controls and bottom of control lever. The machine immediately went into a left hand spin from which it did not recover. When at about 3,000 feet, I received two more direct hits under the right wing. I spun into the canal between two bridges in the centre of Tournai. One wing of the machine was carried away by the bridge and the machine became a total wreck on striking the water. I was pulled out of the canal by some German soldiers. I was wounded slightly by a piece of shell in the head and badly shaken by the fall of the machine."

Rhodes statement included;

"Whilst on patrol, East of Tournai, under orders of the Squadron Commander, strong enemy resistance, and heavy anti-aircraft gunfire was experienced. The engine of my machine was damaged, and became unworkable, whereupon I was attacked by a Fokker biplane and brought down in the vicinity of the town of Tournai."

This was most likely the Fokker DVII of Karl Bolle ensuring that Rhodes would be unable to return to his aerodrome. The afternoon battles offer good comparison as at the time 4 Sqn AFC was the leading squadron on the front in the British and Dominion forces and Jasta Boelcke was the leading German Jasta of the period. An 11.40 am flight of eleven Sopwith Snipe aircraft while escorting bombers backed to allied lines noticed they were being tailed by fifteen Fokker DVII aircraft. The Australian aircraft were led by Roy King a 26 victory ace, and the German aircraft by Karl Bolle a 36 victory ace.

Once the bombers were safely across the lines the Sopwith Snipes climbed to meet the Fokkers. In the dogfight three Australian pilots were killed. These weren't young inexperienced pilot's either, Baker had 12 victories, Palliser 8 victories and Sims 4 victories. Baker was a flight commander as well. Of these three losses the Bolle claimed two and the another Jasta Boelcke ace, Ernst Bormann claimed one which was his sixteenth victory. The Australians claimed three victories, two destroyed in flames and one out of control. The two destroyed claims came from the Australian aces Roy King and George Jones.

There is no correlation in German losses for the day however this is not unusual as the Luftstreitkrafte only recorded a loss if the pilot was wounded, killed or taken prisoner. A destroyed aircraft with a pilot that survived the crash would not be recorded even if the aircraft was written off. As 80% of the fighting took place over German territory gaining confirmation of a claim for Squadrons operating on the British Front was often impossible. Victories were awarded to pilots and observers if they were witnessed by another aircraft in the air or a ground observer witnessed the combat and outcome.

About the only conclusion from November 4th battles that can be made is 4 Squadron AFC had no peers on their front other than Jasta Boelcke. At that period of time Jasta Boelcke was the elite scout squadron in the German forces. There is also no doubting from 4 Squadrons operational record that in the last five weeks of the war they enjoyed superiority over the Fokker DVII in a manner that the Sopwith Camel was unable to give them.

Conclusion

The Sopwith Snipe allowed the Allied squadrons in late 1918 to face the Fokker DVII on equal terms above 12,000 feet where the Sopwith Camel was unable to match the DVII. The Sopwith Snipe was also devoid of the flying twitches and idiosyncrasies of the Sopwith Camel. The Sopwith Snipe was a much easier aircraft to fly. The Sopwith Snipe did not have the same problem in training squadrons as the Camel did nor did it have the same reputation as a cadet killer as the Camel.

The decision to put the Sopwith Snipe into production despite its troubled development cycle also speaks to the British Air Ministries distrust of energy fighters. The Sopwith Snipe became the main fighter for the RAF after the war with the cancelling of the Martinsyde Buzzard which was to be the next generation of energy fighter for the RAF. The Sopwith Snipe represented the final evolution of the lightweight rotary engined fighter and in essence was the last of its kind as World War I aviation technology.

Footnotes

[1] The term scout and fighter can be used interchangeably in reference to World War I aircraft.

[2] The Fokker Dr.I Triplane was well known for the aircraft pointing it's nose wherever it wanted. The three wings had no dihedral to give the aircraft lateral stability.

[3] L'Aeronautique Militaire is the French Army Aviation forces.

[4] The Luftstreitkrafte was the Germany Army Aviation forces from October 1916 onwards. Previous to October 1916 the German aviation forces were known as the Fliegertruppe.

[5] Bloody April was the month in which the aviation forces on the British front took horrendous losses. This was mainly due to the arrival of the Albatros DIII at the front and its matching with Manfred von Richthofen, better known as "The Red Baron" or "le Petit Rouge". Richthofen turned the ineffective Jasta 11 into a feared fighting force. Previous to Richthofens arrival Jasta 11 had not scored one "abschluss" or shoot down. In April 1917 the Jasta 11 shot down 96 aircraft predominantly preying on the obsolete BE and FE aircraft. This is a remarkable number of claims for any squadron of any aviation force in World War I.

[6] Jagdgeschwader was a German air wing consisting of four Jasta scout squadrons. The JG's were formed with the specific task of securing air superiority in critically important combat sectors. German Jasta's typically consisted of twelve aircraft of mixed type with the aces getting the best equipment. The Australian and British Squadrons and the French and United States Aero's were all equipped with the same type of aircraft. A British squadron typically consisted of eighteen aircraft though in some cases such as with one Australian squadron the complement of aircraft was as high as twenty-four.

[7] The Fokker DVII is often described as being able to stand on its tail without stalling. This is due to the DVII's think airfoil design being able to maintain airflow across it without separation. There is a Fokker DVII still flying at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York State which performs stunts including this style of manoeuvre.

[8] Despite German engineering brilliance the engines produced by the aviation industry were unable to achieve the same horsepower levels as the British, French and Italian industries because of the Royal Naval blockade of important petroleum products such as high octane fuels and specialized lubricants. In 1918 the aviation industry had been given importance for raw materials over all but the submarine industries.

[9] The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service amalgamated into the Royal Air Force in 1918 to consolidate administration and command. One other reason was so that the RFC and RNAS weren't competing for the same aircraft in procurement.

[10] 80 Wing RAF consisted of the scout squadrons 92 Sqn RAF with SE5as, 2 Sqn AFC with SE5as, 4 Sqn AFC with Sopwith Snipes, 43 Sqn RAF with Sopwith Camels and 54 Sqn with Sopwith Camels. The Wing also consisted of 88 Sqn RAF equipped with Bristol Fighters for observation duties and 103 Sqn RAF with DH9 aircraft for bombing duties.

[11] The Italian army aviation force, the Aviazone del Regio Escerito flew against the Austro-Hungarian forces, the Kaiserliche und Konigliche Luftfahrtruppen over the Alps. The KUK forces flew Austrian variants of the Albatros and the Italian pilots which flew Spads and Ansaldos enjoyed a speed advantage over the Austro-Hungarians.

[12] Australian Imperial Force members who had been taken POW were required to fill out a repatriation statement which described the events leading to their capture and their experiences while in captivity.

More on WWI Aviation

Comparison of 1918 Performance Between Fighter Aircraft
Roy Phillips and No.2 Squadron Australian Flying Corps
Harry Taylor's Battle of Cambrai
O Flight and No.3 Squadron Australian Flying Corps
What Won World War I
How Important Were Aces to Squadron Scoring
The Martinsyde at No.1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps
Fokker DVII Hanging On To The Prop
Australian Flying Corps

The End Of All That

By the beginning of October, seven months of the war's [WWI] fiercest fighting were beginning to make their effects felt on both sides. In the spring and summer offensives the German Higher Command had called up all the resources left to their nation for a last desperate bid for victory and failed. Now Germany stood on the brink of defeat.

Whatever may have been said or written at home about Germany's impending collapse, I must say that we had no idea of it in September, 1918. To us the things looked just as critical as they did four years previously; then there seemed to come a sudden turn of the tide, the Foch and Haig turned defeat into victory on the Somme, just as Joffre and French had done on the Marne. Back went the line over that shell scarred battlefield again, with the British and French troops gaining ground every day, until at last we were in possession of Cambrai and the ground for several miles beyond.

At that time I often used to visit Lieut-Col Jack Scott, who commanded the Wing to which No.40 was attached. We rode several times over the ground I had keenly searched from the air for traces of Ben's [Strange's younger brother] SE5, but we never found a sign of either the machine or its engine, while the inhabitants who returned to their ruined homes after the British advance could give us no help, because they had seen so many machines go down that day.

Jack Scott was a fine commander. Not many men would have flown with a crushed leg, such as he had; it was a legacy from an old hunting accident and caused him a lot of pain; but he never complained, just relieving his feelings by swearing when he broke another undercarriage in landing.

I met him a lot after the war, when his inability to walk far made him take grave risks, as he visited his friends by air and always chose to land in the most impossible places close to their houses. One day he took me off to lunch at Mr Walter Longs house, and after three futile attempts contrived to get down in the park there, among some huge elm trees. It frightened the life out of me, but when we left he suggested that I should fly him home. I got out from between those trees somehow, after another big fright, although he never turned a hair. The RAF lost a great future CAS when he was carried off by pneumonia after taking risks every day which most airmen would not have cared to take once in a lifetime.

From October right up until the armistice, the 80th Wing did its share on helping to keep up the pressure on the German armies that were weakening all along our line. At times our aggressions amounted to wholesale slaughter, especially when the Germans opposing the Fifth Army round about Lille gave way. We bombed transport on the road, troops in billets, trains, railway stations, and aerodromes most mercilessly, and yet I do not think any of us realized that the end was so near. We were never in doubt, however, that we held the supremacy of the air, for each squadron took its daily toll of aircraft and balloons.

SE5a of Captain G.H. Blaxland, 2 Sqn AFC, 1918

By October 17th we were flying low over German aerodromes, in order to find out which of them had been evacuated, and thus avoid the waste of unnecessary bombs, let alone that we did not want to be damaging aerodromes that we hoped to occupy very soon. The next day the Wing carried out a most successful raid on Tournai with about eighty machines; we burnt three hangars on one aerodrome and seven on another; in addition to scoring direct hits on four trains and blowing up an ammunition train; which caused great fires and explosions in the station. On the 20th we were bombing and raiding as far east as Ath, and settled down to occupy a number of former German aerodromes, including the headquarters of my opposite number von Leutzer, at Fives.

On the 26th, we gave Tournai another visit, and did further damage. The most interesting part of this show came later when the Huns evacuated the place and we went along and saw with our own eyes what we had achieved from the air. On previous raids we had often been left speculating as to the real extent of the havoc we hoped to create, because things are bound to look very different when viewed from the air, while even the best of photographs taken by our Bristols could not tell us everything. Smoke and flames issuing from the building on which you have dropped your bombs can be deceptive at times, so that we could never be quite sure even when we had left a most promising scene of destruction. But the damage at Tournai Station that we could identify as our handiwork was an excellent object lesson to us.

A couple of days after our second Tournai show, the whole of 80th Wing attacked an occupied enemy aerodrome at Rebaix, where five hangars and eleven machines were destroyed. The lions share od the damage was done by Major Nethersole and Lieut Corey in a DH9 as they managed to drop a 230 lb bomb between two hangars; it demolished one of them and destroyed two machines that were on the ground. Major Nethersole got his DSO, I remember, for the brilliant way he handled his DH9 Squadron on that occasion. The German Air Force fought very well, but the 80th Wing was in fine fettle. Our total bag of enemy aircraft for the day was thirty-two, for which record we were congratulated by General Salmond.

To show how little one knows of what happens in an airfight, I may say that until I got back I was blissfully unaware that I had shot down a Fokker. An observer in one of the DH9's who recognized the machine I flew, reported and confirmed that I had got this enemy when he was sitting on the DH9's tail. Personally I had no idea this Hun had crashed, although I thought I got a good burst on him; but I was more worried about the question of whether I had any undercarriage left, because I hit the Fokkers wing hard with my wheels when I pulled out of my dive, having left it a bit late in my anxiety to make sure of him before he got the DH9. At the critical moment from which I was lucky to get away unscathed. At any rate, I could find no sign of damage to the undercarriage when I landed.

Sopwith Snipe of Captain E.R. King, 4 Sqn AFC, 1918

On November 4th we got another six hangars at Wattines. That was the day when Capt W.S. Wilcox of No.92 [RAF] had rather a strange adventure when leading a patrol round Landrecies. There was a low lying mist, and when attacking a howitzer battery from a height of one hundred feet, he was knocked unconscious from a shot from the ground that grazed his forehead. he crashed into some houses but actually escaped with no worse injuries than a bruised face and a sprained ankle. At all events he woke up to find himself being bandaged by a German Soldier, after which they carried him to an enemy casualty clearing station near Favril. There they put him in a house with a badly wounded German, but the next morning they took their own man away and told Wilcox to wait until our people came along. He was found by our advancing infantry the same afternoon.

Our air supremacy was now so pronounced that we did not need to be overcareful about planning our raids. In the old days, everything had to be carefully worked out to ensure a swift, hard, unexpected blow, and a quick return in good formation; otherwise we might have risked heavy losses. But now our leading squadrons just went over the lines and looked for some objectives worth raiding - which they might or might not find, because the Germans were being continually forced by the steady advance of our ground troops to evacuate their aerodromes and move into others further back. This meant that we sometimes found difficulty in locating them; but of course, the constant moves messed them up a lot, and Bolle told me afterwards that they were horribly handicapped by the lack of petrol and shortage of machines that had been worrying them for some months back was now chronic.

Consequently the effects of every aerodrome raid that we undertook weakened the enemy very considerably. Almost daily the great activity of movement by rail and road that the German retreat occasioned, gave us objective that simply asked to be bombed, but I believe that is this withdrawal had been carried out according to plan instead of under compulsion the air resistance would have been intense. As it was, the German Air Force fought bitterly to the end under circumstances which offered every excuse for a much weaker opposition than what we \actually encountered.

On November 9th I took my place in the squadron formation of No.54's Camels, commanded by Major Maxwell, who on occasion led the whole Wing in a brilliant fashion. He took us all a long way over and seemed to scent his prey from afar, for without any searching or hesitation he took us straight to Enghien. Then came the long, straight steady downward rush with full engines, commenced some miles away from his objective, that seemed to tell me he had been out scouting around before the raid.

As the detail on the ground grew larger and more distinct, we all realized that every bomb could be made to tell on the targets which offered themselves in all directions. Our first blow fell on five hangars, which we burnt. No fewer than ten machines were destroyed on the ground, after which we turned our attentions to the station. When we left it, two long trains, that must have been loaded with something highly inflammable, were burning. They had been set on fire by one of No.103's 112-lb bombs, and the blaze was visible for a very long time afterwards.

Then about two miles of motor and horse transport, guns, etc, were mercilessly shot up and bombed by No.4 Australian Flying Corps [AFC], causing the utmost confusion and destruction; while No.2 AFC and the Bristols of No.88 [RAF], found targets of all descriptions in camps and bivouacs round the town. A large proportion of the 130 bombs (a total of over two tonnes) dropped here must have been direct hits on troops and transport.

Major Maxwell and our little Camels of No.54, led us well that day. Our only loss was Smith, one of the flight commanders of No.2 AFC, and the celebrations in No.54's mess that night were of a most amazing character. Never was there such an exchange of individual accounts of the raid, and never - not even during our subsequent occupation of Germany - was there so much noise and destruction of squadron equipment. It went on until the early hours of the morning in those German built huts on Merdun Aerodrome.

A night that seemed to need no preliminary organization in No.54 Squadron, for, in addition to his prowess in the air, Maxwell was an arch conspirator in practical jokes and a positive genius as an entertainer. ...... In fact, No.54 Squadron played as strenuously as it fought, and contrived to enjoy itself mightily in both directions. This was the spirit that made for victory.

On the next day, November 10th - it was the SE5's turn to lead the raid; but Major Murray Jones took his No.2 AFC farther afield still, past Enghien into Hal. No.85 Squadron joined us in this raid, which brought the total up to over a hundred machines. Anticipating little or no opposition in the air, we loaded our machines up to their utmost capacity, and dropped 240 bombs, ranging from 25 lbs up to 230 pounds, as well as firing 16,000 rounds of ammunition at ground targets which consisted mainly of troops and transport, all moving back eastwards in long columns. In one major transport column I counted eight lorries burning when our squadron had attacked it; while No.2 AFC looked just like huge hornets in the air when they attacked a train that fled full speed towards Brussels until a bomb on its engine derailed it most effectively just as it was passing through a small station. Troops scattered in all directions, while No.2 AFC went off in search of more alluring targets.

Major Murray Jones was awarded a bar to his DFC for fine leadership on this raid. He was a quiet unassuming fellow, but a most resolute leader, whose magnificent services were never properly recognized, partly because he never made a fuss about anything; but took it for granted that a good show by his squadron was all in a days work. Under his leadership, No.2 AFC accounted for over one hundred machines in one way or another in four months.

At 2.a.m. the following morning an orderly woke me up with the following message: "Hostilities will cease from 11.a.m. today. No machines to cross east of the balloon lines."

I gave instructions for the message to be sent out to the squadrons. Then I turned over and went to sleep again, dimly wondering why I could not wake myself up enough to become enthusiastic about it, and what on earth we were going to do with ourselves in the morning without a war.

Early in the morning of November 11th, I drove over to No.4 AFC's aerodrome at Grand Ennetieres, as they had always looked after my Sopwith Camel, and I thought I should like just one more flight over the lines before the war was due to stop. Moreover, I half expected another message from the brigade to say that the armistice talk had only been a rumour.

When I got to the aerodrome, I could not find a single serviceable machine on the ground. Even my own Camel was gone. The Flight Sergeant said something about someone testing the guns for me; I forebore to press him, but drove on to the other aerodromes, where I found the same state of affairs.

About 11.a.m, pilots started coming back, and shortly afterwards we got another message through to the effect that the armistice had been signed and hostilities ceased at 11.a.m. I was not quite so sure about this last point, because when I questioned several Australian pilots, they said they had not seen any balloons, and asked most innocently how far east the balloon line was supposed to be. But I noticed their bomb racks were empty.

At noon some belated Snipes and SE5's put in an appearance, and when asked to give an account of themselves, the pilots said they thought it would be alright for them to go out and look for Smith [an Australian pilot from No.2 AFC who had been shot down], the man who had been missing since the Enghien raid. But their bomb racks were empty too.

As a matter of fact, Smith turned up a few days later. I was not there to greet him because I flew my Camel home on leave November 12th, taking two and a half hours for the journey from Lille to Winchester. But according to the story told me, he arrived at No.2 AFC's mess one evening looking like a scarecrow and making a most dramatic entrance just when everyone was in the middle of a more than usually hilarious celebration.

It seemed that a rifle bullet through one of his cylinders forced him to land on the outskirts of Enghien, where he got his machine safely down into a field, but was spotted by a party of Huns close at hand before he had time to destroy it. He bolted, but thought they were bound to catch him as he could not run properly in his flying kit; but he kept ahead of them until he gained a sunken lane. The he dodged around a bend and buried himself in a convenient haystack.

When the enemy passed on and the coast was clear, he made for a cottage, where a peasant lent him an old disreputable suit of clothes, but dared not shelter him. So he marched to Enghien, where he found a temporary resting place in an estiment; the following day he hung about Enghien, and finally started to walk back, passing for a Belgian labourer among the demoralised remnants of the German Army, who were trekking eastwards.

Occasionally they asked him the way to Brussels in broken French. Smith had just sufficient smatterings of the language to grasp what they meant, but dared not trust himself to answer in detail. So he just jerked his thumb over his shoulder and muttered, "a droit" or "a gauche" as the fancy took him, and the Huns were all too demoralized to suspect him. I fancy his return was made the opportunity for a celebration even more riotous that that of the armistice night. It even surprised some of our guests from No.54 which is saying a good deal.

.... Stranges leave back home .....

The last month of the 80th Wings existence was spent in collecting German machines and all the material that was left scattered over the countryside. We were more interested to visit all the scenes of our bombing raids and listen to the accounts of them retailed by the local inhabitants, most of which more than proved the truth of our reports of the damage done. We also had some good fun flying various types of German machines.

In the last week of January 1919, the 80th Wing was disbanded by the simple process of posting its competent squadrons to other Wings, and then I went up to Nivelles to take over command of 51st Wing. .....

In the Australian Flying Corps officers tended to die in violent deaths, either in combat or crashes. This was because they made up the large majority of the flying crews. Squadrons have high tail to tail ratios and many servicemen make up the support crews and services that enables a flight to get into the air each morning. Servicemen were more likely to die due to ill health and disease than violence.

The photo above shows Alan Runciman Brown on the far left. He is a bag of bones. His clothes are hanging off him. He is not healthy at all in that photo.

1 Sqn Australian Flying Corps [AFC] operated in the Middle East which brings its own issues in relation to health. Richard Williams relates the humorous story:

Some time before a scab, such as develops following a smallpox vaccination, appeared on my forehead. I consulted the RFC medical officer who said he did not know what it was but tried two or three medical treatments without result. He then suggested that I might have to move to a different climate to get rid of it.

I did not like the idea and took an opportunity which offered to consult one of our Australian medical officers with the Light Horse. He said, "Oh! yes, that's a fatty tumor, you will probably have that all your life". I asked him if there was any treatment and he said, "Iodoform".

Having obtained some iodoform and applied it I went over to the mess for lunch. Soon after Alan Murray Jones, who was a chemist, came in, took a sniff and said, "Who has syphilis - I can smell iodoform."

I admitted to the use of iodoform but not to the complaint he mentioned. That was the end of that treatment, good or bad.

Medical science was not what it is today either and pilots that would have been grounded today flew again in WWI. The idea the Manfred von Richthofen [the Red Baron] should not have been flying after his head wound constantly pops up.

Another example if Harry Taylor of No.2 Sqn AFC who suffered a severe head wound in a landing accident. His medical report said, "Should be dead." He rejoined the squadron later in the month after the accident, but was still suffering illness and other effects from the severe concussion he sustained. He later flew as an instructor in England.

In WWI illnesses such as Pneumonia and Flu could be killers at pandemic levels, something which does not happen today with modern medicine. Modern food and logistics are also much better meaning the sustained nutrition of those on deployment are better than they were in WWI as well.

The aircraft of World War I were constructed from wood frame and had high quality linen stretched over it. To seal and protect this linen from the elements it was 'doped' with a cellulitic covering. The dopings used by the British in World War I were commonly known as PC10, PC12 and CDL. Where the PC is believed to have stood for protective coating, and CDL stands for clear doped linen. These were applied over the linen cloth of the wings, fuselage and tail of the aircraft.

The Australian Flying Corps [AFC] aircraft were all from British stock and factories. Consequently the dopings for the AFC aircraft were the same as the Royal Air Force [RAF], Royal Flying Corps [RFC] and Royal Naval Air Service [RNAS]. These dopings were commonly PC10 on the upper surfaces and CDL under the wings and elevators.

PC10 is a bit of a slippery colour for historians to nail down as it changed from a brown to green shade as the war progressed. Additionally as it was subject to weathering it browned in colour.

Another issue is that quality control was not the same in 1916 as it is in modern factories that have the benefits of digital technology and statistical process control. PC10 was very definitely a bucket chemistry proposition.

Bristol Fighter of No.1 Sqn AFC in the protective covering of PC10 doping. The engine cowl is painted in battleship grey.

For one hundred gallons of PC10 the recipe is:

260 pounds nitro Cellulose syrup

74 pounds of pigments in the following proportions:

40 pounds yellow ochre
30 pounds umber
2 pounds 8 ounces Red Ochre
1 pound 8 ounces Chinese Blue

Which was then added to:

20 gallons Acetone or Methyl ethyl ketone
15 gallons Amyl Acetate
15 Gallons benzol
15 gallons Methylated spirit

As can be seen from the 'recipe' it is more like baking a cake than the precision of modern factories which produce identical products 24/7 with minimal variation.

The AFC squadrons in France were very uniform in their dopings; largely being with PC10 upper and CDL lower with either polished or grey cowls. The training squadrons in England had higher variation including red, white and black-and-white checkered aircraft.

The anomaly is No.1 Squadron AFC in the Middle East. They seemed to go through phases where aircraft were relatively uniform in dopings but outside of the standards of the AFC/RFC squadrons in France.

For instance their BE2s and BE12s appear to be uniformly CDL all over until they went through a period where PC12 - PC10s reddish cousin - started appearing on their upper surfaces. The Martinsydes in No.1 squadron went through a similar phase. One aircraft it seems was CDL lower, PC12 upper and a PC10 tailfin - complete with white serial.

Martinsyde G100 of No.1 Sqn AFC with PC12 upper surfaces and PC10 tail. Profile is taken from a photo in One Airman's War

The Martinsydes then appear to have been standardised on all-over CDL before the Bristol Fighter's made their appearance in the squadron. Initially the Bristol Fighters had a mix of white and PC10 markings.

Bristol Fighter A7194 of No.1 Sqn AFC with white and PC10 upper surfaces.

Like the Martinsyde, the Bristol Fighters became standardised in the PC10 uppers and CDL lowers, though one aircraft was recorded as being yellow all over, there has been no photographic evidence of the 'yellow peril' Biff. It may have been ochre, CDL or erroneously reported as yellow.

No.2 Squadron was mobilized from No.1 Squadron AFC and the Lighthorse in Egypt. The squadron trained in England before equipping with Airco DH5 aircraft and heading to France in September, 1917. They were involved in the hectic campaigns surrounding the Battle of Cambrai, earning a name for their effectiveness and courage. The squadron re-equipped with the SE5a and began the high altitude sweeps that would bring them success through-out 1918 whether operating as a squadron or a wing. The squadron finished the war operating with 80 Wing alongside No.4 Squadron AFC and taking part in the big wing raids. The squadron was demobilized in February of 1919.

Mobilization

2 Squadron was mobilized at Kantara, Egypt on the 20th of September 1916 under Major Walter "Toby" Watt, a veteran of the French Aeronautique Militaire and No.1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps (AFC). Ossie Watt had been a leader in the Militia in Australia and a veteran of pre-war flying in Egypt and Europe. The unit was formed with members of No.1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps and some aggressive recruiting from the Lighthorse by Major Watt.

The recruiting process involved the Australian Flying Corps driving trucks to a local Australian Lighthorse encampment and yelling from the back of the trucks; "Trades, Fitters, Mechanics, Sailmakers". After the needed amount of tradesmen had been recruited and were seated in the trucks, the Recording Officer for No.2 Squadron asked Watt if they should tell the Lighthorse orderly of the AFC recruiting the men. Watt's reply was; "No, we must snatch them".

The new squadron did some initial training, especially for the newly recruited tradesmen, at the aerodrome of No.1 Squadron. Those that were found to be unsuitable were returned to their Lighthorse units. After this short period, the pilots of the squadron departed directly for England to receive further flight training. Especially in the skills and tactics necessary for combat operations on the Western Front.

The rest of the squadron sailed by ship through Malta to Marseilles and then traveled by train across France before being billeted at Le Havre. The winter of 1917 was one of the coldest in European history and many of the Australians, used to the warm Australian and Egyptian climates, suffered in disbelief at the extreme cold. To add to their discomfort they spent the period in housed in Tents. The squadron sailed for England and reached Harlaxton in Lincolnshire on the 31st of January 1917.

Harlaxton to St Omer

At Harlaxton the squadron shared the aerodrome with No.44 Reserve Squadron Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and from this base the aircrew studied the latest in aerial combat skills that had been learnt in the skies over France. The ground crews also studied the new technologies they would need to support the squadron's aircraft and operations. To gain these specialist skills the servicemen in the squadron were temporarily posted to technical schools around England where they participated in technical courses.

The aircrew did initial training on Maurice Farmans, Avro 504s, Sopwith Strutters and Sopwith Pups which were split up amongst the flights. While Ossie Watt was flying with the French in 1915 he had adorned his Maurice Farman in a large white Kangaroo. B Flight of No.2 Squadron at this time sported Sopwith Strutters which were emblazoned with large Kangaroo's as well. The Australian imagery on aircraft was a feature of all squadrons and wings Watt commanded.

The aircrew numbers were also made up with pilots who had graduated from Point Cook in Melbourne. One of those pilots was Arthur Cobby who commented on the comfort he felt training with Australians at Harlaxton;

There was a vast difference in the manner in which we were treated at Harlaxton, to that meted out to use at Royal Flying Corps schools. We were Australians with Australians and no longer gentlemen visitors from the Antipodes and instruction and comment was direct and to the point. The senior instructors were Guilfoyle, Muir and Matthews and they just put us through the hoops.

In preparation for becoming operational in France, an advanced party from the squadron left Harlaxton, and traveled through Portsmouth to the squadron's new aerodrome at Baizieux. The rest of the ground-crew left Harlaxton on the 21st of September 1917.

On the same day the complete squadron of DH5 aircraft flew across to St Omer and landed at Warloy. This was a record for the AFC and RFC deploying to France. It was the first time a complete squadron had made the trip with all the aircraft reaching the destination together. The next day the aircraft were flown to Baizieux.

Airco DH5

The DH5 was a scout designed by Geoffrey de Havilland's company which was known as Airco. Previous de Havilland designs had been pusher aircraft to overcome the allied lack of an interrupter gear. The DH2 had been a scout of this design which had done much to overcome the superiority of the Fokker EIII. The DH2 had a nacelle forward of the engine with minimally staggered wings and was known for the excellent forward view the arrangement gave.

The DH5 was a tractor design with the engine at the front of the aircraft. The Airco design team tried to get the forward view advantages of the DH2 into a a tractor design. To achieve the forward view the design team back staggered the wings with the top wing further back from the nose of the aircraft than the lower wing in the biplane layout.

While this arrangement did give the forward view desired; it obscured the rear view rather drastically. This was not a positive attribute for a scout aircraft to have. The aircraft was also intended to be the next generation of aircraft after the Sopwith Pup, but by mid 1917 standard when the SE5a, Spad VII and Sopwith Camel were being deployed, the DH5 with a single gun and 110 hp engine, gave sub standard performance.

Captain Richard Howard wrote of the DH5 when he was posted back to No.2 Squadron after a a brief experience with No.57 Squadron RFC;

Here, we are flying DH5's - single seat scout machines which can travel 120 miles an hour, flying level with the engine full out. This is just about as fast as the DH4, which I was flying France. ... The DH4 is a two seater machine, heavily built and therefore slow at maneuvering. Being a scout the DH5 maneuvers very quickly and thus makes up for the disadvantage of having no observer to protect the tail of the machine. ... They are very strongly built and can be looped or spun easily, and can be dived at 180 miles an hour without the wings dropping off.

This shows that the issues surrounding the sub-par performance of the DH5 were well known and understood by the pilots. That the DH5 had the same top speed as the DH4, which was an observation and bomber aircraft, signifies the DH5s lack of speed. No.2 Squadron often reported in their CITAR's that enemy aircraft including enemy observation aircraft would simply fly away from them and the slow DH5 would not be able to catch them.

Another issue with the DH5 was the performance at altitude. The Le Rhone rotary engines were highly dependent on the density of the oxygen being fed to the engine. As the altitude increased performance dropped. In the DH5 as it was underpowered anyway, the performance drop was fairly drastic in comparison to the German aircraft it was opposing, such as the Albatros DVa and Pfalz DIII.

Quality control from the production lines were indicative of the day. One DH5 at No.2 Squadron was struck off charge for the following reason;

Lt McKenzie in 9451 machine was never satisfactory and was eventually written off. This machine is very hard to maneuver, the planes warp in the air. The machine has never been satisfactory since delivery on 23rd inst. On stripping the machine the lower center section was found to be saturated with oil and very spongy.

This was a facet of early manufacturing. Quality control did not extend past templating and human inspections. Lemons still made it out of the aviation factories in England, France and America.

Early Squadron Markings

The squadron had emblazoned the Sopwith Strutters from their training period with a kangaroo on the nose or fuselage. This Australian imagery made its way onto the DH5 aircraft as well. Richard Howard wrote how the squadron's DH5s were marked when they left England;

"All our machines were painted with their flight colors and look very well. Mine is in A Flight and red is the distinguishing color, so I have a red kangaroo on the cowling, a red propeller boss, red bands around the gun and fuselage and red numbers to distinguish each pilot. I am No.4"

Those colorful markings soon gave way to conservatism that was prevalent on the western front amongst all Royal Flying Corps squadrons. The squadron marking for No.2 Squadron's DH5 aircraft became a thin white stripe around the fuselage near the tail, and white letters or numbers for the flight marking. Individual flair remained in some cases - Howard's aircraft in France was marked with "Lucifer" across the horseshoe of the cowl.

Battles over Cambrai

The British Army decided that a push against the Hindenburg Line in the Cambrai area would wield results against the German ground forces. The new offensive was small by comparison to some of the previous offensives but was launched as a result of the Russian revolution and a successful Austrian offensive against Italian forces in the Alps. General Julian Byng commanded the offensive and worked into his plan the new armored tanks.

No.2 Squadron found itself in the thick of the battle serving in a counter attack role against German ground assets. This was dangerous work, as it involved low flying over the front lines where the pilots were subject to constant anti-aircraft and small arms fire. Lieutenant Les Holden became earned the nicknames, "the homing pigeon" and "lucky len" as his aircraft came back from missions full of holes from ground fire. Holden's Intelligence Summary for the 20th of November contains a descriptive report of the danger the pilots faced;

Lt Holden in 9278 left Aerodrome at 8.20 am on a special mission. Machine was badly damaged by Enemy Aircraft and flew back to Bapaume. Damage Elevator control shot away. BL main ribs shot through. Rear undercarriage strut shot through, right and left Longeron shot through, Tail plane shot through, Petrol Tank shot through, Center Section Strut shot through, in fact everything was shot through, All the Pilot got was one in the sole of his rubber boot, and one which split his high boots at the knee, but neither bullets pierced the skin.

The aircraft returning with damage placed pressure on the ground crews as well. In an offensive it was important to have as many aircraft serviceable as possible. The ground-crews worked through the night to ensure that the aircraft were ready for the next morning's mission. The armorers in the squadron also earned a name for their professionalism and expertise. Captain Richard Howard wrote;

Again our squadron has made its name for its gunnery record, due to the ceaseless toil of our armorers. An aerial gun, geared to fire through the propeller, is a delicate instrument. Nevertheless, our guns have been so perfectly maintained that, during the stunt, we were able to fire more rounds, with fewer stoppages than any other squadron. These are but a few instances of how the squadron has built a name for itself in a short time, and we can now rank with the best RFC squadron.

The acknowledged best squadron in the Royal Flying Corps at the time was No.56 Squadron.

Lieutenant Harry Taylor

Harry Taylor had served in Egypt and Gallipoli with the Australian Army before transferring into the Australian Flying Corps. As part of Taylor's training he had served with No.48 Squadron RFC. By the time of the Battle of Cambrai, Taylor was one of the most experienced pilots in the squadron. On November 20th, 1917; Taylor was flying with Captain "Skipper" Wilson on a special mission to strafe German troops. Taylor's aircraft was hit during a strafing attack and he crashed. He pulled himself from the wreckage and fired rockets off to let Wilson know that he was ok. Wilson relates;

That he[Taylor] was sufficiently alive to fire those rockets was amazing . His machine was just a heap of wreckage. One wing lay 20 yards from the rest of the heap.

Taylor had crouched behind a small mound for protection and with his pistol was returning fire at the German infantry. Wilson was making strafing runs at the infantry that were closing on Taylor, and with each run Taylor would make a burst toward a group of British troops. Wilson saw Taylor reach the British troops, where he then picked up the rifle of a fallen soldier. The troops that Taylor had found had lost their officer, so Taylor led them back to the British lines.

Earlier in the day's fighting, Captain J. Bell had been shot down; his wounds sufficiently heavy to be mortal. While Taylor was attempting to return to his unit's aerodrome, he discovered Bell's aircraft. With the help of some nearby troops Taylor attempted to get the DH5 started and into the air, but he was unable to. Taylor walked back to the aerodrome, reaching it in time for dinner.

By the first week of December, the offensive had petered out and the weather had closed in, limiting the amount of flying that could be done. In the Royal Flying Corps Communique No.118, there was mention of nineteen Military Crosses being awarded. Of these nineteen, six went to No.2 Squadron Australian Flying Corps. An example of their achievement in the fury of the Cambrai Offensive.

The SE5a

The first of the new aircraft the squadron received was an SE5 on the 27th of October. All future aircraft the squadron received were SE5a aircraft. The squadron flew the 200hp Hispano Suiza SE5a aircraft until August of 1918 but by May of 1918 the squadron started receiving the 180hp Viper engined SE5a aircraft. They continued to fly the Viper engined SE5as until the squadron returned to England in February of 1919.

The SE5a was a strong and powerful aircraft. It was not the most agile aircraft on the Western Front, and was easily out-turned in a dogfight with the German Fokker Triplanes. But the SE5a was excellent as a high altitude fighter. Later in the war it was one of the few aircraft able to challenge the Fokker DVII at heights above 12,000 feet.

The SE5a was also outstanding when the pilot used the aircraft's superior speed and strength to engage and disengage enemy aircraft at will. Captain C.H. Copp describes the training he received for the SE5a that takes advantage of this strength of the SE5a. Copp describes fellow Australian, Arthur Conningham, as instructing him with;

Now, I want you to do some fast diving with your engine full on, and diving vertically. You can get up to nearly 300 m.p.h., but I must tell you how to do it without losing your wings. The airspeed indicator only registers up to 180 m.p.h., so after that has been passed, you simply look at the fabric on the lower wing. When you see one buckle appear in it, you are probably doing something like 200 m.p.h.; when there are two buckles, you are probably doing about 250 m.p.h.; but you want to be careful not to get three, because then the wings will undoubtedly fall off.

The SE5a aircraft carried two different machine guns, a Vickers mounted above the engine, and a Lewis gun mounted above the top wing. The Lewis gun had a tighter pattern than the Vickers, but suffered from being above the line of sight the pilot had down the nose of the aircraft. The Lewis gun also needed to be reloaded when a drum was exhausted. Considering that most combat reports generally state that the pilot put between fifty and two hundred rounds into a downed aircraft, this was not so big a disadvantage. But reloading the Lewis gun above the top wing, was an impossible task while in a dogfight.

The SE5a carried between 550 and 735 rounds of ammunition for the two machine guns. Normally the ammunition used was a mixture of the Mark VII Ordinary, Tracer, Buckingham and Armour piercing .303 bullets. In the Vickers belts these bullets were normally arranged in the form, three ordinary, one tracer, and one armor piercing. For Lewis guns the mixture was commonly; two ordinary, one trace, one armor piercing and one buckingham.

Back to the Scouting Role

With the conversion to the SE5a aircraft, came another change in the squadron. The commanding officer of the squadron, Oswald Watt, was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and posted to England to form No.1 Wing AFC. Replacing Oswald Watt was Major William Sheldon, a veteran of No.1 Squadron in the Palestinian campaign, and former commanding officer of No.4 Squadron AFC.

The SE5a aircraft also enabled the squadron to perform high altitude scout patrols, a combat function that the DH5 was unable to satisfy. Consequently No.2 began to roam the skies high above the First Army front at Arras. Bad weather in the late winter period of January and February 1918 made flying difficult if not impossible for much of the two months.

One of the patrols in a patch of good weather in February led by Captain Fred Huxley found themselves in a position to dive on a flight of brightly colored Albatros aircraft. Huxley singled out the leader, who was flying an Albatros with a red nose, a green fuselage with yellow stripes and a blue tail;

I had superior height and dived on the leader who turned on his wingtip and fell out of control after I had fired about 50 rounds at 150 yards range. I then attacked another machine of hostile formation, with no result. The EA [enemy aircraft] then flew East of Lille. One enemy machine attacked me whilst I engaged the leader. Second Lieutenant Paxton engaged one of the enemy machine and I fired a burst of 20 rounds with Lewis gun with no result.

As the Australians had new opportunities to engage in the scouting role, more successes began to come in. Lieutenant Robert Mackenzie, despite a jammed vickers, destroyed an Albatros DV near Pont a Vendin. Other victories were also claimed by Howard, Clark and Benjamin.

February was to be the lull before the storm, the eastern front collapsed with revolutionary Russia withdrawing from the war. German troops began moving from the east to the west, and the allies sought to put new pressure on Germany through offensives in March, while Germany sought to break the allies back before American troops could be embarked to Europe. No.2 Squadron was in the thick of all this activity.

The German Spring Offensive

The pattern of German air superiority was to concentrate their most effective Jasta's in the regions that required their support. Beginning March 11th, there was increased German air activity in the Arras region as German reconnaissance aircraft began collecting more intelligence and larger numbers of German scouts protected the reconn activities. No.2 Squadron began seeing more and more aerial combat through this period, recording eleven victories between March 8th and March 18th. This increased tempo of operations from the squadron was to continue with the launch of Ludendorff's spring offensive on March 21st, 1918.

The German Army, bolstered by 500,000 men from the eastern front, launched the spring offensive with one million artillery shells being fired in five hours against the Arras, Lys and Aisne regions of the frontlines. German storm troopers broke through the lines of the British Fifth Army, making monstrous gains in land toward Paris. Taking back land that had been lost in the British offensives of 1917. The German Army captured 70,000 prisoners in the first seven days. This was the environment No.2 Squadron found themselves fighting in.

A flight led by Captain Roy Phillipps found a group of reconn aircraft and their escorts above Bullecourt at 18,000 feet; Forrest dispatched one in flames while McKenzie sent an Albatros DV down out of control. The flight continued its patrol and then engaged a group of Fokker Triplanes, where Phillipps chased one down to 2,000 feet leaving it falling through a cloud - on its back and spinning.

March 22nd also brought a huge loss for the squadron, when the eight victory ace, Captain Richard Howard did not return from a patrol. Howard had been leading a patrol of six aircraft at 15,500 feet over Bapaume. The flight spotted a pair of two-seater aircraft 10,000 feet below them and dived to attack. Their approach did not go unnoticed and thirty German scout aircraft pursued them. It is highly likely that the two-seaters below were bait in a trap.

Lieutenant Archie Rackett was part of the flight and had attacked a two-seater sending it out of control before diving away. He got caught in the fog of the region and landed at No.49 Squadron RFC's aerodrome at Bellevue. Rackett reported last seeing Howard south of Honnecourt while ground observers last saw Howard near Epehy. While Norman Franks entertains the notion that Howard was shot down by Luetnant Hans Boehning of Jasta 79, there are issues with this conclusion. Boehning claimed a Camel, not an SE5a, the claim is also for Vermond, 17 kms away from where Howard was last seen. Eric Watson and Alan Fraser conclude that it is most likely;

Thus, on information available to this writer, it is concluded that the circumstances of the loss of Richard Howard are by no means established. The evidence offered to the Court of Inquiry and other known factors lead to a belief that the most likely cause was either fire from the ground or a forced landing with engine trouble, or a wound, leading to a crash and mortal injury

Howard died in the Field Hospital 113 ar Escadoevres, near Cambrai. He was buried in the Cambrai Military Cemetery.

Counter Attack

With the German advance still ongoing the role of the squadron began to include counter attack and ground strafing, as it had during the Cambrai offensive. The German storm troopers had traveled light and German logistics struggled to catch up with food and supplies. Consequently the roads leading to the front line were flush with wheel and horse transport.

The squadron now mixed in strafing these roads with No.4 Squadron AFC as part in addition to their combat air patrols. Often the SE5a aircraft of No.2 Squadron would escort the Sopwith Camels of No.4 as they bombed and strafed the German transports.

When flying high altitude patrols, the biggest danger was inattention. Being bounced was a constant possibility. At heights of 16,000 feet, lack of oxygen as well as the cold becomes an issue. Often pilots were bounced as they struggled to concentrate at those heights.

Low flying carried the dangers of being exposed to small-arms fire. Below 3,000 feet an aircraft could be brought down by rifle and machine gun fire from the ground. Another danger was not paying attention to the sky around when strafing targets on the ground. A newcomer to No.2 Squadron, Lieutenant Oscar Flight, was shot down and captured in this way. He recorded what happened in a repatriation statement after the war;

Then I went to Arras and strafed along Arras-Cambrai Road. I was there about 15 minutes under a good deal of A.A. and machine gun fire when all of a sudden the A.A. fire stopped. Very soon after this shots came at me from the rear. On looking around I saw 3 enemy Albatross machines. I pulled around in a climbing turn, but two of the machines had too much height on me. The fire was more or less incessant for a minute or so. Up to that time my machine had not been hit.

About this time four enemy triplanes joined in the fight and gradually forced me down to within 150 feet of the ground. Bullets were coming from all directions. All at once one got a big burst into my right plane and rear strut also severing a flying wire. A few seconds later a rear strut flew out; the bottom socket had been blown out. The machine immediately heeled over and all attempts to right it failed. I switched off and held on to the front of the cockpit. The machine then dived into the ground tearing down a number of enemy telephone wires. I was rendered unconscious. This was about 1.15. pm.

By the end of March the German offensive had been brought to a halt near Villers-Bretonneux. The Australia Corps holding the line there, further in the north the British Third Army repulsed a renewed attack by the German infantry, effectively holding the northern front from collapse. Between March 22nd and March 30th, No.2 Squadron had claimed sixteen victories with Phillipps and Forrest both claiming three during this period of frenzied operations.

Changing Squadron Markings

With the arrival of the SE5a aircraft, the squadron changed their marking from a thin white stripe at the tail, to a white boomerang behind the roundel. This was most likely the influence of Oswald Watt. During his time flying for the French Foreign Legion, he had flow in a Maurice Farman with a kangaroo blazen across the nose of the aircraft.

With Watt commanding the squadron during their training period in England, the Sopwith Strutters the pilots learnt on had red stripes and white kangaroos on the rear of their fuselage. Later when Watt commanded No.1 Wing, the Australian training squadrons bore markings of kangaroos and emus. No.4 Squadron AFC also used the white boomerang marking on their Sopwith Camels.

With the march offensives, British Intelligence tried to confuse the Germans by mixing up the squadron markings in the Royal Flying Corps and Australian Flying Corps squadrons. No.2 and No.4 lost their distinctive boomerang markings to a white bar fore of the roundel. This was to remain their marking until the end of the war.

Wing Formations

April brought about a change in British tactics, much like how the Germans concentrated air strength into their "flying circuses", the British and Australian squadrons began doing the same. No.2 Squadron joined into a wing with No.43 and No.80 RFC at Bellevue aerodrome. The wing formations were intended to take the fight to the German Jastas with over-whelming numbers and aggressive leadership.

There were early successes in April with Captain Forrest destroying a DFW near Demiun. A new arrival to the squadron was Lieutenant Gregory Blaxland, a great grandson of the famous explorer. Blaxland scored two quick victories, downing two reconnaissance aircraft before a flight he was in accidentally attacked a French flight of Spad aircraft. Blaxland's misguided attack was effective and Adjutant Renault of Spa 86 was killed.

Major Sheldon attempted to protect his young pilot, but both ended up being transferred out of the squadron to the Australian training squadrons in England. It was a shame as when Blaxland returned to the squadron in September of 1918, he scored six victories in quick succession. Blaxland was obviously a very effective pilot and it was shame that one tragic incident put a hole in his operational career.

Lieutenant Charles Copp Joins the Squadron

By the wars end, one of the most experienced pilots in the squadron was Captain Charles Copp. By the wars end, Copp had done 244.45 hours of flying with the squadron. The highest number of hours by any pilot in the squadron. Copp joined the squadron on the 13th of May, 1918 and later recounted his first patrol as the Flight Commander's wingman;

On 30th May 1918, I did my first patrol with him[Captain H.G. Forrest]. He said, "Now Copp, you just keep formation alongside me, no matter what happens. If I go upside down, or if anything at all occurs, pay no attention. Don't worry about trying to use your guns, just keep formation right from beginning to end." That sounded fairly easy, so off we went. It was a cloudless day and I kept formation as well as I could with the limited amount of training I'd had.

Suddenly he completely disappeared from my view. I had no idea what had happened to him. Then I found that I was a very good target for some German pilot, for there were wisps of tracer bullets through the wings of my machine. However, I took what evasive action I could, and eventually picked up Forrest again, and got into formation with him. As soon as I landed he came over and said, "Thanks Copp, you made very good bait" He had spotted this German Pfalz, and while it was firing at me, he had got round onto its tail and had shot it down. That was my introduction to air-fighting in France.

Despite Copp's tale, the training of the pilots coming from England had improved since the 1915 when pilots were thrown into the western front with few hours and no combat training. But even with improved pilot training and combat experience they were not fail proof against enemy fire and plain bad luck. Captain Phillipps on the 3rd of May appeared in the squadron's Intelligence Summary;

Capt Phillipps in D/3535 left Aerodrome 10.45 a.m. came down at Tangry Cause. During a bank, Verys Light Pistol fell out of socket and jammed controls. Machine very badly damaged. Pilot OK. Returned for repair.

A pilot and aircraft are at the most vulnerable during take off and landing. The pilot has to concentrate on many things at once, and if something goes wrong, or an error is made, there is not much extra flight speed or height to correct it. From an Intelligence Summary;

Lt Knight in D/3962 left at 4.45 and came down 6.30 p.m. In landing, Lewis gun fell off mounting and commenced to fire. Pilot in correcting it accidentally pushed control lever forward and machine struck the ground. Pilot OK. Machine wrecked.

Many of the aircraft losses in the squadron were a result of imperfect quality in the engines of the time. The Intelligence Reports record many crashes and incidents resulting from engine's cutting out on take off or magneto and carburetor problems, broken conrods and other failures. Another cause for aircraft to be struck off was overuse;

Lt Currie in B4895 machine arrived in Squadron on 7.12.17 and has done 145 hours 25 minutes over the lines. Written off, war worn.

Capt Forrest in C9539. Machine arrived in Squadron, 19.12.17 and has done 137 hours 50 mins over the lines. Written off, war worn.

C9496 arrived in Squadron, 9.1.18 and has done 181 hours 4 mins. Written off, war worn.

The demands of combat flying were hard on both men and machines.

Ongoing Success

In the second half of 1918, two pilots; Captain Roy Phillipps and Captain Frank Smith began to collect victories that pointed to them battling it out to be the leading aces in the squadron. Smith was to end the war with sixteen victories, while Phillipps finished with fifteen. Phillipps had been one of the "Black ANZACs" who had led the first Australian charge on French soil. Phillipps had been wounded in the trenches, which had resulted in one of his legs being shorter than the other.

Phillipps claims were somewhat unique in the British and Australian forces, for the number of Destroyed and Captured claims. Other than one out of control claim, Phillipps recorded three captured, two destroyed in flames and eight destroyed. On June 12th, 1918 Phillipps claimed a remarkable four victories in one day. The victories included two destroyed and two captured. The Communique for the next day reads;

Capt R.C. Phillipps, 2 Sqn AFC, while on offensive patrol, dived on six triplanes which were attacking another of our patrols, and shot down two of them. Shortly afterwards he attacked an enemy two-seater, which he shot down, the E.A. Bursting into flames on hitting the ground. Capt Phillipps also destroyed another E.A. Thus, accounting for four in one day, all of which were confirmed by pilots.

The pilots of the squadrons were also racking up large totals of flying time as they participated in combat patrols and attack missions. As mentioned earlier, Captain Copp had over 244 hours. Other with high flying hours included Captain Smith with 238 hours, Captain Roby Manuel with 239 hours, Captain Cummings with 220 hours, Captain Davies with 211 hours and Captain Phillipps with 210 hours.

80 Wing

In July No.4 Squadron joined No.2 in flying out of Reclingham aerodrome. In combined operations with No.4 and the British squadrons of No.88 and No.92, the en-masse attacks on Harbourdin and Lomme aerodromes were carried it, with dramatic effect. Soon after the Harbourdin sweep, the squadron sent a patrol back over the aerodrome where Captain Adrian "king" Cole shot down two Fokker DVII scouts.

By the end of August, the squadron was doing lower level wing sweeps across the German front in conjunction with the Sopwith Camels of No.4 and the Bristol Fighters of No.88 Royal Air Force. One of the purposes of the Wing formation was for the higher level aircraft to drive the German aircraft down into the lower levels of the Wing formation, effectively outnumbering the Germans.

Another issue was that the Sopwith Camels had very poor performance above 12,000 feet and were totally outclassed by the Fokker DVII above that altitude. The SE5a and Bristol Fighter could hold their own against the Fokkers at that height, and when possible were able to drive the Fokkers down into the Sopwith Camels which were waiting at lower altitude where their twitchy dogfighter aircraft were more of a match for the Fokker DVII.

The One Legged Ace

Rather uniquely for the Australian squadron, and Australian aviation history was Frank Alberry, the Tasmanian ace. Alberry had lost his leg in the Somme battle with the 8th Battalion AIF when his kneecap was shattered while he was defending a strong point. His leg was amputated above the knee. Alberry decided that if he couldn't walk, he would fly and after petitioning the King of England, was able to join the Australian Flying Corps.

Alberry learned how to fly in the RAF system before passing through No.6 Squadron AFC. He was then posted to operational duties with No.2 Squadron in June of 1918. After some unreliable engines in the SE5a aircraft he was given, he settled into the SE5a D6995. It was in this aircraft he scored his seven victories, and consequent acedom.

The End of All That

In October and November it was becoming obvious that the German forces on the ground were fraying under the pressures of the naval blockade and continuing pressure on the ground. No.2 Squadron continued their mix of high altitude combat patrols, wing sweeps and ground attack missions. The squadron downed twenty-three aircraft in October and another fourteen twelve on the 4th of November.

The last big raid flown by 80 Wing was on November 9th when DH9's, Bristol Fighters, Sopwith Camels and SE5as attacked the retreating troops and transports around Enghien. Lieutenant Colonel Louis Strange relates what occurred;

Then about two miles of motor and horse transport, guns, etc., were mercilessly shot up and bombed by No.4 AFC, causing the utmost confusion and destruction; while No.2 AFC and the Bristols of No.88, found targets of all descriptions in camps and bivouacs round the town.

The squadron's only loss on this raid was Captain Frank Smith who was shot down behind German lines. Smith managed to evade capture through donning civilian clothing and walked the forty miles back to the aerodrome. Smith saw a group of German soldiers kick their NCO to death, an indication of the disarray the German Army was in by November 1918. Smith arrived back after November 11th, when the war had ended.

Major Alan Murray-Jones had been commanding the squadron since May of 1918. Murray Jones was a veteran of No.1 Squadron AFC in Palestine and had been the German ace, Felmy's self-professed greatest foe! Murray-Jones provided strong leadership for the squadron. Strange wrote on Murray-Jones in his book, "Recollections of an Airman";

Major Murray-Jones was awarded a bar to his DFC for his fine leadership on this raid. He was a quiet, unassuming fellow, but a most resolute leader, whose magnificent services were never properly recognized, partly because he never made a fuss about anything, but took it for granted that a good show by his squadron was all in a day's work.

With the armistice on November 11th, the squadron wound down until it was demobilized on the 28th of February, 1919. The squadron staged through Hurdcott on the Cotswolds until the squadron was transported home to Australia.

During the squadron's service it flew 6256 hours and 55 minutes, as well as firing 190,000 rounds in the air. The squadron shot down 185 aircraft with 94 of them claimed as destroyed, 73 Out of Control and 18 Driven Down. Over thirteen months 98 pilots passed through squadron with the average length of service in the squadron being four months and two days. During operations ten pilots lost their lives, two were wounded and seven were taken prisoner; all of which were repatriated. Five pilots also lost their lives in aircraft accidents.

No.2 Squadrons proud record of service in World War I was maintained in World War II when the squadron flew Lockheed Hudsons and North American B25 Mitchells in the defence of Australia in the Pacific. The squadron was also a prominent part of the Australian contingent in Vietnam flying GAF Canberra bombers. More recently the squadron was reformed to operate the new Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft.

References

• Above The Trenches. A Complete Record of the Fighter Aces and Units of the British Empire Air Forces 1915-1920.Christopher Shores, Norman Franks and Russell Guest, 1990
• The Australian Flying Corps. The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918 Volume VIII.F.M. Cutlack, 1923
• Highest Traditions.John Bennett, 1995
• Military Aircraft of Australia 1909-1918. Keith Isaacs
  , 1971
• Recollections of an Airman. L.A. Strange, 1933
• Royal Air Force Communiques 1918. Christopher Cole, 1968
• Royal Flying Corps Communiques 1917 - 1918. Chaz Bowyer, 1998

The author would also like to acknowledge the assistance and research of Gordon Branch which contributed to this article.

Aerial Fighting

Flying has of late years been a muchly discussed topic, and to-day the interest in the subject is even more keen, owing to the successful termination of the war and the striking part that the aeroplane played in bringing about that happy conclusion. Again, the problem of commercialising the aeroplane for the peaceful work of trade, and of rapid transit from place to place, has been very much before the public, culminating at the moment in the trans-Atlantic flight. All these things have made the man in the street cognisant of the powers and possibilities of flying, and have awakened in his mind thoughts which five years ago it would have been impossible for him to have imagined.

War flying has been dealt with by scores of writers. Some of the them have been familiar with their subjects by actual personal experience - and some have not. Many of them have derived their knowledge from hearsay, which - from my experience of Flying Corps messes - they must have gathered from yarns told well on in the evening after a good dinner, as some of the high-flown stories indicate. But there are many very fine points in aerial fighting that have not yet been expounded.

The experiences of all pilots preparing for active service are alike in the main; their feelings are similar on the whole. When he takes off for his first solo flight it is not fear which grip shim - rather a very sensitive realisation that he knows very little about what the machine is doing, and nasty, sinking apprehensions every time he feels a bump. Thoughts career through his mind of rudders coming off, tail planes twisting, etc. coupled with the knowledge that the ground is a long way off. Then he recollects that a body dropping through space rushes earthwards at the rate of thirty-two feet the first second, double that rate the next second, and so on. He wonders what he would look like if he dropped 3000 feet. Presently, as nothing very startling occurs, his thoughts come back to nearly normal, and he remembers that hundreds of others have successfully done a first solo. So he more or less contrives to continue his flight without accident. Eventually he makes up his mind to land, shuts off his engine, and glides towards the aerodrome. Realising presently that his machine is travelling dangerously fast, he jerks back his control lever, and gets a fright accordingly. Approaching the ground, he is assailed with all the old fears, and recollects having often heard instructors say : "Any blithingly ass can fly a machine, but it takes a pilot to land 'em." However, he gets down more or less successfully - according to the way his guardian angel is looking at the moment - and so another prospective sraafer of Huns is started on his way, the length and breadth of which is determined mainly by luck, but an appreciable amount by his own judgement and discretion.

Before he finally gets overseas to a service squadron, he has to do an aerial fighting course, which invariably gives him a fair amount of "wind up." Perhaps his fighting instructor ( whose business it is to go up in another machine and fight him ) eventually refuses to go into the air with him as he is frightened that during one of the many strange, uncontrolled evolutions of the pupil's machine they will both collide - the fighting instructor being a wise young man in his generation, and knowledgeable of the habits and faults of the young and eager. So he passes the pupil as qualified in category "B".

He proceeds overseas, and experiences another period of fear. Every time he sees a strange machine near him in the sky, he dies - metaphorically. Frequently during a patrol he got lost, and his Flight Commander vainly endeavours to catch him up and attract his attention. But the new hand is vary hard to catch; and finally the leader gives him up, collects the remainder of the formation, and continues the patrol - cursing all new pilots generally, and with simple directness. In the meantime, the newcomer either manages to come to earth some fifty miles from home, or to get safely back and recount the story of how the patrol was attacked by numerous machines that shot down all the remainder of the patrol, and then chased him all the way home. Eventually when the patrol returns, and a very worried Flight Commander sees his lost machine peacefully resting outside the hangars, he opens out - and a keen, but highly imaginative, youth has his past life his future hopes, and his capabilities as a pilot, hurled at him by a direct but blasphemous, Captain. Next time the erring ones don't get lost.

Fighting in the air has dozens of different phases, governed, of course, by existing circumstances - and these circumstances can be divided into a number of different classes. The main ones only will I dwell on here. The principle factor which decides whether one should engage the enemy is position. The position to have before commencing a fight ( and this includes the sun in your favour ) is to be at a greater height than the enemy machine - that is; go into the fight from above, if possible. To illustrate my meaning clearly, take two men, each armed with a stout stick. One man is in a steep ditch, and the other on a bank above. The man in the ditch would be foolish to commence a fight with the other; whereas the man on the bank has the advantage of being able to commence a scrap if he so desires, or run away. The man below could not catch him, as he would lose time in scrambling out of the dith. This simple parallel governs the entire tactics of aerial fighting.

However, before one can take advantage of this knowledge, he must conquer a far greater enemy, and that is personal fear. I do not mean funk - it is physical shrinking from meeting the Hun, a feeling which disappears directly after your first engagement. I do not care who the man is, or how stout of heart, his early days of flying over enemy country are characterised by fear, and it is the sort of fear that robs a man of his initiative and determination, the two greatest factors in the character of a successful fighter. Perhaps his early days of war flying have been all patrol work, probably very seldom meeting the enemy. Consequently he knows nothing about his foes, and they become to some pilots an ever-present menace - something that drops through space and shoots you down before you have a chance of defending yourself. Thus his abilities and prowess are magnified. The news of a good British stunt pilots "going west" and the deeds of the Huns filter through and help to alarm him. Probably one or two pilots whom he knew were shot down by an enemy aircraft or anti-aircraft fire; and this all helps to make him undesirous or scrapping. Of course this does not last long; probably in normal circumstances about two or three weeks, or, in the case of where a squadron is in the thick of much aerial fighting,, it may not last a day. Then the feeling gradually becomes predominant that the enemy is not so good a pilot as you thought; probably on one occasion he refused to come near you when circumstances were in his favour - and so on. Then you realise that he is but human after all, and that if you have been more or less chary of meeting him, he is evidently more so, You have always considered a Britisher better than a German in your own mind, and you have no reason to change that opinion.

Then one day you have a fight thrust upon you, and again your old apprehensions return. You probably have become separated from the rest of your patrol, owing to clouds or some other cause, when suddenly an enemy machine lurches through the murk from behind a cloud or out of the sun, and before you quite realise it, you hear the "clack-clack-clack" of a machine gun. My first experience of this kind almost stopped my heart beating. I had been out having a look at the lines, when quite an inexperienced pilot, and had unintentionally wandered over Hun-land. Flying under pleasant conditions is very insidious, and very often one becomes quite drowsy and inattentive. On this occasion I had been studying the ground, and had been very interested in this whitish brown patch formed by the ruins of Ypres. I recollected how my friends had often bombed fish on Dickebush Lake; and following this line of rumination, I had fallen to wondering what retribution would fall upon the Germans for destroying these towns.

Suddenly I was frightened almost out of the cockpit by the "Whoof! Whoof!" of the enemy Archie. Naturally, I lost my head and endeavoured to dive for the line, but was cut off by a barrage of anti-aircraft bursts right in front of me. This suddenly ceased, and, with the egoism of youth, I congratulated myself upon outmanouvering his fire; but I had taken a look at the ground below I would have seen that I was still well over Hun-land. Then came the "clack-clack-clack" of machine gun fire right on top of me, and, spitting lead for all he was worth, was a yellow and black German scout of the Pfalz type. Of course, I moved very quickly, and, without worrying about the strength of my machine, I pushed the stick hard forward, and I went into a vertical dive with the engine full on. So sudden was the bump that I was nearly throw out of the machine. I shut off the engine, I zoomed u as high as I could. There was a rush of wind, and the roar of the Hun's engine as he swooped over me. I kept climbing away from him under his wing, and he kept twisting and turning to try and find me, but he did not do so until I was almost his level and about three hundred yards away. Then we both turned, and came at each other, both machines doing over one hundred miles an hour. It does not take long to cover one hundred and fifty yards at that speed, and one does not have very much time for thought. We were firing at each other the whole distance, my two guns aggregating twelve hundred rounds per minute. I was dreading the possibility of crashing into the Hun, when he suddenly put his nose down and went under me. I zoomed up again, half rolled on the top of a loop, and came out about three hundred feet above and behind the Pfalz. He commenced to travel around in a circle, and I went after him trying all the time to maintain the advantage of my extra height. Now and then I would almost get a bead on him, and would fire a short burst. Sometimes I would hear the rat-tat-tat of the Hun's two guns behind me. Round and round I went in a circle of about two hundred and fifty feet, sometimes on my back, and sometimes feeling very light in the seat as I did something wrong, and slipped round the turns.

A little explanation of the relative machines should be of value here. The Sopwith Camel I was flying was a wonderfully quick manouvering 'bus' whilst the German Pfalz was, if anything faster on the level, but could not turn so quickly. Then again, the guns on most scout machines are firmly fixed, so that the machine is but a gun-mounting, and it has to be pointed at your target in order to align your gun-sights. This all means that the more flexible machine has the advantage in a dog-fight.

Well, neither of us had been able to bring things to a decision, so I determined to put a stunt up on my opponent. I knew that with his heavy engine in front, the nose of his machine must go down when he got too far over on one side. So I manouvered to get infront of him almost, and tried to entice him to put on a little too much bank in order to get around after me. This he did, and exactly what I anticipated happened - the nose of his machine went down. I immediately flattened out, pulled my machine up vertical, and then kicked it over sideways with the rudder, finishing up directly over the Pfalz. Then I commenced to be very deliberate. I examined my guns, opened up my telescopic sight, put my engine full on, and coming up to within a few feet of my opponent, I took a careful aim, and fired a burst with both guns. Then the end came. The right wing of the Pfalz came off, and the machine went hurtling earthwards, and finally burst into flames when about 2000 feet from the ground. I felt very sick when I saw this happen, and I just leaned out over the side of my cockpit and was just about as ill as I have ever been in my life. Then the enemy Archie batteries opened up, and commenced to throw grand pianos and iron foundries at me; but I was past trying to dodge them. So I put the nose of my machine down, and beetled off for the line just as hard as I could.

Of course, in this early kind of fighting, the man who wins is just the better of a couple of very dud fighters. You fly all possible ways except the right, jerking the machine about, yanking it here and there, and so on. Later when one has become accustomed to the enemy tactics, and has had perhaps a dozen combats, and been in a good many dog-fights, he deliberates, and never goes into a scrap unless he has the Hun where he wants him. When an experienced pilot is out waiting for single enemy machines, the hostile pilot he is stalking is as good as dead before even a shot is fired, and it just requires that final impetus to send him under - to such a fine art has his aerial fighting been reduced.

In conclusion, I would like to mention that the most successful is the most aggressive; but, at the same time, a cool head and a fine sense of judgement are essential. Angles are so fine, and speeds are so tremendous in the air, that a very accurate burst of fire must be put in to be of any use. I have seen pilots "sitting on the tail" of enemy machines, and only a few feet off, fire all their ammunition, and still the Hun tootles along unhurt. Then again, I have seen a careful pilot fire only about ten shots - and down goes his opponent.

To Capt. "Mick" Mannock ( of No.74 RAF and afterwards Major and CO of No.85 RAF ) , 4th Squadron AFC owes a large amount of its success. This Officers squadron was for some time stationed on the same aerodrome as 4th AFC Clairmarias, and he took upon himself the task of making all the pilots around him keen and aggressive . Several talks of his to the Australian pilots there were responsible for some fine aggressive shows against the enemy, and numerous combined affairs were successfully carried out. I regard Major Mannocks character and spirit as the finest I have met in the Air Force. He was practically blind in one eye, yet he could recognise various types of enemy aircraft when the average person could barely see machines. No matter how great the odds, Mannock always managed to extricate his patrol without losing machines. I was extremely pleased to see that the Air Board officially recognized him as the greatest of all British pilots, with the wonderful record of seventy-two enemy machines officially confirmed as destroyed. Unfortunately, this very gallant officer was shot down in flames and killed just a few months before the Armistice; but his wise teachings and splendid example bore abundant fruit after his death amongst those pilots who were privileged to be associated with him in his work.

By Captain Arthur H. Cobby DSO, DFC