It is my contention that the Royal Navy and the French Army won World War I. The Royal Navy were past masters at blockading, it is how they dealt with all continental wars in the centuries past and only the American Revolutionary War slipped past their grasp using this strategy. The British sea blockade and their halting of the German ability to source materials through neutral nations placed direct pressure on German ability to expand their war economy.

The French Army was important as it bore the brunt of the fighting and the largest amount of the front. The French ability to absorb the German offensive in March of 1918 and stop it from reaching Paris or the coast is what saved the allied cause. After that the German back was broken and the pressures of lack of manpower, materials and food all came together to collapse Germany's ability to conduct war.

William H. McNeil writes in The Pursuit of Power that France was also the arsenal of democracy in World War I.

Originally the allies thought the war would be over in a couple of months, so it was never intended as more than a short term emergency. The rapid stalemate into trench warfare, the horrific losses against fixed defenses especially machine guns, and the sheer scale of industrial warfare (it went through a lot of ammunition and shells daily) led to a rapid re-ordering of the economies in France, Germany and Britain.

France was in a double bind as their main heavy industrial region had been invaded by the German Army. France lost nearly 65% of its coal production, 25% of iron output and almost half of its blast furnaces. To add to the concern artillery was using massive amounts of ammunition daily. This led to the French government establishing emergency measures to meet that demand. Employers were allowed to search railway stations and other military and mobilisation gathering points for skilled workers and co-opt them into the economy.

Any manufacturing location was pressed into working toward the war effort initially and the inefficient and high cost producers were weaned out through centralised material allocations as French production capacity stabilised and began to meet demand.

A French built Spad XIII of the United States Air Service.

The loss of eastern France meant that old and established patterns of working were no longer present. So new innovative methods of working were introduced by both capital and labor. Additionally, because so many natural resources were lost, France imported what it needed from overseas as it needed, allowing the economy to expand far past the limitations of local resources. Though there were pressures on material allocations as the British economy warmed up in 1915 and the American economy in 1917.

McNeill writes:

Here too [artillery shell production, tanks and aircraft ie WWI high tech] France equaled or exceeded what the other great powers were able to accomplish, so much so that when the American Expeditionary Force began to arrive in France, most of its heavy equipment was, by arrangement, supplied from French factories and arsenals. France, more than Britain and far more than America, became the arsenal of democracy in World War I.

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. .....

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.

The Australian Squadrons

Nos. 2 and 4 Squadrons of The Australian Flying Corps need no praise of mine for their work in the summer of 1918. Their records show that they were the finest material as an attacking force in the air, just as their infantry divisions on the ground were the best that the war produced on either side.

It became the practice for our Australian Squadrons to lead the 80th Wing's bombing raids. When later in the year over a hundred machines set out on one of them, the spearpoint was always formed of Australian Airmen, led by an Australian. Major McCloughry[McClaughry], Major Murray-Jones, Capt Cobby, and Capt King are the names I remember best, but the others that were equally famous have slipped my memory for the moment.

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, which they inherited from ancestors who had been cattlemen, sheep-ranchers, poachers, trappers, outriders, overland post and transport drivers. You only need to read the tales of the early Australian Settlers to realize the conditions under which these men grew.

They had to fend for themselves against known and unknown dangers in the wide, open, lonely spaces of the continent. It was nothing to them to be in the saddle for days and days when crossing mountain ranges. deserts, or forests; their sense of direction never faltered on these long trails, and they were equally at home when cutting out their cattle at a round-up or shooting the rapids in a canoe. In fact, they were all good scouts, and what ideal training their life in their native country gave them for work in the air!

On the ground I must admit this same sense of initiative proved a source of much trouble to their superiors at times. It was impossible to convince an Australian that a nice piano in a deserted and half looted house was loot if he decided to take care of it temporarily without troubling to find and get permission from the absentee owner. It also might have been insulting to hint at cattle-stealing ancestry, but when we others were existing on tinned milk, the Australians always had their own fresh milk from their own two cows and a spare lorry to transport the cows whenever a move had to be made. Moreover, these cows always had calves with great regularity. Of course, it would have been bad form to question the origin of the new piano, the cows and the calves which they had invited a Wing Commander to see. These accessories meant so much to the amenity of their life on the ground and so the Wing Commander could only let them get away with it, even though he knew it was his pidgeon if anyone raised awkward inquires.

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.

Taking it all round, we got on amazingly well with our Australians, and from the day they joined the 80th Wing I would not have exchanged them for any other squadrons on the western front. Perhaps I have some sheep-stealing and cattle-lifting ancestors, whose blood gives me a sneaking sympathy with their habits of feloniously purloining anything they take a fancy to.

I learnt to value them for their wonderful sense of direction. In spite of all that is said about navigation and map reading as aids to aviation, it is a great thing to have squadron leaders who can take their formations safely home in thick weather by that so called "sixth sense". You need that extra quality badly when you have to break out of a dog fight suddenly with a failing engine and every second saved may mean the difference between landing on our side of the lines and coming down in Hunland, especially if visibility is too bad for you to spot that river or wood on your map and a bullet has smashed your compass. Those Australians were natural pathfinders; they did not need to look at a bush twice to know where it was the next time they saw it. Having flown once over a tract of country on a clear day, they would think you deserved all you got if you failed to know your whereabouts the next time you came that way just because it was a bit foggy, and I suppose they were right.

I often used to think of Murray Jones and his squadron as the sheriff and his posse going out to catch some bushrangers who had been reported to be stealing horses and cattle in the neighbourhood, and if matters became desperate - as they did with us later on - searching them out in their lairs, burning their strongholds, and giving them no quarter. They were uncommunicative folk, for they always had some plan or other that had to be kept a secret. Whether they thought the enemy would get wind of their schemes if they discussed them too openly or whether they preferred to hush up possibilities of failures, I cannot tell, but the result was always the same - they never advertised their intentions.

I often wondered what was in Cobby's mind when he went off on his own in the dark, a good hour before the dawn patrol was due to start. In all probability he was spying out the land - sitting high above von Leutzer's aerodrome and waiting to see how many machines were being run out on the tarmac by the other side for their dawn patrols. Then he would pass on the numbers by signal to his own squadron when he met them over the appointed rendezvous, after which they would go back to Recklingham for more petrol and warn Murray Jones that there were plenty about that morning.

But sometimes he was out to play the lone hand. The mechanics, pilots and observers at Fives or Lomme would be too busy seeing to the machines on the tarmac that were to take them up for the dawn patrol, and so they failed to notice the high pitched note of the Clerget and the screaming wires of Cobby's Camel as he streaked down on them from the first glimmer of dawn in the east to pour out a stream of lead from his two Vickers guns and release his twenty-pound bombs. Just a momentary vision of destruction he was; then he would disappear again into the still murky west, leaving behind him one or two machines in flames, some bits and pieces of two or three more on which his bombs had got home, and a number of dead and wounded foeman on the hard cinder track in front of the hangars.

In short when an Australian Squadron went out to fight, someone had to suffer or else the business was not worthwhile, and the Australians were not going to be sufferers if they knew anything about it. It was the old game of getting the first blow in at a time when the other fellow was not looking for it.

They continually laid traps in the air; you could depend on it that the simplest-looking Australian patrol was part of some scheme or other. If, for instance, they decided to attack a balloon, it was a dead certainty that you would find a party of them high above the assailant, watching out with eager eyes for any misguided Huns who might be foolish enough to interfere with him and thus lay themselves open to sudden deadly streams of lead. They used to take it in turns to attack balloons, and when you sent one down in flames you earned an extra turn, but they never made a habit of indulging in balloon hunts everyday, for that would have given the Hun time to get a surprise packet ready for them. They had plenty of variations to keep themselves amused and the enemy annoyed; his trains, for example, were continually interrupted on their journeys by Australian airmen and always in a different part of the line. Another playful little trick of theirs was to attack an enemy aerodrome in the evening, just when its machines were being put away for the night and the light was fading too quickly for any chance of pursuit.

In fact, Nos 2 and 4 AFC, were past masters in the art of guerrilla warfare, but it was only by becoming one of themselves, so to speak, that I could manage to adapt Wing Routine Orders to suit the methods and at the same time satisfy the demands made from higher up. Consequently I spent a good deal of time with my Australians, and my admiration for them increased daily.

I found that there was little chance of them getting rattled by persistent ill-luck or a series of heavy losses. Likewise there was no fear of their morale deteriorating from the monotony of routine work, because, given a sufficiently free hand, they could be relied on to take care that it did not become monotonous. "We came all the way from down under to help you win the war." their actions seemed to say, "and we're in a hurry to get back again, so just leave things to us, because we know what is good for ourselves and bad for Fritz."

Lieut-General (Now Field Marshall) Sir William Birdwood, who commanded the Australian Division at the time, often used to come round to Recklingham aerodrome and tell us all about the doings of other Australian units in the field. But I think his real motive was to glean the news and successes of those wonderful Australian Pilots who were making history and establishing a tradition that will never fade as long as Australia has an Air Force.

Lt Colonel Louis Strange

Charles Copp was a flight commander with No.2 Squadron AFC. He ended the war with four victories and a huge number of flying hours amassed over the front lines. But every ace pilot has to learn first, and Copp learnt from fellow Australian Arthur Conningham.

Conningham was a Brisbanite flying with the Royal Flying Corps. He served with No.32 on DH5s and then later commanded No.92 RAF with SE5a aircraft. Copp relates his training experience with Conningham;

After completing the ground course at Reading we were sent to Shawbury for flying instruction. Here after only two or three hours of dual instruction on Maurice-Farmans we were sent up solo. After learning to handle the slower machines, Avros and Sopwith Pups, we were posted to Castle Bromwich and transferred to S.E.5a's, which were very much faster than the above machines.

Our instructor was Captain Arthur Conningham, an Australian, who was credited with over 20 enemy machines destroyed during the war.

After we had learned to handle the S.E.5a's fairly well, he called us together and said, "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. Now, go up and do some real diving."

We thought that we were doing very well, but when we landed he stamped his feet, swore at us pretty fluently and stated, "I said dive, not glide." He then took off in his machine and showed us how it should be done.

Our hair fairly stood up on end when we saw what he did. He came down vertically at a terrific rate and flattened out about 10 or 15 feet off the ground! However, having seen this demonstration, we all had a go and surprisingly no one was killed. That was one of the ways we learned to dive fast - something that is sometimes necessary for attack in a scrap.

It is fortunate for all the passengers of modern airliners that monitoring technology has surpassed the World War I technique of eyeballing how many creases were in the wing.

The aerofoil is where a large amount of the lift for an aircraft is generated. The profiles of the Sopwith Pup, Triplane, Camel and Dolphin aerofoils suggest that the British aerodynamic technologies did not advance much during World War I. The aerofoil is pretty similar for all those aircraft.

Sopwith Aerofoils

These are from a German magazine publication from the early 1900s.

Source: Mike Fletcher

The aerofoil for the Sopwith Scouts were all remarkably similar, suggesting that British aerodynamic technology didn't advance much from 1915 to 1918. The German Gőttingen aerofoil, by comparison, allowed for slower stall characteristics which made aircraft easier to handle. The Sopwiths, Spads and SE5a had relatively thin wings which often meant stall behaviour came quickly, unlike German aircraft such as the Fokker DVII and Fokker DrI.

Robert Little was an aggressive WWI pilot, not scared to go in close, often as little as fifteen yards, to a German aircraft before firing. There was one occasion when his plane was out from underneath him and he was left with only a revolver to aim at the German scout. This incident was recorded in a Combat In The Air Report and the Communiques.

Robert Little's Combat In The Air Report for April 21st, 1918 read;

At 5-00pm I attacked the last machine of a formation of 12 and shot it down. I watched it fall for about 10,000 ft over VIEUX BEHQUIH(sp?), completely out of control.

I was then attacked by six other EA which drove me down through the formation below me. I spun but had my controls shot away and my machine dived. AT 100 feet from the ground it flattened out with a jerk breaking the fuselage just behind my seat. I undid the belt and when the machine struck the ground I was thrown clear.

The EA still fired at me while I was on the ground. I fired my revolver at one which came down to about 50 feet. They were driven off by rifle fire and machine fire from our troops.

He was in Sopwith Camel B6319 from No.203 Sqn RAF (the old Naval 3). The Communiques also record this for the 21st of April;

Capt. R.A. Little, 203 Squadron, attacked the rear machine of a formation of 12 enemy aircraft and watched it fall completely out of control. Capt. Little was then attacked by six enemy aircraft and was driven down through the formation below; he put his machine into a spin and his controls were shot away, causing his machine to dive within 100 feet of the ground when it flattened out with a jerk, breaking the fuselage just under the pilot's seat.

Capt. Little undid his belt and was thrown clear when the machine stuck the ground. The enemy aircraft continued to fire at him, but he opened fire with his revolver at one aircraft which came down to about 30 feet. The enemy aircraft were eventually driven off by our infantry and machine-gun fire.

Captain R. Sykes also wrote of this in his book "Golden Eagle";

The same day I had flown on an offensive patrol and later had ferried in a new Camel, but I was back in 203's mess when Little came in late and reported, saying that he had undone his belt as the Camel broke up otherwise he would not have been thrown clear when the Camel wing tip hit the ground. I made a rather tactless remark about his manure sodden clothes, not realising that he would have been bruised, sore and in no mood for humour. He told me at the first opportunity he would take me over the lines and give me a lesson in being brave, and he did.

Robert Little was Australia's leading ace in World War I.

This is from Above the Trenches and for a select few of the British and Australian squadrons. The squadron's total of claims was compared to the number of claims by aces in the squadron.

Even in the squadrons which had more egalitarian scoring, the contribution by aces were still above sixty percent. In a couple of instances the aces were nearly all the squadron's scoring.

This is a combined graph for 2 Sqn AFC and 4 Sqn AFC. The y-axis shows number of pilots. The x-axis the number of victories.

There is probably not enough data to get a true pattern. The tail which contains the likes of Cobby and King is too sparse.

No.2 Sqn had forty pilots who scored, and thirty-nine who flew combat missions but did not register a victory. Of those forty, only sixteen were aces.

No.4 Sqn had fifty-two pilots who scored a victory and seventy-nine who did not. I do not have the data if those seventy-nine flew combat missions or not though. Of the fifty-two who registered victories, ten were aces.

I am not sure if anything can be inferred from those figures, but they are interesting.