Free Wings by Patrick Bishop Page A

of the greatest aces of the war, like
Mick Mannock, did both. But collectively, the RFC developed an ethos of defiance that sought to draw the sting of death, cultivating a lively fatalism that mocked the thing we most fear in a manner
that even at this distance in time is both exhilarating and profoundly moving.
    The pre-war pioneers had already expressed this spirit in a song called ‘The Dying Airman’. One of the verses runs:
    Who dreads to the dust returning?
    Who shrinks from the sable shore,
    Where the high and the lofty yearning
    Of the soul shall be no more?
    But stand by your glasses, steady!
    This world is a world of woe,
    Here’s a toast to the dead already
    Three cheers for the next man to go.
    The words would ring out defiantly at the end of boozy evenings in mess and estaminet for the duration of the war, a magnificent ‘Up yours!’ to the Grim Reaper as he
sharpened his scythe in preparation for the next day’s harvest.
    The offensives of the spring and summer of 1915 confirmed the paramount importance of artillery in the struggle. Gunspulverized the battlefield day and night, obliterating
the woods and churning the fields into a cratered moonscape. To escape the bombardments the soldiers dug trenches and dugouts, ever deeper and more elaborate. There they hid until the guns stopped
long enough for them to stagger forward to seize a few yards of territory. In this form of warfare, close knowledge of your enemy’s fortifications and the ability to shell accurately were
essential to any success. By the middle of 1915 the air forces of both sides were struggling to expand to meet the demand for information. Many of the surviving veterans were sent back to act as
instructors at the flying schools now generating a stream of often poorly prepared greenhorns. They filled the ranks of the five new RFC wings created between March and November 1915.
    The growing importance of aircraft led both sides to reconsider their strategies. They arrived at the same, inevitable, conclusion. If they could drive their opponents from the skies, they would
deprive them of what had become a vital component of modern warfighting and the balance would tilt in their favour.
    To do so, they could not rely on anti-aircraft artillery alone. What was needed was a means of destroying hostile aircraft in the air. From 1915 onwards the Allies and the Germans competed in a
fierce technological race to develop aeroplanes and weapons that would give them the edge in aerial combat. For the rest of the war the seesaw of advantage would tip one way, then the other, as
each side absorbed and adapted to each new advance in the science of aerial violence.
    Increased engine power and the development of lighter weaponry meant that during 1915 rifles and revolvers were abandoned in favour of machine guns. Firing them accurately,
however, was extremely difficult and dangerous. In a two-seater ‘tractor’ aircraft like the BE2, shooting in the direction the pilot was flying was severely restricted by the arc of the
propeller. The observer had to take great care not to hit the struts and spars, and the buffeting wind constantly threatened to tear the weapon from his hands. Any success depended on an
understanding of ‘deflection’ shooting – the art of calculating where to aim the stream of bullets to take account of your enemy’s speed and direction as well as your
own.
    The Martinsyde S3 single-seater biplane, which carried a forward-firing .303 Lewis gun mounted on the top wing, put in a brief appearance in 1915. It was faster than the BE2s, but also
inherently unstable. When one arrived at 6 Squadron it was given to Louis Strange, the innovator who had already tried unsuccessfully to mount a machine gun in a Farman. One day, while off on a
hunting expedition, he spotted an Aviatik reconnaissance machine. The two-seater was no greyhound, but the weight and drag of the Lewis gun meant the Martinsyde was even slower and as