The Aces

Frederick Oughton

• Editorial: Valmy Publishing
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781787208155
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: World War I

THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN THE AIR…MANNOCK, McCUDDEN, VON RICHTHOFEN, UDET…TRUE STORIES OF THE GREATEST ACESAt the beginning of World War I the military potential of the airplane was completely unknown….THE ACES tells the stories of the hardy men who converted the skies over France and Germany into a modern jousting field."The general aim of this book is twofold: to uncover the personalities of the men called 'aces', and to show the reader the actual birth of courage and tenacity in wartime airpower, a heritage now shared equally by the air forces of the world."—Frederick Oughton, Introduction

1—MYTH, SEED AND FRUITION

FLIGHT and its link with the past may easily be traced to the beginning of mythology, back to the stories of Ki-Kung-Shi when the Emperor Ch’eng T’ang in the 18th century B.C. travelled by aerial chariot, a machine which had paddle-boat type wheels, perhaps an adaptation of the modern jet. Afterwards came the magical garments, the boots which gave the wearer powers of levitation and travel. There were also the winged hats and the highly-valued potions which could transport man through the clouds to distant lands where unlimited treasure waited to be taken.

Myth and legend, most of it, incorporating as it does the stories of Xerxes, Phryxus and Helle, but here and there it is possible that the mustard seed of truth does exist, disproving the fact that the Comet and the ICBM, the often-failing efforts at launching a rocket moonwards, are in fact as modern as today. These things have been tried before, often in a backyard or on some barren plain. Ancient man had his failures, too, if he had success also.

When man’s inspiration was moved by the flight of birds he tried to reason that they moved through the air just as fish slipped through water, but he was wrong. The bird is more complex than the fish because every set of feathers is different; some govern the launching into the air while others act as inhibitors and others are the supports when the bird is airborne.

These were the factors which man watched when his own flight was only a dream, and in the beginning he wanted to believe that the birds flew merely because they were able to leap into the air and flap their wings against the fluctuating currents. When birds entered into the service of man in a thousand ways he remained envious, hoping that someday, somehow, he would be able to emulate these, his own servants.

This yearning for the freedom of the heavens gave birth to the kite, an assortment of fabric, struts and string, set in a triangular or box-like pattern which could lean on the wind, ascending to great heights.

From such diverse origins as these the aeroplane came into being and with its development grew a list of casualties which includes thousands of men killed in the service of the air. At the top of the list is King Bladud, the British ruler who died in 852 B.C. Bladud was a believer in magic and he did not approach the problem of flight in a very scientific frame of mind. His subjects considered him presumptuous to fly at all, but he had a devil for a mind and insisted upon trying to mount to the clouds to demonstrate his supremacy. We do not know whether he leapt from a cliff with a pair of wings strapped to his arms, or whether he merely jumped with his faith in magic as a companion, He was, however, killed.

The idea of using wings as supports for the body is found in the Greek legend of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus was employed by King Minos of Crete to build the catacombs and labyrinth in which the maiden-killing Minotaur was to be kept after its capture, but while this was being done King Minos came to the conclusion that Daedalus and his son should be imprisoned within the labyrinth. Icarus, the son of Daedalus, must suffer a similar fate. Daedalus decided to escape and made two sets of feathered wings which were attached to the body. Daedalus instructed his son not to fly too close to the sun, but alas, the youth ignored his father and flew upwards to a great height. The heat melted the wax which kept the feathers in place and Icarus fell into the sea and was drowned.

Daedalus and Icarus are legend, but later comes the beginning of truth with a simple formula devised by Archimedes in 250 B.C. which was to effect aviation down through the early years. The formula says that an object placed in liquid suffers a pressure exerted upon its surface by the liquid. Replace the liquid with air and a new conception of the medium can be appreciated at once.

As a stimulus to endeavour and the search for perfection there now came several men who were not averse to jumping from towers and flapping their home-made wings in the face of a quick death, men like the Saracen of Constantinople and the English monk, Oliver of Malmesbury, who fell to his death in 1020 A.D.

Apart from the work of Roger Bacon, whose research in aeronautics made the foundations not only of flight but also rocket projectiles, the greatest cornerstone was laid by Leonardo da Vinci, a worker who, curiously enough, did not exert a specific influence upon flight until after his death in 1519 when his one hundred and sixty notebooks were published by Venturi in 1797 under the title Essai sur les Ouvrages Physico-Mathématiques de Leonardo da Vinci. While da Vinci’s greatest thoughts were awaiting publication, others workers proceeded along their own paths so that much of his finest work became merely confirmatory by the time it achieved publication.

Towards the end of the 15th century a new school of scientific and speculative writing sprang into being, some of it akin to modern science-fiction. Francis Godwin, Bishop of Hereford, compiled his work, The Man In The Moone or a Discourse of a Voyage thither by Domingo Gonsales the Speedy Messenger, published posthumously. The story related how the hero, Gonsales, tethered twenty-five geese to a space chariot and persuaded them to carry him to the moon. Godwin’s book created great interest. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, came out with his Discovery of a New World in 1638. His later Mathematical Magick was a review of the Archimedean Theory, and it did something to influence the first aviators.

With aeronautics fast becoming the province of religious brotherhoods, Francesco de Lana-Terzi, a Jesuit Father of great learning and considerable acumen, who lived under a vow of poverty, published his Prodrome overo Saggio di Alcune inventione nuovo premesso all’arte maestro—the plans for a airship in which were incorporated details of copper cylinders and the use of sails and paddles in which the navigators would be able to speed through the air. The Jesuit was remarkable in many ways, for he was one of the first independent thinkers to perceive the possibilities which lay behind the possibility of flying machines being used as war weapons. In one of his writings he says: “I do not foresee any other difficulties that could prevail against this invention, except one: but this seems the greatest of all. For God would surely never allow such a machine to be successful, since it would cause much disturbance among the civil and political governments of mankind. Who can fail to see that no city would be proof against surprise, as the ship could at any time be brought above its squares, or even the courtyards of its dwellings, and come to earth so that its crew could land. In the case of ships that sail the sea, the aerial ship could be made to descend from the upper air to the level of their sails so that the rigging could be cut. Or even without descending so low, iron weights could be hurled down to wreck the ships and kill their crews; or the ships could be set on fire by fireballs and bombs. Not only ships, but houses, fortresses and cities could be destroyed, with the certainty that the airship would come to no harm, as the missiles could be thrown from a great height.”

Less practical than Francesco de Lana-Terzi but of even greater application was another Jesuit, a member of the Portuguese order, Father Laurence de Gusmão, inventor of the mystical Passarola, a womb-shaped vehicle powered by amber lodestones placed in metal spheres. It did not, however, fly. Apart from the lodestones, the Passarola also carried a flamboyant flutter of religious and patriotic flags and bunting, none of which aided ascent when the time came. The vehicle remained on the ground, its expectant and no doubt excited passengers sitting inside it, awaiting the moment when they would be able to look about them and see the clouds at close quarters.

With letters of patent granted in 1709 by the King of Portugal, Laurence de Gusmão tried to hold on to his reputation by inventing a special kind of balloon, the first of its kind to rely upon the use of heated air generated in a trough set just beneath the canvas fabric. In a demonstration, given before the King, the balloon caught fire and wafted earthwards, destroying itself completely. Because of such abortive attempts as this and others carried out within the religious orders, aviation began to be coupled with the magic arts. Gusmão was himself often accused of being in league with evil spirits. It marked the beginning of a cleft between the practical and the mystical. This stemming of a new branch led directly to the empiricism of the sixteen century when Leonard Euler, Daniel Bernoulli and Isaac Newton all formulated a theory of hydrodynamics, the study of which had close affinities with the behaviour and properties of the air about us. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, too, there was a resurgence of tower jumping. In 1742 the Marquis de Bacqueville tried to cross the Seine, using a set of wings strapped to his arms and feet, but after a sixty-foot glide which became a long fall, he landed on a tethered barge and the venture was abandoned because of a broken leg. After the bold Marquis had made his attempt, Paris was full of men who boasted that they would fly the Seine, but no record exists of any actually doing so. In the sphere of showmanship, Jean-Pierre Blanchard later made an aerial boat which he toured successfully, encouraging people to view it on the ground, though it was never known to fly.

The beginning of scientific ballooning was made by the Montgolfier brothers, Joseph Michel and Jacques Etienne, sons of a paper maker near Lyons. Ardent amateur scientists, they left their father’s business in the hands of a manager. In 1782 Joseph made a successful indoor experiment at Avignon, using a silk container under which he burned a small fire. The heat rose, filled the bag, and the construction flew to the ceiling. A year passed before the brothers decided to publicly demonstrate what they suspected, that man could reach the heavens using only hot air.{1} With a bag of about 23,000 cubic feet capacity and a diameter of 38 feet, they invited hundreds of interested people to Annonay on June 5, 1783. A fire was started under the neck of the bag and it was later released, ascending to 6,000 feet and descending about 7,668 feet away from its starting place. As a result of the wholesale mystification about what caused the balloon to rise—many attributed it to something called ‘Mr. Montgolfier’s gas’—the Académie des Sciences requested a geologist, Faujas de Saint-Fond, to open a public subscription to enable the Montgolfier brothers and their followers to start making research. J. A. C. Charles decided to build his own balloon and lift it with hydrogen. The vehicle itself was made by the Roberts brothers, the material being rubberized silk. The experiment was a great success and the balloon made a twenty-seven mile journey before descending.

Somewhat squeezed out by official intervention and “encouragement” in their work, the Montgolfier brothers worked on together, building a balloon more than 74 feet in height in a friend’s garden. They made their tests in secret, but the final demonstration was given before members of the Académie, who at once made arrangements for the King and Queen to witness a second flight. A combination of interests now made it possible for the Charles-Montgolfier pioneers to send up a sheep, a duck and cockerel, and nearly ten minutes later the animals landed in the Forest of Vaucresson, about one mile and a half away from the starting point. In a situation which parallels the outcry in the Western Press against the Russian experiment with Laika, the dog in a rocket, the Paris newspapers pointed out that this was cruelty of an extreme kind, for the wing of the cockerel was injured. The Montgolfier brothers should be punished for such inhumanity, cried the righteous. But the honour of aviation was saved when it was found that the sheep had accidentally stepped on the cockerel’s wing soon after the landing. Nevertheless, the outcry sparked off doubts about the advisability of allowing human beings to ascend in balloons. As a partisan in favour of flying, the King himself entered into it and told the Académie that he was prepared to authorise the release of a convict from prison for the honour of flying in the first man-carrying balloon. He was quickly over-ruled by the humanists. In the end a man called Pilâtre de Rozier was selected. He had been the first man on the scene at Vaucresson when the animal-carrying balloon landed, and was noted as a physician and chemist. His first test flights dispelled public notions that the new race of aeronauts might suffer shock, vertigo and general disability, for he remained healthier than ever. The height to which the first balloons ascended was increased, and each occasion caused an outcry in the Press. During this period the Montgolfier brothers did very little ballooning themselves, confining their energies to design and the march towards perfection.

In November 1783 a Montgolfier balloon made the first free flight in history. Prior to this balloons were allowed to fly only on the end of ropes, but this time de Rozier insisted on something more ambitious. With him went the Marquis d’Arlandes and, after some anxious moments when the balloon almost caught fire, the craft passed across Paris, lifting gracefully to avoid the rooftops. The Montgolfiers and their associates followed its progress from the ground, racing through the streets in a horse-drawn carriage and followed by hundreds of people and children. After this affair ballooning tugged hard at the public fancy and nearly every magazine carried stories about it. More than one abduction and romantic interlude was carried out with the aid of a Montgolfier balloon. As a result of the rage of Paris, the sport spread to Britain and the United States where a legion of French flying men appeared to give demonstrations. Balloons sprouted jets, paddles, wings and other devices for propelling the huge envelopes along. There was some scandal about the foolhardiness of the hot-headed aeronauts when several great and famous balloons caught fire or were involved in accidents. The English Channel was first crossed by air in 1785 when the showman, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, and an American, John Jeffries, flew their own balloon across the water. Rozier and a companion, P. A. Romain, were killed trying to make a France-England crossing in 1785. Military leaders began to consider the serious uses of the balloon and in 1794 Napoleon used one for reconnaissance purposes at Maubeuge. In 1849 balloons carried out the first air raid when the Austrians sent pilotless vehicles to bomb Venice.

A recurrence of mistrust happened when scientists studying the weather took balloons up to high altitudes. In the next few years many observers lost courage on seeing the earth disappear through cloud banks. Some fainted and lost control of their balloons, sending them crashing into cities and villages. At first it was believed that the accidents were caused by the rare air, but it soon became apparent that the balloonists themselves were the victims of faint hearts.

The growing popularity of hydrogen as a lifting agent was now more widely spread, due to Blanchard’s efforts at popularising a sport which was fast becoming an exact science. But even Blanchard had his difficulties. Before one ascent from the Champ de Mars, Paris, a young man accosted him and demanded that he be taken along on the voyage. At first amused, Blanchard soon saw that he was serious. Refused the pleasure of flying, the young man drew a sword and threatened first to kill Blanchard then ruin the balloon, but while he was arguing about it the military guards threw themselves upon him, enabling Blanchard to jump into the basket and give orders for the lines to be cast off.

In Britain Vincenzo Lunardi, secretary to the Neapolitan Ambassador, tried to interest British royalty in the possibilities and pleasures of the new science when he built a balloon measuring thirty-two feet in diameter. The first demonstration was attended by the Prince of Wales at the Artillery Ground, Moorfields, London. Well stocked with provisions (Lunardi was a famous gourmet), the Italian lectured his royal guest on the function of balloons, pointing out the pair of oars which, he considered, were a great innovation for propelling the cumbersome craft along. They were useless when he tried to use them in the air. His companions were a cat, a dog and a pigeon, and his twenty-four mile journey into Hertfordshire carried him first to North Mimms where he put down because the cat was shivering and trying to scratch its way out of the padded basket. The cat released for the pleasures of the woods, Lunardi took off again and later came down at Standon, near Ware. He had been airborne for a total of two and a quarter hours. Impressed by the demonstration, the Prince of Wales gave aviation his blessing, and on June 29, 1785, Lunardi took the first step towards popularising aviation among women by inviting a Mrs. Sage to come with him on a flight. This ended badly, for an irate agricultural labourer called upon a platoon of boys from Harrow school to attack the landed balloon and its occupants. But on seeing Mrs. Sage, who had all the proportions of a busty movie queen, the boys let out a loud halloo and voted her their special heroine. Lunardi was left to argue with the labourer while she was carried off to the school.

The history of ballooning, like that of conventional aviation, continued to be chequered with the story of man’s infamy, though any crooked deeds connected with ballooning must now appear ludicrous in an age when we are striving to perfect supersonic flight and sort out the tangle presented by nuclear fission. Blanchard, one of the pioneers of ballooning, was now living the life of a celebrity and loving every moment of it, but when he was joined by his early partner, Jeffries, he seemed to be afflicted by peculiar moods of jealousy. Prior to the first crossing of the English Channel, Blanchard admitted that he wanted to do it alone. On one test flight he pointed out that the balloon w...

Índice

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• INTRODUCTION
• 1-MYTH, SEED AND FRUITION
• 2-MANY TRIALS, MANY FAILURES
• 3-BLOOD-STAINED FLEDGLINGS
• 4-“I ALWAYS LAND LIKE THIS!”
• 5-BOELCKE HEADS THE WOLF-PACK
• 6-THE CIRCUS AND THE RINGMASTER
• 7-DAYS OF BLOOD AND FIRE
• 8-THE DEATH OF RICHTHOFEN
• 9-FOKKER: HOLLAND’S GIFT TO GERMANY
• 10-UNPOLITICAL MASTER-MIND
• 11-4,300 KILLER PLANES
• 12-HE LANDED ON A ZEPPELIN
• 13-THE WEAPON THAT FAILED
• 14-“BLOW THE BASTARDS UP!”
• 15-LOVE, EDWARD
• 16-BATTLE REPORT AND BANANA BOMBS
• 17-DEATH BEFORE TWENTY
• 18-THE RUSSIANS ‘ADOPT’ ALBERT BALL
• 19-WAS BALL A PROPAGANDA PAWN?
• 20-ESCHWEGE’S PRIVATE WAR
• 12-DRAMA AT DRAMA
• 22-A FARMAN BREAKS UP
• 23-HE PAID CASH FOR AN ACCIDENT
• 24-MAGAZINES FOR UNDERPANTS
• 25-OLIESLAGERS’ SALAD
• 26-BISHOP WHO CHARGED LIKE A BULL
• 27-BALLOON HUNT
• 28-GIANTS AT GRIPS
• 29-AMERICAN PRIVATEERS
• 30-A PLANE THAT NEEDED SPURS
• 31-DOG-FIGHT IN A BEARSKIN
• 32-SKYBORNE EXECUTIONERS
• APPENDICES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER