The American aviators who distinguished themselves in the skies of bloodied Europe in 1916 were able to give the image of the fighter pilot the contours that it still retains today:very great qualities of generosity, disinterestedness, panache , class and a lot of unconsciousness. It was enough to rush on board the Voisins and other Spads in furious combat where the terror of burning alive competed with the mechanical uncertainties and the fear of being forced to land behind the opposing lines. Far from home, the pilots of the La Fayette squadron gave their lives without hesitation, caught up in a war that should not have concerned them, often volunteers, it seems, out of a taste for this heroic sport with implacable rules. :the aerial duel.
On September 18, 1918, Lieutenants Frank Luke Jr. and Joseph Wehner took off on a mission to hunt for drachen, the tethered sausage-shaped balloons used for observation by the Germans. Luke attacked the balloons while Wehner was careful to repel any attempt at interception by German combat aircraft. Luke managed to bring down two "sausages", but he lost his partner. A cloud of Fokker had, in fact, assailed the two Americans; facing. Wehner took down 3 of his opponents and saved Luke's life at the cost of his own.
Back at base, Luke wrote in his mission report that Lieutenant Wehner deserved credit for the day's victories; and yet Luke tended not to share his victories with others.
After Wehner's death, Luke's determination to "descend from the German" seemed firmer than ever. He was not appreciated because of his boastfulness and his bizarre taste for attacking balloons... Most airmen avoided such missions as much as possible, or let fate decide for them. The drachen were well protected by machine gun and anti-aircraft gun fire. They were real traps at times, with planes of anti-aircraft fires for low cover and high Fokker patrols. Their role was to attract the adversary to destroy it.
The attack on the sausages was an unpleasant and not without danger mission. And yet Frank Luke seemed to like it; his score stood at 20 wins. But nervous fatigue was not long in appearing.
Luke had always been little inclined to discipline, his victories made him more capricious and more unruly than ever. Upon returning from an absence without leave, he found himself prohibited from flying. Strong-headed as always, he took off on his Spad leaving the following note:“Attention! Falling flaming balloons. Luke. »
He was equal to himself. Ball No. 1 was quickly on the ground; then, in the midst of an intense barrage, Luke settled the score at Nos. 2 and 3. His plane was hit and he himself was wounded; however, he machine-gunned the German troops one last time near Mur-vaux before landing in the fields near this town. He managed to get out of his plane, drank a little water from a nearby mis-bucket, and sat down, waiting for the enemy with a pistol in his hand. This is how he died, selling his skin dearly. With 21 probable victories (18 certified), Frank Luke holds second place on the list of American aces of the Great War, behind Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker credited with 26 victories.
"Bloody April"
The United States entered the conflict in April 1917. But it was only a year later that the United States Air Service began to participate fully in the air war in the European theater. Americans were new to this game, and they knew it. They had been absent from the fantastic technological and tactical progress that followed on October 5, 1914, when a French crew on Voisin shot down a German Aviatik, in the first dogfight in history.
For a time, Fokker's famous Eindecker fighter monoplanes enjoyed air superiority, but soon they were put to the test against French fighters and British propeller-driven aircraft like the DH.2. On both sides, the problem of firing through the propeller disc had been solved.
Roland Garros was the first to mount deflectors on the blades of his propeller which made deflect those bullets from his machine gun that might break them. Then Fokker developed, based on a project by Schneider, a more complex device for synchronizing the firing with the rotation of the propeller. This device consisted of a cam attached to the propeller shaft interrupting the burst when a blade passed in front of the barrel of the machine gun.
Later in the course of the war, the enemy's air superiority became overwhelming on the front held by the British Expeditionary Force, whose air force did not keep up with the technical progress of the French and Germans. /P>
In particular, Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen's Jagdstaffel 11 exacted a heavy toll on the English with its faster, more robust and better armed Albatross. Richthofen himself took down Britain's ace Hawker with a shot to the head from 30 yards out in a fierce aerial duel that ended, for the Englishman, in the mud of no man's land stretching between the trenches.
The month America entered the war was called "Bloody April." Things improved a little with the arrival of new aircraft:the Camels, the Sopwith triplanes and the SES, but the British constantly remained six months behind the Germans and the French in particular; the latter had to provide them with a large number of combat aircraft.
By the time Americans were being baptized by fire, many heroes had already passed away. The German Max Immelmann, the Eagle of Lille, had been killed in June 1916. Between May 1916 and May 1917, the English Albert Ball of the Royal Flying Corps equaled in fame the great French aces he died in a rather inexplicable way in the sky of Fresnoy during a fight against an unknown German pilot. His aircraft bore only superficial traces of bullets... The German Oswald Boelcke, one of the first to have used a synchronized firing machine gun in combat, was killed in a mid-air collision in October 1916. Finally the ace of aces, Captain Georges Guynemer, disappeared in turn on September 11, 1917.
The severe conditions of combat missions, the cold, nervous tension, the constant fear of dying burned alive had eliminated dreamers and adventurers from the squadrons. Many pilots had jumped - without a parachute - from their plane in flames so as not to die burned. Major Edward Mannock, the No. 1 ace of the Royal Flying Corps, always carried a loaded pistol in case the machine caught fire...
An Aviatik pilot described the fear of fire experienced by all aviators of the Great War, from the most experienced to new recruits:"Our precious gasoline escapes, and a tongue of flame comes out of the exhaust pipes at each explosion of the engine... A small spark would be enough... The cockpit and the wings are bathed in this gasoline which vaporizes while freezing us... A very small spark would be enough... Better to shoot yourself in the head than to be consumed by flames. »
Romanticism was not in the sky. Only true professionals got by...and again! All of the greatest aces, with the possible exception of Charles Nungesser, suffered from nerves and panicked at one point or another. The less seasoned among them regularly vomited their lunch on the dashboard. Some tensed on the controls and went to death as if fascinated by the machine guns of the enemy. Oddly enough, the best fighters were often the most mediocre pilots, but they shot well and had no nerves.
So the Americans had a lot to learn. In the United States, the veil of secrecy stretched by the Allies over everything concerning equipment and tactics had led to a delay of several years in terms of aeronautical technology. The best American devices of the time, the Curtiss JN-4 (Jenny) and the Thomas Morse S4C were only usable for training... and not without precautions.
As hostilities dragged on, America began to license an increasing number of European-designed aircraft, and fitted them with the American Liberty 400 hp 12-cylinder V-12 engine. than their engine. Many of them were due for general overhaul at Air Service reception centers in France.
The American high command understood nothing of aviation and viewed the ambitions of its air forces. General Billy Mitchell, in charge of the Air Service on the front, wrote without illusions:"Our General Staff is now endeavoring to command the air forces directly, it does so with little
almost as clever as an elephant in a china shop. »
However, the United States had a chance:many American citizens had not waited for their country to enter the war to join the French and British air forces. These pilots were able to provide flight instruction to the young recruits who landed in Europe in 1917 and 1918, eager to prove themselves.
Thus Lieutenant G.A. Vaughn served on SE5a (with a 200 hp Wolseley Viper engine instead of the initial 150 hp Hispano-Suiza) in No. 084 British squadron. He scored his first victory before being transferred to 170 Squadron of the US Army Air Service. As for Charles J. Biddle, he joined the Foreign Legion and served as a pilot in the famous Stork squadron, SPA 73, before being, too, handed over to the Americans in January 1918 .
German protests
But undoubtedly the most spectacular American contribution was made by the famous La Fayette squadron. Following the interventions of an influential American living in France, Norman Prince, the authorities decided to set up an all-American air unit. This is how the La Fayette squadron was born.
first baptized America Squadron, which provoked protests from the German ambassador in Washington; the latter took the opportunity to accuse the United States of violating the laws of neutrality.
All Americans who flew alongside the French at that time are generally considered veterans of the La Fayette Flying Corps. In reality, a small elite had the privilege of serving in the Lafayette squadron itself. Several of them had begun, like Biddle, by enlisting in the Legion. Some were “new Americans” who remained sentimentally attached to this Europe from which their families had just emigrated. Pavelka, Masson, Genet. Chapman, Hall and Rockwell, these are names that reflect the diversity of their origins
At the instruction, they often broke
wood and sometimes broke their faces. In
outside the service, they were drinking and running
girls. And of course, their doings
benefited from wide publicity.
In some circles, people began to whisper that these Americans were barely good enough to pay the best hotels and the prettiest girls. The high command sent the La Fayette squadron to the Verdun front, and
the murmurings ceased. It was under the orders of the French captain Thenault, their squadron commander, that the American pilots threw themselves into battle for the first time, at the controls of their Nieuports. They paid the price for the blood shed by the enemy. Victor E. Chapman was the first victim, shot down by a Fokker on June 23, 1916. Kiffen Yates Rockwell suffered a horrible death, his body torn apart by dum-dum bullets, however prohibited by the laws of war. His brother served with him in the squadron. Prince, one of the unit's sponsors, struck a power line while landing at night after returning from a bomber escort mission. He died in hospital. Over the course of the fighting, the squadron gradually forged a brand image. Sophisticated outside of service, American volunteers frequented elegant Parisian cafes and the best “houses”.
In operation, they were tough, the toughest and most extravagant of which was none other than their great ace Raoul Lufbery. He was a soldier of fortune. Of French origin, he had fought in the American ranks during the Philippine War from 1908 to 1910, had joined the army to acquire American nationality, then had formed a team with a pi
lot of exhibitions by the name of Pourpe (in Calcutta, but this remains uncertain). The two men formed a solid friendship. Lufbery served as a mechanic at Pourpe and
excelled in this function. During the Philippine War, pilots always preferred aircraft prepared by him.
When war broke out in Europe, Pourpe joined the French Air Force and Lufbery followed him as a mechanic, through enlistment in the Foreign Legion. When Pourpe died, the mechanic became a pilot. He flew on Voisin before being assigned to the La Fayette squadron in April 1916.
In July, he won his first victory, and in October, he already had six to his credit. He soon took the lead of the American aces, with all the adulation that title brought...and trouble. His French origins made him even more attractive to Parisiennes. His score amounted to 17 victories, which earned him the Legion of Honor, the Military Medal, the Croix de Guerre with 10 palms and the British Military Cross.
Hispano-Suiza. the manufacturer of the Spad engine, offered him a racing car. In a photo, we
see him, looking enthusiastic, at the wheel of this racing car.
In reality, Lufbery hardly looked like
like the ace that French
and American journalists gave of him.
He had neither the charm of Georges Guynemer with the frail silhouette, the sad and indomitable gaze, nor the seduction of Charles Nungesser, the executioner of hearts, the friend of Mata Hari, the one who told the famous spy of extraordinary stories of French eight-engined bombers to repeat to
her masters in Berlin.
Raoul, he was content to rush to Paris with a merry band of friends. He loved women and carousing. He had even bought a lion cub called Whisky, then a second one which naturally was called Soda.
But despite his popularity and camaraderie with France's top aces, Lufbery was always a loner. He was older, 31 years old in 1916, and without deep ties, without family, unlike most of his young teammates. His only friend, Pourpe, had been taken from him.
Like the English ace Mannock, Lufbery was a loner, he imposed himself by the example he gave. If the weather did not permit flying, he would go for walks alone in the woods to pick mushrooms. In this, he was close to Albert Bali who grew his vegetables, or Immelmann whose universe was limited to his dog and the daily letter to his mother.
Assigned to the U.S. Air Service in January 1918, with the rank of Major Lufbery was given a desk job which did not suit him at all. The "golden caps" eventually realized their mistake and in March 1918 Lufbery was given command of 94 Aero Squadron. When he arrived to take command, he discovered that the Nieuports in the unit were unarmed! The problem was resolved in early April and the American pilots resumed combat.
On April 15, Lieutenants Campbell and Winslow shot down an Albatros and a Pfalz DIII that were a little too curious, vertical to the terrain itself. A month later, on May 19, a German reconnaissance two-seater was reported, again overhead. Lufbery took off on his Nieuport to shoot down this intruder. After his first pass, he broke up the fight, probably as a result of machine gun jamming. He resumed the attack in the tail of his adversary.
The Albatross seemed doomed, and yet the horrified witnesses suddenly saw flames escaping from the engine of the Nieuport, and the latter descended into slight dive. Lufbery was among those who said they would not stay on a burning plane. We saw his body fall from the device, about 80 meters. Some claimed that he had tried to direct the fall of the plane first, then his own, towards the canal. In reality, his horribly burned body crashed in a field.
An ace suspected by
the secret services americans
Allied crews had no parachutes. The great leaders - there was no airman among them - had decreed that if the crews were equipped with parachutes, they would jump instead of trying everything to save their aircraft. In Germany, the same arguments had prevailed for airship crews, but aviation officials had exercised a little more judgment, deciding that a well-trained pilot was even more valuable than an airplane. /P>
Among the German aces, Oberleutnant Ernst Udet owed his life to his parachute, like at least 30 other German or Austrian pilots. Thus Udet survived to continue the fight and finish the war with 62 victories.
At the top of the list of American aces, Edward Rickenbacker succeeded Lufbery. He was an ex-racer and General Pershing's ex-driver. It claimed its first victim, a single-seater Albatross, a few days before Lufbery's death.
Because of the Germanic sounding of his name - Richenbacher originally - he was the subject of perpetual mistrust on the part of the American secret services (the same thing had happened to Joe Whener). It took all the influence of his friend Billy Mitchell to get him into the Air Service.
Assuming command of 94' Pur-suit Squadron (whose insignia was a hat in a hoop) Rickenbacker led his unit to the front like a true team captain. He had decided that his unit would be the best both on the ground and in the air. Elegance, discipline and fitness (gymnastics at dawn and an impeccably maintained airfield), these were the watchwords of Rickenbacker.
He sincerely believed that the fraternity of the squadron and the camaraderie were the bases of the morale and the value of the combatant. On his arrival, the squadron's hunting list was in the good average; with him the 94' was going to take the lead and never leave it.
Fact. the unit logged more flying hours than any other squadron and Rickenbacker more than any other American pilot. Despite a forced stay in hospital, Rickenbacker continued to increase his score and ended the war with 26 victories and a record number of flying hours.
The Americans experienced some difficulties with their Nieuport 28, an unloved aircraft which, like the Hanriot, had been widely distributed by France to its American, Belgian and Italian allies. These aircraft did not tolerate maintenance and piloting faults committed by overly hastily trained mechanics and pilots:the covering on the wings tended to deteriorate and risked coming off during dives that exceeded the authorized limits.
There were a number of forced landings. Jim Hall, the future co-author, with his squadron comrade Charles Nordhoff, of the famous book Mutineers on the Bounty, had to write one under enemy fire. He landed behind the lines and ended the war in a prison camp.
Overall, American pilots preferred the Spad XIII, the favorite aircraft of the aces. It was armed with two synchronized firing Vickers machine guns, and equipped with a 200 hp Hispano-Suiza engine; with a top speed of over 210 km/h, it was faster than the Nieuport; it also climbed higher (6,600 meters against 5,200 for the Nieuport).
Identifying friendly or enemy aircraft also posed some problems for Americans new to the war. Reed Chambers, of the 94', terrorized his compatriot Cook of the 92' Aero Squadron with his attacks:he had mistaken the latter's two-seater Salmson for a German plane. Cook was forced to maneuver very hard as his gunner implored him over the intercom, “Should I shoot? ". Chambers ended up breaking up the fight, as the Salmson's evasives didn't allow him to get into firing position.
Some time later, a German pilot noticed that an American had grazed his biplane from below... without opening fire. The Americans were not the only victims of this kind of misunderstanding. One day, Nungesser had to resign himself to shooting down a British pilot of the R.F.C. who took him for an enemy. And Belgian ace Willy Coppens had so little confidence in his English comrades - lack of identification practice, or visual acuity? -that, to avoid any misunderstanding, he kept cautiously away from their grounds and told his teammates to do the same. Basically, it was a paint problem. Any plane painted in bright colors was automatically mistaken for a German.
Meanwhile Rickenbacker's fame continued to grow. Finally an all-American ace! Journalists were not going to let this chance pass. We made a film in which we saw him in combat against a Hannover. The filmmaker, victim of his courage, had to make a forced landing aboard the single-engine DH9A Liberty which was used for the shots. He absolutely wanted to continue filming on another camera. The camera misfired as Rickenbacker attacked the Hannover with his Spad, and things started to get really complicated when a few French fighter pilots, unaware of the affair, came to his rescue... shooting at real bullets! Rickenbacker managed to make them realize by gestures that the German had surrendered, and everyone landed safe and sound. a bit nervous of course. For the spectators too there was a happy ending, with the fall of the dummy falling from the doomed enemy plane.
The American press carried enthusiastic accounts of the exploits of A.A.F. trained by the French; however, she glossed over their comrades, Lieutenant G.A. Vaughn and Captain F.E. Kindley. for example, which served under the roundels of the R.F.C. British, even forgetting to mention the few pilots present in combat for as long as those of the La Fayette squadron. Its brand image was of prime importance, and the proximity of the lights of Paris favored press contacts with the volunteers serving in the French units.
This silence regarding Americans serving in the R.F.C. continued even after their assignment to the United States Army Air Service. Kept together in their new squadrons, the former R.F.C. were assigned to the less prestigious sectors of the front, in support of the British Fourth Army. There, the rule of the R.F.C. in terms of attribution of victories, the number of homologated victories being much lower than that of real victories.
However, the 17th and 148th Aero Squadrons did an excellent job in support of the British. Arrived on the front three months after Rickenbacker's 94th, the 148', at the end of hostilities, had almost as many victories to its credit. He totaled 2,100 hours of wartime flight for 66 sure victories. Vaughn won his last five victories under the 17' badge. Captain El-bot White Springs, the last and most extraordinary of the 148's commanders, tied for fifth place in the ace standings with 12 kills, tied with Captain F.E. Kindley and Lieutenant D.E. Putman.
Spring was a boy from a good, wealthy family. student at Princeton University.
He served his apprenticeship in Britain (having painstakingly studied Italian, for he had thought of serving there). He was assigned to the 85th squadron commanded by Canadian ace William A. Bishop at the request of the latter. At first, things were looking pretty bad for Springs. He showed, in the eyes of the English, an exhaustive knowledge of the preparation of cocktails, but not much else. He rammed his squadron commander's personal plane with an SES and, after successfully downing an enemy, he smashed his plane again. Bis-hop asked Springs which side he thought he was serving on. If he continued like this, he would be ranked among the aces among the Germans, long before he was among the Allies!
A plane that wiggles
But Springs quickly improved his riding skills. He was assigned a little later to the 148 'Aero Squadron, from the creation of the unit, as a squadron commander first. The 148' had the Sopwith Camel as its weapon plane, which Springs did not like. He said this about it:“You know, a Camel is so short that it could roll over on its own, because of the rollover torque. So of course, we fitted it with a rotary motor to increase the torque and make it more vicious! Riding a Camel is like riding an unbalanced gyroscope. Plus, it wiggles like a dancer's bottom and stinks like a streetcar driver's gloves! »
Springs eventually got used to it, so much so that one day he shot down three Fokkers, without a single scratch to his plane. The American media paid no attention to 148 Aero Squadron, but when the war was over, Springs set the record straight. He became a writer and published several works, War Birds, Contact and Above the bright blue sky, among others, which depicted the war in the sky well and brought justice to the men who had fought alongside him.
There were many. Lieutenant F.L. Baylies for example; Descended between the lines, Baylies jumped from his apparatus and ran at full speed towards the French trenches, amidst a hail of bullets. That day he got away with it; but, later, a Fokker triplane ends up having his skin...
Lieutenant D.E. Putnam served as a pilot with the French 156th Squadron, on Spad. No sooner had he been ranked on the list of aces than during a fight against 8 Fokker he lost the high wing of his Spad. The lower wing soon tore and the aircraft crashed to the ground. Luckily for him, Putnam didn't notice; he was already dead, shot twice in the head.
American pilots scored a total of 777 certified victories, and 80 of them each shot down 5 or more German planes.
On the day the war ended, Rickenbacker flew alone over the eerily silent front. Like many others, he didn't know what to do. These young men had only learned to steal and kill. For the most part, they turned to civil aviation. Some of the survivors became exhibition pilots, clowning around or recreating the emotions of aerial combat in front of crowds of spectators. Sometimes blood flowed; engine failure, airframe rupture due to fatigue, fault. stupid piloting ended up succeeding where the German bullets had failed. This is how Kindley killed himself; but it was still not the usual fate of American aces.
Rickenbacker started his own airline and lived long enough to serve as an adviser to the United States Air Force during World War II. Another Great War ace, R.G. Landis, served again in World War II with the rank of colonel. Springs, after running air shows and working as a test pilot, began to write books and took over his father's business. As for Chambers, he ends up in insurance, that of planes; strange end of career for someone who had shot down so many aircraft!
These men passionately wrote a short but exceptional page in the history of aviation.