The Romance of Aircraft Part 12

The opening of the gun tunnel was carefully "camouflaged," so that at a short distance it could not be seen by an attacking airplane, especially one which was unprepared for it.

The _Gotha_ practically bristled with machine guns. One in its bow which commanded a fairly large range was operated by the forward observer, who sat in front of the pilot. A pa.s.sage-way beside the pilot's seat allowed him to reach "gun-tunnel," where, stretched flat on the floor of the fuselage he operated the gun which fired out under the tail. Above him in the fuselage sat the rear gunner, and by their combined aid the _Gotha_ could keep all enemy planes at a safe distance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright Underwood and Underwood_

A GIANT GOTHA BOMBING PLANE BROUGHT DOWN BY THE FRENCH]

These, however, were merely protective measures. The Gotha's real mission was bombing, and for this it carried a bomb-releasing mechanism just in front of the pilot's seat, on the floor of the fuselage, while behind the pilot an additional supply of the death-dealing missiles were carried in racks in vertical position.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright Underwood and Underwood_

GERMAN FOKKER PLANE CAPTURED BY THE FRENCH]

These were the machines which flew over England and France in 1917 scattering death and destruction. Against them the machines of the Allies were for a time almost powerless, for the best of their airplanes were completely outgunned by this new terror of the skies. The new German machine was given one of its first tryouts in the Balkans, where a squadron of twin-engined _Gothas_ accomplished the bombing of Bucharest. Its efficiency proved, it appeared over the lines and was also used extensively by the Germans for long distance bombing operations.

The fact that the _Gothas_ flew in large squadrons made them still more difficult to attack. Yet Allied airplanes went out to give them fight, and in spite of what seemed the almost complete hopelessness of the situation, they did succeed in breaking up _Gotha_ formations and in downing a few of the dread machines.

Yet another German twin-winged bombing plane was ready about this time.

The _Friedrichshafen_ bomber was not so large as the _Gotha_, but in many points of construction it resembled it. A biplane, it had wings that tapered somewhat from the center to the tips. The wings were strengthened by center spars of steel tubing, which was also used in the construction of the rudder and elevators at the tail. The pilot occupied the rear seat in the c.o.c.kpit and the gunner the forward seat, while a short pa.s.sage-way ran between the two. Every effort had been made at camouflage. On their upper surfaces the wings were painted as nearly as possible earth color, so that they might be indistinguishable to a machine looking down upon them from a superior alt.i.tude. On their lower surfaces they were painted pale blue, to blend with the sky and make them invisible to an enemy plane below.

The armament of this _Friedrichshafen_ bomber consisted of three machine guns, one of them firing downward through a trap door in the fuselage.

It was fitted with an automatic bomb-releasing apparatus, by means of which, as one bomb was released, another slipped into place.

Other bombing machines appeared in 1917, as the _A.E.G._ twin-motored tractor biplane, and the _A.G.O._ twin-bodied biplane. The Germans also began construction of huge bombing triplanes, heavily armed with machine guns. With squadrons of these, the _Gothas_, and the _Friedrichshafens_, they carried out in 1917 and 1918 an established program of bombardment.

The night no longer held terrors for their airmen, who had learned to fly in the darkness. They made their raiding expeditions, not only against Allied troops and military bases, but also on English and French towns, killing civilians and children and destroying property of no importance from a military point of view.

By these methods the Hun had hoped to acquire the supremacy of the air which his smaller fighting machines had not yet won for him. Fortunately the French and British had been hard at work, and in answer to the forays of the German bombing planes, squadrons of Allied planes dropped their missiles in the heart of Germany. The Allied planes, however, chose military objectives, and did not aim their blows at defenseless civilians.

Stroke for stroke, and with a little extra for good measure the Allies beat back their opponents in the air. To-day some of the most remarkable raiding machines in existence, whether for night or for day work belong to France and England, while America is leaving no stone unturned to build up an air navy the equal of those by whose side she fought.

Yet the war in the air, on the Allied side, was always marked by honor, decency and humanity. The enemy repeatedly showed that not mere military gains, but the savage pleasure of bombing civilians, was a part of his air program. In March, 1918, nine squadrons of his airplanes flew over Paris and attacked the city. The raid resulted in 100 deaths, besides 79 people injured, a shocking story to go down in the record of the Hun's attempt at mastery of the air.

Mr. Baker, our American Secretary of War, was in Paris at the time when this historic raid occurred. He was holding a conference at his hotel with General Tasker H. Bliss, at the time American Chief of Staff, when the French warning siren was sounded throughout the city. The city was covered with a deep fog, that completely s.h.i.+elded from the view of the German machines any possible objective. But they had no intention of choosing targets for their bombs,--they let them fall at random upon Paris. For almost three hours terror reigned among the helpless civilians; then the raiders, having lost four of their number to the anti-aircraft gunners, turned and sped swiftly toward their own lines.

"It was a revelation," said Mr. Baker, "of the methods inaugurated by an enemy who wages the same war against women and children as against soldiers.... We are sending our soldiers to Europe to fight until the world is delivered from these horrors."

London as well as Paris suffered from enemy bombing planes. Raid followed raid in the Spring of 1918, but the British had so improved their aerial defenses that they were able to meet the attempted ravages of the enemy with the most powerful anti-aircraft guns, which, like a wall of fire, forbade the dread monsters to come within the limits of the metropolis. Many machines in the German squadrons never got close enough to London to bomb it, but those which did let fall their terrible explosives without aim or object, killing and maiming a large number of civilians. The British were finally forced to take the only course which could have effect with the Hun. They flew into the heart of the enemy's country and gave him a taste of his own medicine. True, they chose their objectives carefully, and the targets which they bombed were munition works, railways, factories, and camps, but for all their tempered revenge they made the foe smart beneath the stinging lash that descended, again and again, upon his back.

In answer to the aircraft program of the United States, Germany renewed her energies, and her construction of airplanes during the last year of the War was on a larger scale than ever before. Her small fighting machines, or speed scouts, include the _Fokker_, the _Halberstadt_, the _Roland_, the _Albatros_, the _Aviatik_, the _Pfalz_ monoplane, the _Rumpler_, the _L.V.W._ and a number of others.

Some of these we have already seen at work. The _Roland_ is one of the latest types of German two-seater scouts. Every effort has been made in it to decrease the "head resistance" by careful streamlining, reduction of the number of interplane struts, etc. Swift flying and a rapid climber, it has won for itself the t.i.tle of _The German Spad_. The _Pfalz_ is built either as a monoplane or as a biplane. It is a machine somewhat similar to the _Fokker_. The monoplane, however, has two machine guns, one on each side of the pilot, and firing through the propeller.

Among airplanes used by the enemy for general service duties over the lines, the _A.G.O._, the _A.E.G._ and the _Gotha_ undoubtedly take the lead. All are heavily armed with machine guns and bombs and are driven by powerful motors.

Yet for all the desperate German struggle for supremacy, her machines and her pilots did not prove the equals of the Allies in the air. The airplanes of France, England, Italy and America maintained a ceaseless vigilance over the lines, giving chase to every enemy plane or squadron of planes that made its appearance on the horizon. Our airmen showed the most dauntless courage, and they continually outwitted and outmaneuvered the slower thinking Hun. Our speed scouts challenged his reconnaissance and bombing planes, and prevented them from performing their missions effectively; our own reconnaissance airplanes gave him a hard time of it; and our bombing machines proved themselves the strong right arm of the service--taking the place of the big guns in raining heavy explosives upon enemy troops, bombing his military bases, and making life in general most uncomfortable for the foe.

It is a far cry from those first standardized _Taubes_ to the many makes and patterns of German airplanes of the present day. As the Allies met those first maids-of-all-work with a mixed company of airplanes of many and untried talents, so to-day they are meeting her efforts to imitate their own versatility in aircraft with machines which are carefully standardized in every detail. It should be an object lesson to Germany that the Allies have triumphed in each case.

CHAPTER VIII

HEROES OF THE AIR

Heroes of the air in peace times have been numerous. We already know the stories of many of the pioneers of aircraft, who risked their lives in situations involving the utmost peril. The men who, in the first frail monoplanes and biplanes attempted to fly the British Channel, or to make dangerous cross-country flights under adverse weather conditions were heroes indeed.

Yet undoubtedly the greatest exploits will be told of those heroes who, in the Great War, flew daily over the lines, meeting the aviators of the enemy in mortal combat.

Every allied nation engaged in the great conflict has her sacred roll of honor of those who fought for her in the air. Americans will never grow weary of tales of the great Lufbery; Englishmen will boast of the prowess of Bishop, McCudden and the rest of them; while Frenchmen will tell, with mingling of joy and sadness, of the immortal Guynemer, Prince of Aces.

Georges Guynemer's name will always stand first on the record of the war's great flying men. His short career was a blaze of triumph against the Hun, but with many a hairbreadth escape from death and many a feat of reckless daring. Young, handsome and das.h.i.+ng, anxious to give his life for his beloved France, he became the adored idol of the French nation. On one occasion when he marched in a parade in Paris, the people strewed his path with flowers, and it was necessary for the police to intervene and protect him from the enraptured mult.i.tudes who pressed forward to embrace him.

Yet Guynemer came near missing the fighting altogether.

Guynemer was born on Christmas day, 1893, in the town of Compiegne. He grew up a tall, delicate boy, who, his friends predicted, would never live to reach maturity. Perhaps the fact that he was almost an invalid turned his attention away from the athletic sports of the other boys and gave him his intense interest in mechanics. He had one consuming ambition: to become a student in the ecole Polytechnique in Paris; but when by hard study he had finally prepared himself and came up for his entrance examination, the professors of the school rejected him on the ground that he might not live to finish the course. To help the lad forget his overwhelming disappointment, his parents hurried him away to a health resort at Biarritz. He had been there a year when in August, 1914, came the news that his country had been attacked. Burning with zeal to help defend his beloved France, Guynemer offered himself again and again for enlistment in the French army. Hard pressed as that army was, its officers did not feel that they needed the sacrifice of a frail youth with one foot in the grave. Gently but firmly, the young candidate was rejected. Bitterly humiliated he went back to his life of enforced inaction; and while he saw his comrades marching forth to war, he eagerly pondered in his mind what service he could perform in the war against the invader.

At length he hit upon an idea. Since he could not become a soldier, why should he not turn his mechanical skill to some account in one of the great airplane factories where France was turning out her swift squadrons of the air. He volunteered and was accepted. In a short time he had made his presence felt, for he had received a thorough preparatory education in mechanics and was far the superior of the majority of his fellow workmen. Little by little he won the friends.h.i.+p and admiration of his superiors, who promoted him to the position of mechanician at one of the big military aviation fields. Now for the first time he was living among war scenes. While he performed his humble duties in the hangar he burned with ambition to pilot over the lines one of the swift French battle planes. But he hardly dared make the request that he be taught to fly, fearing the rebuff which he had received on every other occasion when he had sought to enlist.

But the officers at the aviation camp had been watching young Guynemer, and their respect for his n.o.bility of character and high intelligence finally outweighed their fears that he might prove too delicate for the service in the air. So the happy day finally arrived when he was permitted to enlist as a student airman. In January, 1916, having completed his course of training, he flew for the first time in a swift scout plane.

From the day that he first flew out over the lines, his higher officers realized that here indeed was a master airman. In three short weeks he had won the distinction of "ace," having downed his fifth enemy machine.

The secret of his success lay partly in the frail const.i.tution which had come so near condemning him to inactivity. For the youth was fully convinced that he had not long to live, and his one idea was to die in such a way as to render the greatest possible service to his native land. Perfectly prepared to meet death when the moment came, he was scrupulously careful never to court it unnecessarily, for he realized that the longer he lived the more damage he would be able to inflict upon the enemy. The early morning invariably found him in his hangar, going over with loving care every detail of the mechanism of his swift scout plane. Not until every portion of engine, wings, struts and stays had been tried and proved in A-1 condition, and every cartridge removed from his machine gun and carefully tested, did he climb into his pilot's seat and wing his way across the sky in search of enemy planes.

And when Guynemer encountered an enemy plane he maneuvered to overcome it with the same care for exactness of movement. His cool-headed precision made it almost impossible to take him by surprise, while there was many a hapless machine of the enemy that he pounced upon unawares.

He was an accomplished aerial acrobat, and one of his favorite tactics was to climb to a great alt.i.tude and then, pointing the nose of his plane at his prey, to suddenly swoop down at enormous speed, firing as he came.

Expert as he was, the great French aviator had a number of narrow escapes from death. In September, 1916, seeing one of his fellow aviators engaged in an unequal combat with five German _Fokkers_, he sped to the scene of the affray. Maneuvering into a favorable position above his opponents he shot down two of them within the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds. The remaining three _Fokkers_ took to flight, but Guynemer was hot on their trail. Another of them went cras.h.i.+ng earthward. Suddenly, as the plucky Frenchman sped on, hot on the trail of the two that were still unpunished, he was startled by the bursting of a sh.e.l.l just under his machine. One of the wings of his plane had been torn completely away, and from a height of ten thousand feet in the atmosphere, he began falling rapidly. He struggled bravely with the controls but nothing could check the ever increasing speed of his plunge earthward. At an alt.i.tude of five thousand feet the airplane commenced to somersault, but the pilot was strapped in his seat. Then, as if some unseen force had intervened, the swiftness of the descent was unexpectedly checked. With speed greatly lessened the airplane came cras.h.i.+ng to the earth, and the plucky aviator was rescued from the debris, unconscious but not seriously hurt by his dreadful fall. It was for this exploit that he received the rank of Lieutenant, while he was decorated with the much-coveted French War Cross.

On another occasion Guynemer's machine was shot down by German sh.e.l.ls, and came cras.h.i.+ng to earth in No Man's Land, between the French and the German trenches. The Prussians turned their machine guns on the spot and plowed the area with scorching fire. But the French had seen their beloved hero fall, and without a thought for the consequences the poilus in the trenches went "over the top" after him. Quickly they bore him back to safety, and if they left some of their comrades fallen out in that dread region, they did not count it too great a sacrifice to have redeemed their idol with their blood.

Practically every fighting nation has had not only its favorite airman but also its favorite aerial escadrille. Guynemer was the leader of the famous band of "Cignognes" or "Storks," into which had been gathered the pick of all the flying men of France. His historic opponent in the war in the air was the German Baron von Richthofen, whose squadrons were humorously nicknamed "Richthofen's circus" by the Allies, because of their curiously camouflaged wings. The Germans were very jealous of Guynemer's successes, and as the record of the number of machines he had downed grew, they eagerly credited Richthofen with more victories.

Guynemer's final score was 54 and his enemy's much higher. Yet as a matter of fact the Frenchman had destroyed many more machines than Baron von Richthofen, for whereas the French gave no credit for planes sent to earth where no other witnesses than the pilot could testify to their destruction, the Germans were very glad to pile up a huge score for their hero, and were not by any means critical in seeking proof of a victory.

Guynemer's remarkable aerial victories made him a hero throughout the world. It was reported that in one day he had been officially credited with the destruction of four airplanes of the enemy. One of his chief ambitions was to bring down an enemy machine within the allied lines, as little damaged as possible. Such a plane gave him an opportunity to indulge his interest in the purely mechanical side of aviation. With the utmost patience he would examine it in every detail, making note of any features which he regarded as improvements on the _Nieuport_ he himself flew. Such improvements would very shortly appear on his own machine. So while Guynemer flew a _Nieuport_, it was in reality a different _Nieuport_ from any doing service over the lines. In its many little individual features and appliances it reflected the active, eager, painstaking mind of its famous pilot, whose mind was ever on the alert to discover the tiniest detail of mechanism which might gain for him an advantage over his adversaries.

It was on September 11, 1917, that the beloved aviator fought his last battle in the air. While in flight over Ypres he caught sight of five German _Albatros_ planes, and instantly turned the nose of his machine in their direction. As he bore swiftly down upon them, a flock of enemy machines, over forty in number, suddenly made their appearance and swooped down from an enormous height above the clouds. Baron von Richthofen with his flying "circus" was among them. None of Guynemer's comrades was near enough to aid him. In the distance a group of Belgian machines came in view, rus.h.i.+ng to his a.s.sistance, but before they had arrived at the spot the plucky French airplane was observed sinking gently to the earth, where it disappeared behind the German lines.

Guynemer's comrades cherished the hope that he had been forced to descend and had been taken prisoner by the Germans. Such an ending to a glorious career of service would perhaps not have been desired by the aviator himself. He who had used his life to such good advantage for his country had crowned his victories with death. The Germans themselves, out of respect for his memory, undertook to inform his fellow-men of his fate, and a few days later they dropped a note into the French aerodrome stating that he had been shot through the head. The German pilot who had killed him was named Wissemann, and he was an unknown aviator. When he learned that he had actually killed the great Guynemer, he wrote home to say that he need now fear no one, since he had conquered the king of them all. It was scarcely a fortnight before he was sent to his death by a devoted friend of his renowned victim.

The man who avenged the death of Guynemer was Rene Fonck, likewise a member of the French "Cignognes." Fonck took up the champions.h.i.+p of the air where his comrade had laid it down. He stands to-day as the most remarkable of all the French aviators. He has been called "the most polished aerial duellist the world has ever seen." With an official record of almost half a hundred enemy machines destroyed, he has astounded his spectators by his aerial "stunts" and the absolute accuracy of his aim. Many of Fonck's successful battles have been fought against heavy odds, quite frequently with as many as five of the enemy's airplanes opposing him. Yet with apparent ease he invariably succeeded in warding off his would-be destroyers, whilst one by one he sent them flaming to the earth.

It has been said of Fonck that in all his battles in the clouds he never received so much as a bullet hole in his machine, thanks to his unparalleled skill at maneuvering. He made a world's record at Soissons in May, 1918, when he downed five enemy airplanes in one day. He was flying on patrol duty when he came upon three German two-seater machines, and in less than 10 seconds sent two of them flaming to earth.

Later in the same day he actually succeeded in breaking up a large formation of German fighting machines, and after destroying three, sent the rest fleeing in confusion.

On another occasion Fonck made a world's record when he brought down three German planes in the brief s.p.a.ce of 20 seconds. While in flight above the lines he came upon four big biplanes of the enemy, flying in single file, one behind the other. He quickly pounced upon the leader, and in less time than it takes to tell, had sent him cras.h.i.+ng to the earth. The second had no chance to alter its course. Training his machine gun on it Fonck soon sent it, a ma.s.s of flames, after its fellow. The third big biplane dodged out of the line and sped out of harm's way, but the fourth was caught by the plucky Frenchman, who wheeled his machine round with startling rapidity and fired upon it before it could make good its escape.

This remarkable feat, performed in August, 1918, brought Lieutenant Rene Fonck's official total of victories up to sixty, and made him the premier French ace, at the age of twenty-four. In all his aerial battles he had never been wounded, pa.s.sing unscathed through the most formidable encounters by reason of his unparalleled skill at maneuvering.

Guynemer and Fonck are perhaps the two greatest names on the French roll of heroes of the air. But there were many other Frenchmen who did valiant service. Lieutenant Rene Dorine had an official record of 23 victories when he disappeared in May, 1917. He was nicknamed the "Unpuncturable" by his comrades, since in all his exploits above the lines his machine had only twice received a bullet hole. Lieutenant Jean Chaput had a record of 16 enemy planes destroyed, when in May, 1918, he made the great sacrifice; and there are many others, some living and some fallen in battle, who, flying for France, day after day and month after month, helped to make her cause at length a victorious one.