The work at this time chiefly consisted of offensive patrols, which were supposed to keep the air clear for our corps and bombing machines. Numerous reconnaissances were also carried out. In these days scouts usually worked in pairs, but larger formations of five and six machines were becoming more common; later in the war it was the rule to send out a whole squadron, or as many of its machines as were serviceable, over the line at once; but in 1916 aeroplanes and pilots were, usually, too scarce to send more than two off the ground at once.
On August 3, 1916, Claude Ridley had a forced landing near Douai through engine failure when dropping a spy over the lines. His adventures were remarkable. His spy got out, told Ridley to hide for a little, and presently, returning with civilian clothes and some money, told him that he must now shift for himself. Ridley did so with such address that he eluded capture for three months on the German side of the line, and eventually worked his way via Brussels to the Dutch frontier and escaped. This was a good performance, none the worse because he could speak neither French nor German. The method he adopted was a simple one—he would go up to some likely-looking civilian and say, “I am a British officer trying to escape; will you help me?” They always did. He had many interesting adventures. For example, he lay up near the Douai aerodrome and watched the young Huns learning to fly and crashing on the aerodrome; here he saw one of our B.E.s brought down, and the pilot and observer marched past him into captivity; later the conductor of a tram in the environs of Brussels suspected him, but, knocking the man down, he jumped into a field of standing corn and contrived to elude pursuit.
This method of landing spies was not popular with R.F.C. pilots, as there was always quite a chance that one might not be able to get the machine off again, and, anyhow, it was a nerve-racking experience to have to land in a field after a necessarily hurried survey from the air, and wait while your spy climbed slowly—very slowly—out. Later, different and, from the pilot’s point of view, improved devices were adopted; the spy was made to sit on the plane with a parachute and to jump off when told. Occasionally they refused to jump, nor is it easy to blame them, so a further improvement is said to have been introduced by which the pilot could pull a lever and drop the wretched agent out through the bottom of the fuselage, after which he parachuted down to earth.
They were very brave men, these French spies who voluntarily entered the occupied territory in this hazardous manner. They were usually dropped either in the late evening or early morning.
CHAPTER II
THE SOMME
Sixty had not to wait long for its first taste of serious fighting. The “aerial offensive,” which always precedes any “push,” was already well developed when the squadron commenced war flying. Casualties were heavy, and on July 3, two days after the official commencement of the Somme battle, Ferdy Waldron was shot down and killed on the “other side.” He considered it his duty to try and do one job per day over the line, and on this particular morning he led “A” Flight’s 80 h.p. “bullets” over at 4 a.m. in perfect weather. The other members of the patrol were Smith-Barry, Armstrong, Simpson, and Balfour. The last-named thus describes the fight: “Both Armstrong and Simpson fell out, through engine trouble, before we reached Arras. Armstrong landed by a kite balloon section and breakfasted with Radford (Basil Hallam, the actor), whose kite balloon was attacked a few days later, and who met his death through the failure of his parachute. Waldron led the remaining two along the Arras-Cambrai road. We crossed at about 8,000 feet, and just before reaching Cambrai we were about 9,000, when I suddenly saw a large formation of machines about our height coming from the sun towards us. There must have been at least twelve. They were two-seaters led by one Fokker (monoplane) and followed by two others. I am sure they were not contemplating ‘war’ at all, but Ferdy pointed us towards them and led us straight in.
“My next impressions were rather mixed. I seemed to be surrounded by Huns in two-seaters. I remember diving on one, pulling out of the dive, and then swerving as another came for me. I can recollect also looking down and seeing a Morane about 800 feet below me going down in a slow spiral, with a Fokker hovering above it following every turn. I dived on the Fokker, who swallowed the bait and came after me, but unsuccessfully, as I had taken care to pull out of my dive while still above him. The Morane I watched gliding down under control, doing perfect turns, to about 2,000 feet, when I lost sight of it. I thought he must have been hit in the engine. After an indecisive combat with the Fokker I turned home, the two-seaters having disappeared. Smith-Barry I never saw from start to finish of the fight. I landed at Vert Galant and reported that Ferdy had ‘gone down under control.’ We all thought he was a prisoner, but heard soon afterwards that he had landed safely but died of wounds that night, having been hit during the scrap.
“About twenty minutes after I had landed, Smith-Barry came back. He had not seen us, but had been fighting the back two Fokkers, which he drove east, but not before he had been shot about by them, one bullet entering the tail and passing up the fuselage straight for his back until it hit the last cross-member, which deflected the course of the missile sufficiently to save him.”