Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy

by Elmer Haslett

Then I asked him if he had ever heard of an observation plane and if an observation plane shot a signal of six rockets to him what he would do. He replied that he did not know anything about observation planes and didn’t want to know anything about them, but that several times large planes had flown back there and had fired fire rockets at the doughboys.

“How many rockets did they fire?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said, “lots of ’em. Sometimes three and six at one time.” I knew six rockets was the official signal from an airplane to the infantry, and that they were supposed to put out white pieces of cloth, their panels, to tell the airplane exactly where they were.

“Well, what did you do when the airplane fired six rockets at you?” I questioned in a more tolerating tone of voice.

“What did I do?” he answered as if surprised at such a silly question. “What do you think I’d a done? Why, I fired right back at ’em. There ain’t nobody goin’ to fire at me and get off with it without me firing back.”

The other buddies backed him up absolutely and I spent a half hour explaining to them the real facts about the airplane game. They finally came to my way of thinking on every point except the courage of the American airman. They could not be dissuaded; they were convinced that most American flyers were cowards and “yellow.”

I, of course, reported this firing on friendly airplanes to Headquarters and an order was issued so as to acquaint the Infantry with the Allied insignia. However, it was not until late in the Argonne offensive that this misapprehension of the doughboy was entirely cleared away. Time and time again when I would ask infantrymen, even officers, if they knew the American airplane insignia, they would say it was a “Star,” but that they had never seen any American planes on the front. Perhaps it is for this reason that there are many doughboys who to-day declare they never saw an American airplane over the front. They undoubtedly saw many American planes, but they never saw any with the much-advertised star in the cocarde.

We had a great lot of trouble with wireless equipment in our artillery adjustments. When anything went wrong it was always blamed on the radio attached to the airplanes and we, of course, always attributed the fault to the artillery station on the ground because our wireless sets were always tested from the air to our own squadron station before starting on any mission. If the radio was not working, we always came down and fixed it. But this continual, unsatisfactory coöperation on radio communication was a serious affair all the way through and it was a bone of contention between the Air Service and the Artillery in many instances. Finally radio officers were appointed to inspect the equipment on the airplane and the equipment on the ground and to determine where the fault lay. This helped some, but the trouble was never actually overcome. If the trouble was with the airmen, it was perhaps due to failure to throw in their switch. An experience I had, led me to believe that the trouble was more with the personnel than the material. In each artillery regiment in trench warfare, there was one battery designated to fire upon a sudden call from the airplane. This battery was known as the fugitive target battery and the wireless crew was supposed to be constantly on duty from daybreak until nightfall so that when an airplane called, the designated battery could be immediately notified and the adjustment of artillery fire undertaken at once.

One day I decided to make a thorough reconnaissance of the Front and to call the fugitive target battery to a certain regiment to make a rapid adjustment. I crossed the line, found my target, which was a small convoy on the road within a forest. I was well within range of the fugitive target battery, so I immediately began to call the wireless station of the battery. I called it for fully twenty-five minutes but I could get no response. They did not put out any panel at all. I happened to know the location of the wireless station in the next regiment, which was also supposed to be looking out for fugitive target calls, so I called them and they immediately displayed their panel that they understood me. I was then certain that my wireless was O. K., so I flew back to my first battery and began to call them again. After another fifteen minutes I still received no response whatsoever. As the target had long since disappeared and being without the range of the alert battery of the next regiment, I flew home.

After making my report I called up the Colonel of the Regiment in which the battery was located. He, of course, being a very busy man, was not especially anxious to talk to a Lieutenant, so he transferred me to his wireless officer. I told the wireless officer that I had called them for forty minutes and had gotten absolutely no response and that I was sure that my wireless was all right. He, in a very nice way, responded that he was quite sure that my wireless was not all right, because he was certain that the battalion concerned had their wireless in very good shape. We got into quite an argument in which I told him that I called the designated battery of the next regiment and that they had answered and that I called my home station both on leaving and returning and that they answered, but the Captain repeated that he didn’t give a continental how many answered, he still knew his wireless stations were all right and he didn’t want any argument over the telephone about it. Whereupon I mentally cussed the whole Army, but merely said, “Yes, Sir,” and hung up.