The War in the Air; Vol. 1 / The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force

by Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

The Germans were in force, as he expected, and after a brisk engagement he returned to Douai. The Douai operations, which were to have been an attack on the German lines of communication, now became a defence of Douai against the Germans. By the 29th of September Douai was virtually in a state of siege, and it became a question whether the French troops could be extricated. On the afternoon of the 1st of October the end came. By that time the Germans had got into the town and were firing at the Hôtel de Ville from the housetops. 'A shouting mob of cyclists and infantry', says Air Commodore Samson, 'rushed into the courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville, yelling out that we were surrounded, and the Germans had taken the Pont d'Esquerchin. I went to General Plantey and said that the only thing to do was to recapture the bridge and drive the Germans away from that sector. He agreed, and said that if I would lead the way with my cars he would follow with what of the troops he could get to fight. There was no doubt that if we did not do something a wholesale surrender was certain. I strongly objected to being mixed up in that. I felt certain that if we could only start a fight the morale would improve and that we would have every chance of extricating the whole force from its predicament. I led out our cars therefore from the Hôtel de Ville, and forcing our way through crowds of infantry and civilians we reached a corner where I found about four hundred Infantry. I implored, and swore, and ordered them to follow us against the enemy, but only one came, jumping on to the step of the last car. From this corner a straight street four hundred yards long led to a bridge over the canal, which bridge was held by the Germans. As we went along this road I certainly thought that here was the end of our little party, and I felt very guilty at bringing Armstrong, Coode, and the other fine fellows to death for no purpose except to keep up the Pride of the Service. The fact that the infantry would not come on after us made us very fierce, and I am certain, speaking for myself, that this feeling of anger made us far braver than we had felt at first. I took the cars to the head of the bridge and then halted them, and we opened fire along the roadways which ran on both sides of the canal and along the road ahead of us. I ordered the marines out of the cars on to the roadway, and told them to keep up a hot fire on the Germans who were on the opposite bank. Going myself with one marine on to the bridge I saw some Huns on board two barges which were alongside the far bank, and emptied my magazine at them. I can remember to this day the sound one of their bullets made as it hit the girder alongside my face. We were so excited that I am afraid our fire was very wild, but it made up for lack of accuracy by its volume, our three machine-guns firing like mad. We kept up this game for about five minutes, when I saw the Germans clearing off in all directions. I ordered, "Cease fire", and ordered all on board the cars. I then led the cars at full speed along the main Henin-Lietard road, intending to get to the position we had held in the morning, as from there we could cover the retreat of the French and command the approaches to the Pont d'Esquerchin.... I knew that in front of us there was a double trench across the road, and which entailed cars stopping and reversing to get through in the gap left between the two trenches. Just short of this obstacle was a side road leading to Beaumont. I determined, if we met the enemy at the trench, to hold the corner at the side road as long as we could, hoping that the Infantry would follow on. This side road would be the line of approach of the cavalry division reported close to Beaumont. On arriving at the corner we encountered a very heavy fire coming from the trench and the high ground close to it. It would have been useless to have attempted to go on against that volume of fire, so we stopped at the corner, where we got some shelter from a cottage, and opened fire with the machine-guns from the two armoured cars, whilst the rest of us lay down on the road and kept up a hot fire with rifles.

'We held out at the corner for nearly fifteen minutes until the Germans opened fire with field guns from Le Polygone; the situation then got too hot, as shrapnel was bursting all round us, and the cottage was quickly demolished by high explosives. I therefore gave the order to retire, and we jumped on board the cars and went along the Cuincy-Esquerchin road. After we had put a mile between us and the corner I halted to see how we had fared. Our casualties now consisted of eight men wounded. All the cars had many bullet-marks, but no serious damage had been done to them, except one of the armoured cars had a bullet through its radiator, causing it to lose practically all its water. We only had about 200 rounds of ammunition left, and were running pretty short of petrol, otherwise all was well with us.... I considered that we had done everything we could to open a line of retreat for the infantry, and that we had held out at the corner as long as was possible. As it happened we had cleared the way for the French, as the general got 2,500 infantry out of the town across the Pont d'Esquerchin and keeping close to the canal bank he had got them well clear of the Huns without firing a shot, whilst we were fighting them at the corner. I am afraid that a good number remained in the town and were captured. General Plantey was kind enough to write to say that if it had not been for the English cars who had opened the door he could not have extricated his force.

'Just short of Beaumont I came across the cavalry division. I went up to the General, who was a fine martial figure surrounded by an escort of Cuirassiers with steel breast-plates. After I had told him what had happened, I said that there was every probability of the Douai Force having surrendered, but there was a chance of them having got out whilst we were holding the cross-roads. He was complimentary about our performance and said we had done all we could. He recommended that I should return to Morbecque and report to General Aston. He said that he was not pushing on any farther, but was going to retire to Beaumont. I therefore went through Beaumont to Béthune and back to Morbecque, where we were received as if we had risen from the dead. Briggs told me that they had fully expected never to see us again. I went to bed after telephoning to General Paris, who had relieved General Aston in command of the Marines. General Paris sent the following report to the Admiralty: "Commander Samson and all ranks appear to have behaved very gallantly in difficult circumstances, and I consider his action was perfectly correct."'

These motor-car operations were no part of the war in the air. But they were carried out by the Royal Naval Air Service, and they illustrate the immense diversity of business which was undertaken by that service during the course of the war. Off the coast of Cornwall or over the rivers of West Africa, in raids on German cities or in expeditions to assist beleaguered Allies, the Naval Air Service were incessantly active on the fringe of things. They were sailors and adventurers by tradition; they adapted themselves to circumstance, and made the best of what they found. Their courage put new heart into desperate men, and their humanity (the greatest tradition of the British navy) added lustre to their courage. The half-witted pedantry of the German doctrine and practice of war, which uses brutality as a protective mask for cowardice, was far from them. It was against that doctrine and practice, as against an alien enemy, that they fought; and only those who have been guilty of inhuman practices have ever had cause to complain of their cruelty.

Beyond the usual reconnaissances not very much work was done in the air from headquarters. The available aeroplanes were few, and there were many calls on them. Nominally the Dunkirk force was to consist of three squadrons of twelve machines each, but in these early days two or three machines were, often the most that a squadron could muster. On the 3rd of September Squadron Commander E. L. Gerrard arrived at Ostend with three additional machines intended to operate from Antwerp against airship sheds in Germany. These machines remained at Ostend, pegged down under the lee of the sand dunes, while Squadron Commander Gerrard went by road to Antwerp to find an aerodrome and to arrange for the proposed raid. On the 12th of September a violent squall came up from the west and caught the machines, uprooting or breaking the stakes to which they were secured. The machines turned cartwheels along the sands and were totally wrecked. The party returned to Dunkirk to refit, and as the attack on the Zeppelin sheds in Germany was reckoned to be of the first importance, Wing Commander Samson, who was ordered to take charge of the flight, had to give up three of the best machines he had.

It was believed at that time that Antwerp would not fall. When the British army was moved north from the Aisne to Ypres, the original idea of the Allied strategy was resuscitated. That idea had been to take the offensive in Belgium and to repel the German advance or to make a flank attack on it. But the German blow had been too heavy and too quick for this plan to develop, and in the effort to save Paris the British army had been driven far southwards into France. Paris was saved at the Marne, and now that the Germans had entrenched themselves in a corner of France it was hoped that an attack upon their communications would compel them to retreat. Again the Germans were beforehand. When things came to a standstill on the Aisne, they concentrated a large force in Belgium to make a push for the Channel ports. The British naval division, arriving at Antwerp on the 5th of October, could do no more than delay the fall of Antwerp by a few days. The Seventh Division of the British army, under Sir Henry Rawlinson, which was disembarked at Ostend and Zeebrugge on the 6th of October, found that its task was not an assault on the German flank but the defence of the Channel ports from a furious German assault.

Nevertheless, the Naval Air Service carried on. Two attacks were made on the airship sheds at Düsseldorf and Cologne. The earlier of these was made on the 22nd of September by four aeroplanes, two for each place. There was a thick mist extending from the river Roer to some miles east of the Rhine, and only Flight Lieutenant Collet succeeded in finding his objective. He glided down at Düsseldorf from a height of 6,000 feet, the last 1,500 feet through the mist, and came in sight of the shed when he was a quarter of a mile from it at a height of 400 feet. One of his bombs fell short; the others probably hit the shed, but failed to explode. Germans ran in all directions. All four machines were back in Antwerp by one o'clock in the afternoon.

The second and more successful attack was made on the 8th of October, during the evacuation of Antwerp. Antwerp was being bombarded, the panic-stricken retreat of the population had begun, but the Naval Air Service stuck to its aerodrome, and carried out the first notable air-raid of the war. On the 7th of October the machines at Antwerp had been taken out of their shed and planted in the middle of the aerodrome, to avoid damage by splinters if the shed should be hit by a shell. On the forenoon of the 8th the weather was misty, so Squadron Commander Spenser Grey and Flight Lieutenant Marix spent the time in tuning up their Sopwith Tabloid machines. In the afternoon there was no improvement in the weather, but if an attack was to be made from Antwerp it was important to start, for the Germans were about to enter the city. Flight Lieutenant Marix, starting at 1.30 p.m., flew to Düsseldorf, dived at the shed, and let go his bombs at a height of 600 feet. The destruction was complete. The roof fell in within thirty seconds and flames rose to a height of 500 feet, showing that an inflated Zeppelin must have been inside. The aeroplane was damaged by a heavy rifle- and shell-fire, but Lieutenant Marix managed to get back to within twenty miles of Antwerp, and to return to the city by the aid of a bicycle which he borrowed from a peasant. Squadron Commander Spenser Grey, starting at 1.20 p.m., flew to Cologne, where he found a thick mist and failed to locate the airship sheds. He dropped his bombs on the main railway station in the middle of the town, and got back to Antwerp at 4.45 p.m. At six o'clock the general evacuation of Antwerp was ordered, and the officers of the Naval Air Service succeeded in reaching Ostend by noon on the following day. The transport and stores had preceded them. Since the 3rd of October Wing Commander Samson's force had been employed in assisting the naval division at Antwerp. Some seventy motor omnibuses, taken off the streets of the cities of England, and driven by their civilian drivers, who made up in cheerfulness and skill for what they lacked in military science, had been employed to carry the stores of the naval division, and were escorted by the armoured cars. Their stay in Antwerp was brief. Where once the Germans had succeeded in bringing their big guns within range the end was certain. 'I used to find the streets of Antwerp', says Air Commodore Samson, 'a most depressing sight, thronged as they were with Belgians; beautifully dressed ladies were apparently carrying on their usual life, shopping and promenading as if the siege was a minor affair.' The people of a great commercial city are slow to realize the facts of war. When the realization comes it comes with panic swiftness. The crowd of refugees which hurried by all roads out of Antwerp during the night of the 9th of October bound for anywhere, and fleeing from the destroyers of Louvain, was one of the most disheartening spectacles of the war. There were some bright spots in the prevailing darkness. One of these was General Sir Henry Rawlinson, of the Seventh Division, who took over the command at Ostend. 'I came into contact continuously with him for the next month,' says Air Commodore Samson, 'and I never saw him down-hearted once, even in the worst periods at Ypres. I never left his presence without feeling that we were bound to win: he was worth an Army Corps by himself.' The English nurses, who had two omnibus loads of wounded, are another luminous memory of that awful night. 'They were a splendid advertisement for the English race; absolutely unperturbed, calm and competent, amidst the surrounding mob of panic-stricken people. They impressed me more than I can say. Their one job was to get their wounded charges safe to Ostend, and that they would do it was evident to the most casual observer.'

The evacuation of Antwerp put an end to all plans for a British offensive in Belgium. Ostend was crowded with refugees, and the streets were full of distressing scenes. The harbour railway station was a seething mass of humanity attempting to get on board the few steamers that went to England. The British forces, and with them the Royal Naval Air Service, retreated by stages. Aerodromes were occupied successively at Thourout, Ypres, and, on the 15th of October, Poperinghe. On this same date Zeebrugge and Ostend fell into the hands of the Germans. 'During the last three weeks', says Air Commodore Samson, 'we had been always on the go, without a home, without any idea where we were going to next, without food sometimes, without adequate transport, and yet we had kept going because all ranks had pulled their pound and a bit over.'

Thus ended the Belgian adventure of the Naval Air Service. It had been good while it lasted. If a force of five thousand skilled and fit men, with armoured cars and aeroplanes, had been available for these operations, the German communications might have been seriously disordered. Some critics condemn all such adventures as 'side-shows'. They may be right; but it is always to be remembered that the national character is seen at its best in solitary adventures of this kind, and that the British Empire, from the first, was built up by side-shows—many of them unauthorized by the Government. The experience of this war, and of former wars, proves only that these enterprises lose a great part of their value if they are timidly designed or half-heartedly executed. To condemn them out and out is to prefer the German plan of empire, which depends wholly on central initiative and central control, to the sporadic energy of the British Empire, which can never be killed by a blow aimed at the centre, for its life is in every part. Military theory, based as it is chiefly on the great campaigns of continental conquerors, has so impressed some of its British students that they forget their own nature, renounce their pride, and cheapen their dearest possessions.