Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 by Dan Hampton Page B
Authors: Dan Hampton
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which forced a change in British tactics. The days of the lone hunter seemed past, as now patrols were carried out by flights of two or more aircraft—one to lead and the others to protect the leader’s tail.
Albert Ball was supposed to lead, teach, and keep alive other pilots rather than simply kill Germans—and he hated it. He also disliked the SE-5 and preferred fighting in his Nieuport 17. Amazingly, Hugh Trenchard permitted a compromise: during scheduled squadron patrols Ball would use the SE, but when out alone he could continue to fly the little French fighter. Lone-wolfing it one day, he attacked a pair of Germans. Running out of ammunition, he chased them back to their airfield, firing his pistol all the way. After they landed, he tossed down a note challenging the same pilots to meet him over their field the following day at the same time.
And they did . . . but not alone.
Three other enemy fighters were orbiting well above him and attacked as soon as he did. Facing odds of five to one, behind the German lines, Ball had no choice but to attack. Fortunately, everything in front of him was a target and, unlike the Germans, he had no one to watch out for. Running out of ammunition again, Ball spun down and landed in a field nearby. Slumping sideways across the cockpit, he played dead and watched three of the enemy fly away while the other two landed to claim his corpse or take him prisoner. As the two Germans scrambled out of their cockpits and ran toward him, he came to life, gunned the engine, and lurched back into the air.
His days were filled with missions like that. His tactics were simple: attack. Not a thinker like Mannock or McCudden, nor a scavenger like the Baron, he was more akin to Werner Voss in flying technique. * But as was true for so many on both sides, the incomparable strain of daily air combat was wearing him down. He’d always lived off by himself in a hut, keeping a small garden and a hutch of rabbits. On some nights, his fellow pilots would see the red glow from a signal flare stuck in the ground and Ball’s dark silhouette as he played the violin in his pajamas. *
One of the reasons for his introspection was a woman. He’d fallen in love during his time off in England, but he refused to marry the girl until the war ended. It appears he didn’t believe he’d survive; he once said to his father, Sir Albert Ball, that “no fighter pilot who fought seriously could hope to escape from the war alive.”
MAY 7, 1917 , dawned wet and blurry, with Ball leading a flight of eleven SE-5s over the Bourlon Wood area. Destroying Jasta 11 was a priority, and the RFC had been conducting offensive patrols around the Douai sector hoping to lure the Germans into combat. The Baron had gone home on leave, and his brother Lothar was rumored to hold temporary command, so the timing was good.
On the other side of a line of clouds, they ran straight into von Richthofen’s Flying Circus. Cecil Lewis, a 56 Squadron SE-5 pilot, would later write:
The May evening is heavy with threatening masses of cumulus cloud, majestic skyscapes, solid-looking as snow mountains, fraught with caves and valleys, rifts and ravines. . . .
Steadily the body of scouts rises higher and higher, threading its way between the cloud precipices. . . .
A red light curls up from the leader’s cockpit and falls away. Action! He alters direction slightly and the patrol, shifting throttle and rudder, keep close like a pack of hounds on the scent. He has seen, and they see soon, six scouts three thousand feet below. Black crosses! It seems interminable till the eleven come within diving distance. The pilots nurse their engines, hard-minded and set, test their guns and watch their indicators. At last the leader sways sideways, as a signal that each should take his man, and suddenly drops.
The British formation and whatever tactical plan they’d had disintegrated immediately, as it usually does in a fight. Planes dove and turned,
Albert Ball was supposed to lead, teach, and keep alive other pilots rather than simply kill Germans—and he hated it. He also disliked the SE-5 and preferred fighting in his Nieuport 17. Amazingly, Hugh Trenchard permitted a compromise: during scheduled squadron patrols Ball would use the SE, but when out alone he could continue to fly the little French fighter. Lone-wolfing it one day, he attacked a pair of Germans. Running out of ammunition, he chased them back to their airfield, firing his pistol all the way. After they landed, he tossed down a note challenging the same pilots to meet him over their field the following day at the same time.
And they did . . . but not alone.
Three other enemy fighters were orbiting well above him and attacked as soon as he did. Facing odds of five to one, behind the German lines, Ball had no choice but to attack. Fortunately, everything in front of him was a target and, unlike the Germans, he had no one to watch out for. Running out of ammunition again, Ball spun down and landed in a field nearby. Slumping sideways across the cockpit, he played dead and watched three of the enemy fly away while the other two landed to claim his corpse or take him prisoner. As the two Germans scrambled out of their cockpits and ran toward him, he came to life, gunned the engine, and lurched back into the air.
His days were filled with missions like that. His tactics were simple: attack. Not a thinker like Mannock or McCudden, nor a scavenger like the Baron, he was more akin to Werner Voss in flying technique. * But as was true for so many on both sides, the incomparable strain of daily air combat was wearing him down. He’d always lived off by himself in a hut, keeping a small garden and a hutch of rabbits. On some nights, his fellow pilots would see the red glow from a signal flare stuck in the ground and Ball’s dark silhouette as he played the violin in his pajamas. *
One of the reasons for his introspection was a woman. He’d fallen in love during his time off in England, but he refused to marry the girl until the war ended. It appears he didn’t believe he’d survive; he once said to his father, Sir Albert Ball, that “no fighter pilot who fought seriously could hope to escape from the war alive.”
MAY 7, 1917 , dawned wet and blurry, with Ball leading a flight of eleven SE-5s over the Bourlon Wood area. Destroying Jasta 11 was a priority, and the RFC had been conducting offensive patrols around the Douai sector hoping to lure the Germans into combat. The Baron had gone home on leave, and his brother Lothar was rumored to hold temporary command, so the timing was good.
On the other side of a line of clouds, they ran straight into von Richthofen’s Flying Circus. Cecil Lewis, a 56 Squadron SE-5 pilot, would later write:
The May evening is heavy with threatening masses of cumulus cloud, majestic skyscapes, solid-looking as snow mountains, fraught with caves and valleys, rifts and ravines. . . .
Steadily the body of scouts rises higher and higher, threading its way between the cloud precipices. . . .
A red light curls up from the leader’s cockpit and falls away. Action! He alters direction slightly and the patrol, shifting throttle and rudder, keep close like a pack of hounds on the scent. He has seen, and they see soon, six scouts three thousand feet below. Black crosses! It seems interminable till the eleven come within diving distance. The pilots nurse their engines, hard-minded and set, test their guns and watch their indicators. At last the leader sways sideways, as a signal that each should take his man, and suddenly drops.
The British formation and whatever tactical plan they’d had disintegrated immediately, as it usually does in a fight. Planes dove and turned,
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