Grisly Account of World War 1 Air Combat Over Verdun

[Stealth Hunter]

This comes from "Au Ciel de Verdun". Found a couple of sentences that came from it from an old web page I'd printed in 1999. Here's what I found:

"It got even uglier. Bernard Lafont in his candid book, Au Ciel de Verdun, detailed the brutal side of the air war. One time, a Caudron bomber force-landed at his aerodrome. When he and his friends came out to see it, they discovered that the Caudron's gunner had been shot in the head. The pilot, Lafont noted, was unhurt but quite shaken as he was 'covered with blood, {his} clothes and face, for in the wind of the motors, the blood that poured out of the passenger's wound lashed him.'

Another time, Lafont's squadron commander assigned him to burial detail. He spent his days recovering the mutilated bodies of his comrades. Once, after a nighttime crash, Lafont arrived at the crash site the next morning and noted:

'It is Senain. He received three bullets in the head, which exploded like rotten fruit; brains and blood trickle on the face and clothes. The helmet moves on nothing more than a broken skull.'

Another time he recovered the body of a Farman crewman, who had fallen to his death from his airplane:

'The second fell on the roof of the house. I clearly heard the dull sound of the body when it was crushed. Flouc!
. . .
The body was recovered from the roof, entirely broken, shattered, and shapeless and without rigidity like a heap of nothing more than ooze.'

Clearly, the air war over Verdun was not for the faint of heart."

Unnerving to say the least, but not surprising. I think my favorite thing about films about dogfighting is the neat trail of bullets that dots the plane, not an incoherent and disrupted spread of them through the wood and canvas; cracked ribs, torn canvas, broken wingspars.

[nikimcbee]

I read in a WWI aviation book that one on the aces (I don't remember who) would come back from missions caked in dried blood: His response: "I don't fire until I am very close."

I also have a book that analyzes every kill of the Red Baron. It's pretty depressing, because they were all just kids, 18-21 years old.

[Stealth Hunter]

What's the title of the book regarding the Baron? I've tried to find "Au Ciel de Verdun" on the web, but to no effect. I heard from a man on The Aerodrome that he'd obtained a 1918 copy of the book (however I will not register on that site; the seem to be pretty arrogant at times of their community, and they don't like people who don't go with the flow of their users).

[Platapus]

Billy Bishop wrote, but did not originate, about "the condition"

The majority of the pilots in WWI (I assume from both sides) suffered from "the condition"

It appeared that "the condition" was the gut-wrenching paralyzing fear that your life expectancy was measured in very small digit number of flights. No only was it an almost certainty that you would die, there was an overwhelming chance that your death would be particularly nasty.

1. Die screaming as your out of control airplane smashed into the ground either through enemy action or simply because airplanes fell down a lot

2. Burning to death as you were sitting under about 40 litres of highly flammable fuel in an airplane constructed of wood and linen coated with flammable chemicals.

3. You would die screaming as you fell to the earth without your airplane because you jumped to escape burning or simply fell out during "unusual attitude" flying.

4. Slowly bleed and freeze to death if you were wounded and not one of the lucky ones who were able to die outright.

Bishop wrote that it was common for pilots to carry two small bottles with them to help with "the condition". One was Gin, the other was Milk of Magnesia. If one did not work, the other might.

My utmost respect goes out to any and all of the WWI pilots.

1. No parachutes
2. No armour
3. Little standardized training

How they managed to act like "knights of the sky" instead of "lambs to the slaughter" is a testament to their courage and their ability to simply go up again.

[Stealth Hunter]

Nasty stuff, indeed.

I would NEVER burn to death. Not in a thousand years. I'd jump first or even bash my brains out on the cockpit's upper lip (part right behind the guns). Hell, I might even try to snap my own neck or chew through my own wrists, but burning is not for me.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

What's the title of the book regarding the Baron? I've tried to find "Au Ciel de Verdun" on the web, but to no effect. I heard from a man on The Aerodrome that he'd obtained a 1918 copy of the book (however I will not register on that site; the seem to be pretty arrogant at times of their community, and they don't like people who don't go with the flow of their users).

I'll look it up when I get home. @work now

[Stealth Hunter]

Righto.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Platapus

My utmost respect goes out to any and all of the WWI pilots.

1. No parachutes
2. No armour
3. Little standardized training

How they managed to act like "knights of the sky" instead of "lambs to the slaughter" is a testament to their courage and their ability to simply go up again.

They had parachutes, but they didn't use them because you would "abandon the plane needlessly ."

And I'll add to your list poor manufacturing techniques and quality control. (planes falling apart). I also read someplace that most air to air kills were achived on the first pass and were a total surprise (hit the pilot).

[Stealth Hunter]

Allied pilots were not given parachutes because their commanders feared that it would cause them to abandon a perfectly good machine. This stupid move cost the lives of many good pilots, and made a lot of airmen panic. The German pilots, in the late war, were supplied with them. However, they were basically just thrown into the cockpit, and if you had to bail, you jumped out and threw the silk into the air, hoping it would deploy. Sometimes it did... sometimes it didn't...

That's also a very good point about the kills made. Most of the time, the bullets hit the pilot or hit the fuel tank. You either got a dead pilot or a burning/exploding plane. The thing many people seem to forget is that these planes were just wood and canvas. Bullets basically just passed through until they hit something important.

One of the favorite tactics used by the Germans to attack the Allied pilots was to head out of the sun at their opponents. This made them difficult to spot, and gave them the element of surprise (not to mention and advantage in altitude and thus, as the Dicta Boelcke states, an advantage in speed). Run-n-Gun. However, the Allies began issuing pilots smoked pieces of glass so they could hold them up to the sun to spot the Germans. Primitive, but effective.

Standardized training for these pilots was mediocre by today's standards. The problem most pilots had was not in experience, but in just holding their damn airplane together! These planes were very flimsy and were notorious for having weaknesses. For instance, the Nieuport 17 had wing failure problems for the lower wing whilst going in a steep dive. The Albatros D.V and D.Va aircraft also suffered these same problems. They were basically kites (and that's a literal meaning). They were nothing more than wood and canvas with wires hooking them together with engines and machine guns attached; that's the plain truth (no pun intended).

If your plane caught fire, you had a few choices. You could either stay with it and scream as you roasted alive, you could shoot yourself with a pistol that was a requirement for all aviators to have, or you could jump from several thousand or hundred feet and smash into the ground.

Not like the fancy stuff you see today. These planes were living, breathing things. Their pilots were a part of them. It's not like today where you move a joystick a fourth of an inch and you get a huge turn. Much, much different. I've thought about buying a World War I replica plane, but I lack a pilot's license and I wouldn't know where to begin with the aircraft (I know how to fly it, but finding them is the problem; most you have to build yourself!).

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

I'll look it up when I get home. @work now

"Under the Guns of the Red Baron" It analyzes ever kill of MvR in great detail.

[Letum]

I keep reading the topic title as:
"Girly account of World War 1 Air Combat Over Verdun"


....that I would enjoy reading!

[August]

Anyone ever read Rene Foncks autobiography of his wartime experiences? That was one of my favorite books growing up.

[August]

People say that Fonck was conceited and vain but he gave me a great understanding of WW1 air combat.

[mrbeast]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

"Under the Guns of the Red Baron" It analyzes ever kill of MvR in great detail.

I have that book too, has some nice colour plates to go with the reports.

[Jacky Fisher]

Air combat in WW1 was just as brutal as the land war.

Did they ever find Guynemer and Albert Ball's bodies?