Winged Warfare: Hunting the Huns in the Air
William Avery Bishop
9781465507273
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
It was the mud, I think, that made me take to flying. I had fully expected that going into battle would mean for me the saddle of a galloping charger, instead of the snug little cock-pit of a modern aeroplane. The mud, on a certain day in July 1915, changed my whole career in the war. We were in England. I had gone over as an officer of the Missisauga Horse, of Toronto, a cavalry detachment of the Second Canadian Division. It had rained for days in torrents, and there was still a drizzle coming down as I set out for a tour of the horse-lines. Ordinary mud is bad enough, when you have to make your home in it, but the particular brand of mud that infests a cavalry camp has a meanness all its own. Everything was dank, and slimy, and boggy. I had succeeded in getting myself mired to the knees when suddenly, from somewhere out of the storm, appeared a trim little aeroplane. It landed hesitatingly in a near-by field as if scorning to brush its wings against so sordid a landscape; then away again up into the clean grey mists. How long I stood there gazing into the distance I do not know, but when I turned to slog my way back through the mud my mind was made up. I knew there was only one place to be on such a day—up above the clouds and in the summer sunshine. I was going into the battle that way. I was going to meet the enemy in the air. I had never given much thought to being a soldier, even after my parents had sent me to the Royal Military College at Kingston, when I was seventeen years of age. I will say for my parents that they had not thought much of me as a professional soldier either. But they did think, for some reason or other, that a little military discipline at the Royal Military College would do me a lot of good—and I suppose it did. In any event, those three years at the R.M.C. stood me in good stead when the rush came in Canada, when everywhere, everybody was doing his best to get taken on in some capacity in order to get to the front quickly. We Canadians will never forget the thrill of those first days of the war, and then the terrible waiting before most of us could get to the other side. Our great fear was that the fighting would all be over before we could give a hand in it. How little we knew then of the glory that was to be Canada’s in the story of the Western Front, of the sacrifices that were to reach to nearly every fireside in the Dominion! For many months my bit seemed to consist of training, more training, delays and more delays. But at last we got over. We crossed in an old-time cattle-boat. Oh, what a trip! Fifteen days to reach England! We had 700 horses on board, and 700 seasick horses are not the most congenial steamer company. We were very proud to be in England. We felt we were really in the war-zone, and soon would be in the fighting. But it is a great mistake to think that when you sail from America you are going to burst right up to the front and go over the top at day-break in the morning. The way to the war is long. There was more work and more training for us in England. At first we were sent to a very sandy camp on the coast, and from there to a very muddy camp somewhere else in the British Isles. It was to this camp that the aeroplane came that stormy day in July. A week later my plans were in motion. I met a friend in the Royal Flying Corps and confided in him my ambition to fly. He assured me it would be easy to arrange a transfer, and instructed me as to what I should do. If I wanted to get to the front quickly I would have to go as an observer, meaning that when I flew over the German lines I would be the “passenger” in a two-seated plane and would do just what my title indicated—observe. If one has a stomach for flying, it doesn’t take long to become a fairly competent observer.
