Chapter III: Appendix: II

A LIST OF BATTLE CASUALTIES 134

INDEX 139

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BALLOON STRAFING _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

PATROL OF MORANE “BULLETS” ABOUT TO LEAVE THE GROUND, VERT
GALANT, JUNE 1916 6

H. BALFOUR AND D. V. ARMSTRONG, JULY 1916 8

CLAUDE A. RIDLEY, D.S.O., M.C., IN A MORANE “BULLET” 8

SUMMERS STANDING BY HIS MORANE “PARASOL” 16

MAJOR R. SMITH-BARRY IN A MORANE “BULLET” 16

BROWNING-PATERSON WITH HIS MORANE “PARASOL” 20

CAPT. D. V. ARMSTRONG 20

SOME OF THE OFFICERS OF 60 24

MORANE “BULLET” CRASHED BY SIMPSON. BOISDINGHEM, JUNE 1916 24

“A” FLIGHT AWAITING SIGNAL TO PROCEED ON PATROL, MAY 1917 28

THE KAISER DECORATING VON RICHTHOFEN, WHOSE AEROPLANE APPEARS
BEYOND THE GROUP 28

MOLESWORTH, BISHOP, AND CALDWELL, APRIL 1917 40

BISHOP, CALDWELL, AND YOUNG, APRIL 1917 40

THE HARD TENNIS-COURT AT FILESCAMP FARM, MAY 1917 58

60 SQUADRON’S NIEUPORT SCOUTS LINED UP IN THE SNOW AT LE
HAMEAU AERODROME, NEAR ARRAS, JANUARY 1917 58

A DOG-FIGHT 100

“ARCHIE” 100

GERMAN MACHINES 112

AN S.E.A. WITH LIEUT. ROTH, A PILOT OF 148 AMERICAN SQUADRON,
STANDING 118

S.E.5A. WITH 200 H.P. HISPANO SUISA ENGINE, ARMED WITH ONE
VICKERS AND ONE LEWIS GUN 118

MAPS: ON THE WESTERN FRONT

SITUATION ON SEPTEMBER 25, 1918 116

THE BATTLES AND THEIR EFFECTS 126

AN EXPLANATION OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED

The line drawing below of a typical tractor biplane will explain to the non-technical reader the meaning of many terms used hereafter which are difficult to describe without the aid of a diagram:

A monoplane has no lower planes, while the top planes sprout from the side of the body like the wings of a bird, but are rigid.

In either type of aeroplane it is the action of the air on the wing surfaces, both upper and lower, when the machine is travelling forward at a minimum speed of about forty miles per hour that keeps it in the air. If the speed is allowed to drop below this minimum (known as the flying speed) the machine “stalls,” i.e. becomes uncontrollable, drops its nose and dives to regain flying speed. If this happens near the ground--within a hundred feet--a serious, and often fatal, crash is the result.

Among the types of aeroplanes used in France during 1916-18, and mentioned in these pages but not described in detail, are:

B.E.2C., R.E.8, AND OTHER TYPES OF TWO-SEATER MACHINES

All two-seater machines carrying one pilot and one observer which were chiefly used for artillery observation, i.e. correcting, by observation from the air, the fire of batteries on the ground.

These were tractor biplanes, i.e. the engine and propeller were in front, while the observer and pilot sat tandem in two cockpits, or nacelles, in the fish-shaped body.

F.E.2B.

A two-seater fighting biplane of the “pusher” type with the engine behind the pilot, who with the observer sat in a cockpit which protruded beyond the leading, or forward, edges of the planes. This aeroplane was used for day and night bombing, for fighting in 1916 and the first half of 1917, and also for reconnaissance and photographic work.

DE HAVILLAND 4

A high-speed tractor two-seater biplane used for bombing, reconnaissance work, and photography.

NIEUPORT, S.E.5, AND SOPWITH CAMEL

Single-seater fighting scouts, all tractor biplanes.

SIXTY SQUADRON

R.A.F.