1917, April 9 Billy Bishop @ Vimy Ridge pages
THE BATTLE OF ARRAS: THE VIEW FROM THE AIR, 9 APRIL 1917
Billy Bishop, Royal Flying Corps
“The British attack at Arras was intended to draw in German reserves, allowing the French general Nivelle to strike a decisive blow against the Hindenburg Line at Chemin des Dames.
Dawn was due at 5:30 o’clock on Easter Monday, and that was the exact hour set for the beginning of the Battle of Arras. we were up and had our machines out of the hangers while it was still night. The beautiful weather of a few hours before had vanished. A strong, chill wind was blowing from the east and dark, menacing clouds were scudding along low overhead.
We were details dot fly at a low altitude over the advancing infantry, firing into the enemy trenches, and dispersing any groups of men or working troops we happened to see in eh vicinity of the lines. Some phases of this work are known as “contact patrols”, the machines keeping track always of the infantry advance, watching points where they may be held up, and returning from time to time to report just how the battle is going. working with the infantry in a big attack is a most exciting experience. It means flying close to the ground and constantly passing through our own shells as well as those of the enemy.
The shell fire this morning was simply indescribable. The bombardment which had been going on all night gradually died down about 5 o’clock, and the Germans must have felt the the British had finished their nightly “strafing”, were tired out and going to bed. For a time almost complete silence reigned over the battlefields. All along the German lines star-shells and rocket-lights were looping through the darkness. The old Boche is always suspicious and likes to have the country around him lit up as much as possible so he can see what the enemy is about.
The wind kept growing stiffer and stiffer and there was a distinct feel of rain in the air. Precisely at the moment that all the British guns roared out their first salvo of the battle, the skies opened and the rain fell in torrents. Gunfire may or may not have anything to do with rainmaking, but there was a strange coincidence between the shock of battle and the commencement of the downpour this morning. It was beastly luck, and we felt it keenly. But we carried on.
The storm had delayed the coming of the day by several minutes, but as soon as there was light enough to make our presence worthwhile we were in the air and braving the untoward elements just as the troops were below us. Lashed by the gale, the wind cut our faces as we moved against the enemy. The ground seemed to be one mass of bursting shells. Farther back, where the guns were firing, the hot flames flashing from thousands of muzzles gave the impression of a long ribbon of incandescent light. The air seemed shaken and literally full of shells on their missions of death and destruction. Over and over again one felt a sudden jerk under a wing-tip, and the machine would heave quickly. This meant a shell had passed within a few feet of you. As the battle went on the work grew more terrifying, because reports came in that several of our machines had been hit by shells in flight and brought down. There was small wonder in this. The British barrage fire that morning was the most intense the war had ever known. There was a greater concentration of guns than at any time during the Somme. In fact, some of the German prisoners said afterward that the Somme seemed a paradise compared to the bombardments we carried out at Arras. while the British fire was at its height the Germans set up a counter-barrage. This was not so intense, but every shell added to the shrieking chorus that filled the stormy air made the lot of the flying man just so much more difficult. Yet the risk was one we could not avoid; we had to endure it with the best spirit possible.
The waves of attacking infantry as they came out of their trenches and trudged forward behind the curtain of shells laid down by the artillery were an amazing sight. The men seemed to wander across No Man’s Land, and into the enemy trenches, as if the battle was a great bore to them. From the air it looked as though they did not realize that they were at war and were taking it all to quietly. That is the way with clockwork warfare. These troops had been drilled to move forward at a given pace. They had been timed over and over again in marching a certain distance, and from this timing the “creeping” or rolling barrage which moved in front of them had been mathematically worked out. And the battle, so calmly entered into, was one of the tensest, bitterest of the entire world war.
For days the battle continued, and it was hard work and no play for everyone concerned. The weather, instead of getting better, as spring weather should, gradually got worse. It was cold, windy, and wet. Every two or three hours sudden snow-storms would shut in, and flying in these squalls, which obliterated the landscape, was a very ticklish business.
On the fourth day of the battle I happened to be flying about 500 feet above the trenches an hour after dawn. It has snowed during the night and the ground was covered with a new layer of white several inches thick. No marks of the battle of the day before were to be seen; the only blemishes in the snow mantle were the marks of shells which had fallen during the last hour. No Man’s Land itself, so often a filthy litter, was this morning quite clean and white.
Suddenly over the tops of our parapets a thin line of infantry crawled up and commenced to stroll casually toward the enemy. To me it seemed that they must soon wake up and run; that they were altogether too slow; that they could not realize the great danger they were in. Here and there a shell would burst as the line advanced or halted for a moment. Three or four men near the burst would topple over like so many tin soldiers. Two or three other men would then come running up to the spot from the rear with a stretcher, pick up the wounded and the dang, and slowly walk back with them. I could not get the idea out of my head that it was just a game they were playing at; it all seemed so unreal. Nor couldI believe that the little brown figures moving about blow me were really men – men going to the glory of victory or the glory of death. I could not make myself realize the full truth or meaning of tall. It seemed that I was in an entirely different world, looking down from another sphere on this strange, uncanny puppet-show.
Suddenly I heard the deadly rattle of a nest of machine guns under me, and saw that the line of our troops at one place was growing very thin, with many figures sprawling on the ground. For three or four minutes I could not make out the concealed position of the German gunners. Our men had halted, and were lying on the ground, evidently as much puzzled as I was. Then in a corner of a German trench I saw a group of about five men operating two machine guns. They were slightly to the flank of our line, and evidently had been doing great amount of damage. The sight of these men thoroughly woke me up to the reality of the whole scene beneath me. I dived vertically at them with a burst of rapid fire. The smoking bullets from my gun flashed into the ground, and it was an easy matter to get an accurate aim on the German automatics, one of which turned its muzzle toward me.
But in a fraction of a second I had reached a height of only 30 feet above the Huns, so low I could make out every detail of their frightened faces. With hate in my heart I fired every bullet I could into the group as I swept over it, then turned my machine away. A few minutes later I had the satisfaction of seeing our line again advancing, and before the time had come for me to return from my patrol, our men had occupied all the German positions they had set out to take. It was a wonderful sight and a wonderful experience. Although it had been so difficult to realize that men were dying and being maimed for life beneath me, I felt that at last I had seen something that dogged determination that has carried British arms so far.
The next ten days were filled with incident. The enemy fighting machines would not come close to the lines, and there was very little doing in the way of aerial combats, especially as afar as I was concerned, for I was devoting practically all of my time to flying low and helping the infantry. Al of our pilots and observers were doing splendid work. Everywhere we were covering the forward movement of the infantry, keeping the troops advised of any enemy movements, and enabling the British artillery to shell every area where it appeared concentrations were takin place. Score of counter-attacks were broken up before the Germans had fairly launched them. Our machines were everywhere behind the one,y lines. IT was easy to tell when the Germans were massing for a counter-stroke. First of all our machines would fly low over the grey-clad troops, pouring machine-gun bullets into them or dropping high explosive bombs in their midst. Then the exact location of a mobilization point would be signalled to the artillery, so that the moment the Germans moved our guns were on them. In General Orders commending troops for their part in the battle, Field-Marshall Sir Douglas Haig declared that the work of the Flying Corps, “under the most difficult conditions,” called for the highest praise.
We were acting, you might say, as air policemen.”