Part 2

Whenever ultra-dangerous work presented itself this officer was quick to volunteer. Major Haslett was more than an observer, he was a student of air operations. He was among the first of the American officers to prove that low flying over German trenches was not only possible but was a method of effective attack for airplanes. At the time that he was shot down he was engaged in working out the problems of adjustment of artillery fire on moving targets by airplanes—a question of prime importance in warfare of movement.

This officer during the course of his service at the Front not only contributed exceptionally distinguished personal services over the lines and as an operations officer but he also contributed ideas and suggestions of considerable value in the development of Air tactics and Air strategy, and as I have mentioned before he had the proud record of successfully executing every mission which he undertook during his entire service at the Front with the single exception of the mission he was on when he was shot down by superior enemy forces.

With entire frankness Major Haslett has told the story of how he succeeded in getting an assignment as an observer and in later getting duty with Colonel Brereton’s squadron at the Front. And by his own account he has shown with equal frankness that he had no hesitation in overcoming obstacles to this accomplishment by any means that came to hand. Perhaps some of the fastidious may find something to criticize in this. But Major Haslett’s all-impelling motive was to serve his country by meeting his country’s enemies on the battlefield. And it was this same all-impelling motive which gave inspiration to the personnel of the American Air Service, which brought to the Air Service proud achievement and dauntless courage in action. Service against the enemy is a good soldier’s ambition. This motive carried Major Haslett to the very front rank of all American observers, and gave him the adventure of which he tells in “Luck on the Wing.”

WILLIAM MITCHELL, Brigadier-General United States Army.

Washington, Feb. 24, 1920.

LUCK ON THE WING

I BEGINNER’S LUCK

We had been up with the French Squadron for about three weeks and it had rained every day or something else had happened to prevent flying. We had a wonderful social time, but our flying had been so postponed that I actually began to think that the French did not want us to fly, probably lacking confidence in our ability, so, one day I walked up to the Captain and by means of his imperfect English and my perfectly inelegant French we managed to perfect some close, cordial and personal liaison. I told him that we appreciated the long, drawn-out dinners and the very excellent quality and quantity of the red wine and the white wine, but that actually we came up to take our first trips over the line and learn a little about observation. He shrugged his shoulders and said that he felt quite sure that we would be there for three or four months and that there was absolutely no hurry. I told him he did not know the American Army, for while I would admit that we had not shown much speed up to the present time in getting squadrons on the Front, or in the manufacture of our ten thousand airplanes a month, or our five thousand Liberty Motors, at the same time, somewhere, someplace, somehow, someday, we were going to make a start and that I was quite positive that we were not going to have any observers unless the French got busy and trained some for us, and that in my mind we would be leaving mighty soon and it might look sort of suspicious on paper if we had been with the squadron a month and had never taken a trip over the lines.

This sort of impressed the Captain and dear, old fellow that he was, he immediately ordered “Mon Lieutenant Dillard,” who was his Operations Officer, to arrange for me to accompany the next mission over the lines, as a protection. This was scheduled for the next day. A French Lieutenant by the name of Jones was to do an adjustment of a battery of 155’s, and I was to accompany him in another plane to protect him from any attack by German airplanes.

That night we played Bridge until midnight, whereupon we all shook hands, as is the French custom, and departed for our various billets. My Bridge had been rotten—my mind was on a different kind of bridge: How was I to bridge that next day—What did it hold? The night was chilly as the devil and as I picked my way in the darkness I could hear very plainly the rumble of guns and could see the artillery flashes very clearly, although the front was twenty kilometers away. I began to think about my first trip over the lines that was soon to come. I was mentally lower than a snake. I hadn’t prayed for some time and I was just wondering whether or not I would pray that night. My solemn idea of prayer was that it was an emergency measure. I was always reverently thankful to the Maker for His blessings, but He knew that for He must have known my mind. I believed that God helped him who helped himself, but when the question was too big for man to control, then it was the time to invoke the help of the Supreme Being. I was inclined to think this case was only a duty of war in which man should help himself. So, I had decided that I would go ahead and handle it as a man to man proposition, reserving invocation for a more serious situation, but as I was getting pretty close to my billet I heard a sudden noise that gave me a real thrill—a big cat jumped out of a box and ran directly in front of me. It was too dark, of course, to tell the color of that cat, but the condition of my mind convinced me that it could be no other color than black and that it was an omen that bad luck was sure to come my way. When that cat ran in front of me my Man theory was gone, absolutely; I knew quite well that I was going to pray.

I lay abed for fully three hours, going over in detail every piece of the machine gun, what I was to do in case of a jam of the machine gun, and what I was to do in case of stoppage of the gun. I was trying to picture in my mind silhouettes of the different German airplanes that had been on the wall at school, and which I, to my regret, had not studied. Then I remembered reading stories of how poor boys were shot down, and most of them on their first flight, and I thought of airplane accidents and I thought of my girl. In fact, I had such a variety of thoughts that when I finally dozed off, that quasi sleep was a nightmare, and when from nervous and physical exhaustion about three-thirty o’clock in the morning I reached the point where I was really sleeping, I was suddenly shaken, and, of course, I jumped as if branded by a hot poker. It was my French orderly telling me it was time to get up to make my flight. I first realized the truth of that little saying, “There is always somebody taking the joy out of life.” He was crying, “Mon lieutenant! Mon lieutenant! Il est temps de se lever,” which is French for “It is time to get up.” I had a notion to direct him to present my compliments to the Captain and to tell him that I was indisposed that morning but I couldn’t speak French well enough to express myself, so, there was only one thing to do and that was to make a stab at it. I dressed and took my nice, new flying clothes which I received at Paris, and hobbled the kilometre and a half out to the field. The crews were already there and also the other flying personnel. Of course, I put on a sickly smile as if to help things along, but honestly there wasn’t much warmth in my hand-shake. The Frenchmen were all excited, standing around a telephone in the hangar and I found out from one of them who spoke English, that they were trying to get the balloon to find out about the visibility. This pleased me for my feet were already chilling and I was as strong as horseradish for each moment’s delay. In a few moments the Lieutenant put the receiver on the telephone and with some sort of an ejaculation I saw the face of Lieutenant Jones, who was to do the adjustment, assume a very dejected attitude, for while these Frenchmen are the strongest people in the world for lying abed in the morning, yet they certainly hate to have their trouble in rising come to naught by reason of impossibility to perform the mission assigned and in this case I found that the visibility was “mauvais,” or “no good.” So, we just hung around.

In a few moments one of the enlisted men came up to me and saluted me smartly, and mumbled a lot of stuff about “voulez vous” something, “voulez vous” being all I could understand, so I beckoned one of the Lieutenants who spoke a little English and he asked me if I wanted a “Raelt Saeul” or “ordinary open sight.” I had never had a course in aerial gunnery and I did not know the difference; in fact, my experience in machine guns consisted of two lectures by a guy who didn’t know much about it, at Fort Sill, the dismantling of one gun and about an hour and six minutes in an open firing butt at Amanty, France. I was afraid “Raelt Saeul” would be something technical, in which case I would certainly demonstrate my ignorance, and to my dazed mind “open sight” certainly sounded frank and on-the-square, so, of course, I just shrugged my shoulders and pointed as if I were perfectly familiar with both but under the circumstances I would take the “open sight.” They were both quite surprised and tried to open the discussion upon the relative merits of each, but I passed this up and made it emphatic that “open sight” it would be. I found afterwards that the “Raelt Saeul” was a great deal more accurate. So, they put the machine guns on the plane with “open sight.” I wanted in the worst way to get around and monkey with those machine guns, but I knew if I did I would certainly shoot some one up or kill myself, so I laid off. It was a terrible predicament; I knew I had no business going up and my conscience began to hurt me for the sake of the Frenchmen I was supposed to be protecting. Incidentally I must admit, in capital letters, that I had my own personal safety somewhat in mind. But it was too late—I had to go through with it. It was the proposition now of luck, and lots of it. We kept on with preparations; it was still foggy.

At nine o’clock we went in an automobile and got our breakfast, which for the Frenchmen always consisted of hot chocolate and a piece of bread, but for me it usually consisted of ham and eggs, and potatoes, and jelly, and bread, and butter and coffee, and as it usually consisted of that—as this was probably my last breakfast it certainly would not consist of less this time. So, I hied me forth after having my “chocolate” with the Frenchmen, and gave my landlady her usual two francs, in return for which I had the repast above accurately described.

We went back to the flying field and waited until about eleven o’clock. I had made up my mind that I was going through with it and the nervousness was beginning to wear off. About noon it got real cloudy and at twelve twenty-six and a half the first drop of rain fell. Believe me, the exhaust action of my sigh of relief was not unlike one of these carnival, rubber balloons when it is dropped in hot water. They, of course, called it a day, came in and had “déjeuner” and gathered around the Bridge tables, while Dillard played some very classical airs upon the automatic piano which this squadron carried with it.

In the middle of the afternoon the shower completely ceased, while Sol came out in all his magnificent glory; magnificent I say, to the farmer who wants to till the soil, to the sweethearts who want to go on a picnic, and to the washerwoman who wants to dry her clothes, but for me, it was just like an April shower on a new silk hat—I lost all my gloss—for in a few moments “mon capitaine” came in and announced that he felt we could get the planes off the ground. We called up the battery and they were ready so we climbed into the automobile and went out to the field again. The mechanics rolled those two dilapidated Sopwith planes out of the hangars and gave those rotary engines a turn and they began to burr. That whirr and burr felt to me just like the whirr and burr of the dentist’s burr that gets in the middle of a wisdom tooth and hits the nerve.

The other two American student observers were out on the field. Phil Henderson, who always was the head of his class and very mechanical by nature, gave me a few added remarks about some technical points of the machine gun, how to do in case of a jam, etc., while Hopkins, the other American, jollied me along. It was the first time I had ever had a ride in a Sopwith. I do not know whether it was from the fact that I was not used to climbing into the Sopwith or that I did not know what I was doing, but anyhow I stepped on that one particular part of the fuselage which is supposed to withstand only wind pressure and as a consequence my one hundred and eighty-two pounds made a nice hole in the canvas. Of course the Frenchmen had complex fits but the pilot merely shrugged his shoulders as if to say that it wouldn’t impair the flying qualities of the boat. I honestly felt that the tearing of the canvas was an omen that I ought not to go. But already the other plane was taxiing out to take off, and it was like a drowning man grasping for the last straw. They came up to see if I was fixed all right. I was fixed, and in more ways than one. I was holding on to the fuselage for all I was worth. Fortunately they noticed that I was not strapped in and so they proceeded to strap me.

They said something about the “mitrailleuse” but the “mitrailleuse” did not worry me—I said it was all right. I did not know what they were talking about, although I afterwards learned that they meant machine guns, but what they wanted me to do was to shoot a couple of bursts into the ground to see if the guns were working. I tried to twist the tourelle (the revolving base upon which the machine gun turns) around to shoot in the proper direction, but it would not budge. The Corporal came around and pressed a little lever which released the mechanism and, of course, the tourelle turned just as easy as a roulette wheel. Then they told me by means of sign language to point it at the ground and pull the trigger. I did, but I almost broke the forefingers of both hands trying to pull the trigger. The pilot was getting nervous; I think he clearly saw that I was probably like the American airplanes that they had heard and read so much about—I was not coming across. The Corporal came around to determine the trouble. I shrugged my shoulders, French fashion, as if to say “ça ne marche pas,” that is, “it doesn’t work,” but lovely as that gun lad was he did not give away my ignorance but simply said “Vous avez oublié”—“you have forgotten something,” and he proceeded to pull down the little latch on both guns which unlocks the entire mechanism. Then he stepped out of my way and I pointed the guns. Having, as I said before, almost broken both my forefingers trying to pull the trigger, I pulled in the same manner, force and fashion, and before I could get my fingers off of the triggers I had almost shot both of the magazines full. I thought those guns never were going to stop firing. The Frenchmen surely oil their guns and have a similar high strung technique in pulling the trigger that our high-grade artists on the piano have with staccato notes. I could see by the expression on the faces around me that they were indeed surprised at American methods but anyway the guns worked, so I said “tres bien,” and my pilot taxied the plane out, gave it the gun, and took off.

This plane did not have telephones; if it did they would have been useless, because I did not Speak French understandably, and the pilot did not know a word of English, and we had not agreed upon any signs.

The other plane had gained considerable altitude and after about fifteen minutes I was able to orient myself by means of my map and to know that the aerodrome was directly beneath me. We had gotten about three hundred meters above and two hundred meters behind the first plane. In a few moments the first plane headed due north and we followed. Over to my right I saw very plainly Souilly, which was later destined to play such an important part in the history of the American Army, being the Headquarters of our First Army in the Argonne drive. In a few moments more I saw below me the shell-torn country and the two peaks known as “Hill 304” and “Dead Man Hill”—to the French they are known as “Trois Cent Quatre” and “Mort Homme”—which were so prominent in the fighting around Verdun.

Only a few days before I had visited these same places on the ground and I had seen the myriads of human bones in that mighty cemetery which, though originally properly interred, were being continually brought to the surface by the constant and incessant artillery fire. I thought at the time how terrible it must be to live day and night in the trenches of that graveyard, knowing not but that in the next instant you, yourself, might be the one destined to replace the remains which, from four years of exposure, were crumbling into the dust. On that visit the thing that impressed me was the minuteness of the individual, for both German and French, though the deadliest of enemies in life, found a common resting place, side by side, in the same yard of earth for which they had given their lives to gain.

While on the ground I had seen an airplane high in the heavens and I thought how much more wonderful it was to fight in that broad, open expanse of atmosphere where the extent of one’s endeavor is not limited by a section of a trench, but only by the blue heaven, the reliability of the motor and the accuracy of the machine gun. It is strange how one’s outlook can change. Man is the slave of temperament and romantic dissatisfaction. Excite him and he pleads for quiet, give him solitude and it becomes unbearably monotonous. I was enwrapped by environment. When in the trenches of that bleached boneyard the monotony and horror were agony to me—so many bones and those huge trench rats—I wanted in the worst way to get out of those trenches and back to the airdrome, to take my chances mid those silver-winged birds that floated so gracefully above. But, when I actually got over this same graveyard at six thousand feet altitude that same picture again entered my mind. I knew I would soon be crossing the lines. I began to think of the terrible fall of six thousand feet before hitting that cemetery, and then I thought what I would look like after I did hit. In fact, cold shudders crept through me like a continued electric shock. For once I was downright scared and if I could have changed places with the stalwart guardians of those trenches in the rat-ridden graveyard beneath I would have run for the opportunity. I would, at least, have something solid to stand upon.

We were going straight toward the lines and directly in front of Hill 304 and “Mort Homme.” They stood out extremely clear and plain. The perpetual shell fire had left its mark for while the surrounding country was green with vegetation, yet these two hills bulged forth, bald and barren. Hill 304, or “Trois cent quatre” was the worse. It had nothing growing on it at all. In fact, it was so bad that one of the polite, French jokes on a bald-headed man was to call him “Trois cent quatre.” After flying parallel to the line for a few minutes we turned back toward our own lines. I determined that the French observer had found his target and would soon be calling his battery.

This trip was a complete surprise because I understood from my meager instructions that even when crossing the line the enemy anti-aircraft artillery, commonly called “the archies,” would certainly open fire, but everything was calm and peaceful—except my mind. I looked at my map to find where the panels were displayed. Panels are large, horizontal strips of cloth which are placed on the ground in various symbols near the battery and are used as a means of communication between the battery and the airplane. The airplane communicates with the battery largely by means of the radio telegraphy, but as it was not practicable to receive the radio signals in the plane from the ground, we used these panels. Among the signals formed by these white panels, which are quite clearly discernible from the air, are those meaning that the “Battery is ready to fire,” “Battery has fired,” “Fire by Salvo,” “Change target,” and many, many others including the signal “There is an Enemy Plane near you,” which is the most dreaded panel that can be displayed. I might incidentally mention that there is another panel which means “There is no further need of you; you can go home.” Now this may not have a great deal of significance to the average layman, but I’ll say that when the sky spy has been tossed about for a couple of hours on the archie billows he joins the union which says that “go home, you’re fired” is the greatest little panel of the whole panel alphabet. So, in a few minutes I picked up the location of the panels and I had a little chart on my map board showing the meaning of these many panels. I had had some instructions upon them while at Observation School, but I had depended on crossing the bridge only upon arrival thereat, so I did not pay a great deal of attention to them. The descriptive chart on my map board interpreted the panels in French so I was not sure that the chart would do me any good after all for my knowledge of technical or any other kind of French was less than meager. I saw the panel “Battery is ready,” and then the plane headed toward the lines and in a moment the panel changed to “Battery has fired,” so I looked over in Hunland but I could not find where the shells had hit. In my mind they were hitting everywhere so how could I pick out the particular ones that Jones was directing. In a moment I again saw “Battery is ready,” and again I looked directly toward the supposed target. Suddenly I saw four shells strike real close by and my vigilance was rewarded for I was to witness an actual adjustment of artillery fire against a real enemy. Then I took a genuine interest in the adjustment and paid very close attention to every detail. In fact, I was so attentive that I was oblivious to the fact that my mission was to protect the leading plane.

Delving into this new game I indulged in certain psychological conclusions which took my mind off of the thing that had been troubling me; namely, the unpeaceful condition of my mind. This was most interesting. They had fired about six or seven salvos and were coming very near to the target, which was a cross-road. I thought it must be a wonderful observer to guide the battery with such unfailing accuracy and I looked forward to the time when I too might be a genuine sky spy and with American batteries seek out the enemy and destroy him, for after all was not the position of the aerial observer one of the most dangerous of the army, the spy—for his greatest mission was to find out the intentions of the enemy and if he succeeded in bringing back the information without being seen all would be well, and if he was seen it meant he had to fight for his life. Like the spy he, too, lived within the lines of the enemy.