Part 9

Of course, we all had a real laugh at the situation; that is, Mathis and I, for we were the only ones there, Brereton being away on business and Harwood being up at the front on liaison. Of course, such a request was obviously impossible. An airplane can spot certain batteries when firing, but when there are fifteen hundred different guns firing continuously on fifteen hundred different objectives one can imagine what possibility an airplane would have of picking out the particular battery that was firing on this particular post of command. At the same time, as it was signed in code by a General, it was imperative that something be done because that unit had not been any too friendly toward the Air Service, and, of course, the wishes of a General must always have immediate attention.

I knew there was no answer that I could send back over the wire that would quiet the situation, so we simply acknowledged the receipt of the message. At the same time I knew there was no use to send a special airplane for this request because we already maintained a plane over the front every hour of the day, the one duty of which was to report by wireless the location of any enemy batteries seen firing. I was mighty busy on a multitude of other things, but still the General must be answered, so I finally decided the best thing to do was to go up to the Post of Command and explain the entire situation, telling why it could not be done. After an hour and a half rough riding we finally approached the Post of Command concerned. I left the car about a quarter of a mile away so as to not attract the attention of the German airplanes to the presence of a Command Post. All the way up I had been considering just what I would say, because, being a Lieutenant, I wouldn’t have much chance with a General, and yet I felt that since I had to do it I ought to have something worth saying. I had decided upon my whole speech—I would simply say that the mission was not only impossible but such a request was preposterous—an airplane was a great thing, but it had a limit of activity. At the same time I was in great fear of being laughed at and being balled out, because in a great many cases a Lieutenant speaking with a General, with the slight difference in rank, is at a disadvantage. I knew I had to make some sort of a stab so, though I was determined on my speech, I really felt very much like a bashful school boy. As to procedure I had it all fixed up that I would go in, click my heels together, salute smartly and explain to the General that I was the Operations Officer for the Corps Air Service, whereupon I thought he would certainly have some deference for me on account of the important position I was holding with such low rank. My greatest hope was that he would be reasonable and would take my statement regarding the situation as final and authoritative, without further argument. I concluded that the best way would be to impress him with the knowledge I had on the particular subject and not give him a chance to come back. To do this I must be absolutely firm and convincing in what I had to say, but at the same time, way down deep in my heart I felt it was a hopeless task, for these “higher ups” are inclined to consider nothing but results—and since we could not give him the results he wanted, he would conclude that the Air Service had failed, and as the line units had done on several other similar occasions, they would merely remark, “the same old story,” shrug their shoulders and pass it up. I, of course, expected to find the General down in his dug-out, being heavily shelled, but I was determined to show him that I was a real hero by walking right through the shell-fire and calmly explaining to him why we couldn’t help him. This last decision really required nerve on my part, for if there is any one thing I cannot stand, it is shell-fire on the ground. It did not worry me so much in the air, for there seemed to be such a good chance to dodge, but on the ground—well, I had been caught in it several times and, in each instance, I made the necessary distance to safety in considerable less than record time on the fastest tracks.

I picked up a stray doughboy to guide me to the Post of Command. To my absolute surprise I found that everything was apparently quiet. However, the surroundings bore the unmistakable evidence that the region had undergone a very heavy and prolonged bombardment. I could not understand this; in fact, I was certain that we had come to the wrong Post of Command.

“Orderly,” I said to a lad standing at the door, “is this the P. C. of General Blank?” using the proper code name.

“That’s right, Sir,” he smartly answered.

“When did the bombardment stop?” I demanded.

“About two o’clock, Sir,” he replied.

“May I see the General?” I asked.

“What is the name, Sir?”

“Just tell the General or Chief of Staff that Lieutenant Haslett of the Air Service would like to see either of them at their convenience. There is nothing urgent.”

The orderly stepped inside and almost immediately a Lieutenant came out.

“I’m the General’s aide,” he said, extending his hand. “The General will see you at once. Come right in.”

The door opened and I was ready with my speech. Out rushed the General and his Chief of Staff and the rest of his staff around him—none of them less in rank than a Lieutenant Colonel. Of course, I stood at attention, stiff as an iceberg, but they thawed me out by a cordial “Are you Haslett, the Operations Officer of the Air Service?”

I had never before in my life spoken to such a high ranking General and in a quivering, quick voice which indicated that I expected to be crucified at the next moment I said, “Yes, Sir.” The General advanced, put out his hand and said, “Lieutenant, I want to congratulate you. That is the first time we have ever had efficient service and coöperation from your airplane crowd. All morning while we tried to get you by wireless and we knew we had not succeeded, for you did not answer—they were firing upon us terribly; and then we tried to get you on the telephone, but I think the bursting shells around us was one of the reasons you could not hear; but when we got that telegram through at one-thirty and you acknowledged receiving it at a quarter of two—it was simply fine. We saw an airplane circle overhead promptly at two o’clock and that artillery stopped firing at exactly five minutes after two. Now that’s what I call splendid work, and I am going to tell the Corps Commander about it.”

For the moment I was completely nonplussed. There was nothing for me to say. I had a vision of a young hero with a Distinguished Service Cross and twenty-six and a half Croix de Guerre—I might not have been the Ace of Aces, but I certainly was the Deuce of Deuces. After a moment’s hesitation I knew it was the time to act, so I shrugged my shoulders, casually lighted a cigarette and nonchalantly informed the General that I came to see that the airplane had satisfactorily completed its mission and to assure myself that he was satisfied and to tell him that any time he had any trouble we wanted him to feel that the Air Service was behind him, day and night; that if they only got the word to us, we would do our best.

Believe me, every one of the staff, from the Lieutenant Colonels up, shook my hand and individually thanked me for the efficient work we had done in stopping that artillery fire. This was the real case of having fortune thrust upon one. Perhaps I should have insisted upon explaining that we had nothing to do with stopping that artillery fire, but somehow I could not. It was a dream which was better undisturbed, for the German Heavy Artillery had certainly stopped of its own volition, not ours.

Forever afterwards that General and his entire staff were strong boosters for the Air Service, and when any one had anything to say against the Air Service, if there was a member of that staff around an argument was certain; and the General, I am told, still tells of how the wonderful American Air Service stopped the German Heavy Artillery on fifteen minutes’ notice at Château-Thierry.

VI THE WILD RIDE OF A GREENHORN

One of the greatest experiences an observer can have is to take a new pilot over the lines for his first trip; in other words, “break him in.” I had sort of specialized in this work in the early days in quiet sectors, but when I was sent up to the Argonne sector it was for an entirely different mission. I had long since gotten past this preliminary stage. The object of my being there was to carry on adjustments of artillery on the moving enemy targets, for I had been giving a great deal of attention to this special work all through our experiences at Château-Thierry and Saint Mihiel. At the opening of the Argonne drive on the 26th of September my position was that of Operations Officer for the Corps Observation Wing of the First Army. It seemed that the development of artillery adjustments on fugitive targets had sort of been overlooked, so General Mitchell, who was then Chief of Air Service of the First Army, began to realize the importance of this work and decided that it should be given more attention. Of course, it was strictly a Corps Observation mission, and so he passed the order down to Brereton and Brereton, of course, passed the “buck” on to me, for the buck never passes up—it’s always down.

It was an important matter, especially for the coming drive, and no satisfactory method of carrying on this work had yet been worked out, so I proposed to Brereton that I be authorized to visit each of the Corps of the First Army during the drive in order to carry on this work; then I could compile the proper manual for future guidance of our observers. The big three, consisting of General Mitchell, Colonel Milling and Major Brereton, all approved, and so I went first to the 5th Corps, whose airdrome was at Foucoucourt, arriving there on September 25th, about six o’clock in the evening. The big Argonne-Meuse drive was to begin the next morning at daybreak.

The Corps Air Service Commander, Colonel Arthur Christie, and the Group Commander, Major Joe McNarney, and I had a talk about the entire situation. They decided that I should work with the Hybrid Squadron, which consisted of a Flight of the 104th Squadron and a Flight of the 99th Squadron under the command of Lieutenant Jeff Davis. The Operations Officer was Lieutenant Britton Polly, whom I knew quite well in the Observers’ School, so I told Davis that I would like to take one of the first missions the next morning, in order that I might get an early start on my fugitive target ideas.

Polly told me the situation—they were up against it, as they had several new pilots who had never been over the front, so he wanted to know if I would help him out by taking one of the new ones over. Ordinarily there is not much opportunity to do real work when “breaking in” a green pilot, and although I knew this would detract from my chances for success, I agreed.

That night I worked quite late preparing a very complete chart, showing the location of all our batteries on the map, their radio call codes and a miniature picture of each battery’s panels. I knew that the batteries would soon be on the move, and my scheme of adjustment had for its object the ability to call any battery which had halted temporarily, whether its location was permanent or not.

I got on the field about eight o’clock the next morning and walked over to the Operations Room of the 104th Squadron to find my pilot, who, for the purposes of this story, we will call “Lieutenant Greenhorn.” Inside the hut I found a tall, slender, effeminate looking chap talking to Britton Polly. I was unnoticed by either. The lad was inquiring as to this new guy, Haslett, who was supposed to fly with him at nine o’clock. I heard him tell Polly that as it was his first trip over the lines he demanded an old and experienced observer to take him over. Since he didn’t know me, he said, and had never seen me, he would rather have one of his own squadron go over with him, as he would have more confidence in some one whose experience he knew. Polly, who was a sort of hardboiled war horse, told him that he wouldn’t find any observers in the American Service who were more experienced than Haslett and that he had better take me while the taking was good.

After “Greenhorn” left I had a good laugh over the matter with Polly and then I followed the lad to his room, went in, and disclosed my identity. He was noticeably nervous and made me a confession that he had had very little flying and that he really had no business being at the Front; and, as this was his first trip over, he didn’t want to stay long and wanted to know how it felt to be up there, and what to do when he was attacked, and what to do when the enemy anti-aircraft artillery shot him, what to do if his motor failed him over the lines, and a lot of such odd and foolish questions. My experience with Phil Schnurr on his first flight made me leary. I didn’t object to taking a man over the lines for the first time so long as he knew how to fly well, but when a man did not even have confidence in his ability to fly—well, it was a very different matter. I was not seeking any thrills—observing had become a business with me, so I felt very much like refusing to fly with him, but on afterthought it came to me that perhaps this lad was not such a bad sort after all and maybe it was just his modesty and timidity that caused him to talk so disparagingly of his ability. At any rate, if he was going over, for his own good I would take a chance and try to start him right.

I proceeded with a story something like this (the same that I told all the new pilots I ever took over the lines for their first trip):

“The pilot in an observation plane is, in one sense, the chauffeur. On account of the fact that communication between the pilot and the observer is ordinarily very poor, we refer to the pilot as the horse, for he must be guided, and for that reason we append to his arms directly under the armpits two pieces of twine, string or cord which we extend back to the observer. The observer holds the reins. The observer is given the mission to perform and, while he expects the utmost voluntary coöperation of the pilot, when it comes to any matter of tactical decision the observer’s word is final; for instance, in this flight, should we see five planes and decide to attack them, I would simply give the word and you would direct the plane toward them; or if we are attacked by them I would give the word whether to dive toward the ground and run from the enemy or stay and fight it out; or should I see a machine gun nest on the ground which was holding up our advancing troops, should I decide to go down and destroy that machine gun nest it is your duty to direct your plane down on the machine gun nest even though you know it is certain death. The observer points out the direction in which he wants to go, how long he wants to stay there, how long he wants to stay at the line, and, in fact, is the commander of the plane. As I said before, he is the holder of the reins.

“Now, there is only one exception to this, and that is when something is mechanically wrong with the airplane. For instance, if the engine is failing or if a strut is broken, or if flying wires are destroyed—in such a case the pilot becomes responsible for the command of the plane. The fear of failing to hear clearly the directions given by the observer through the speaking tube is the reason we have the lines to guide the pilot like a horse, and when the observer wants to go up he points up and when he wants to go down he points down; and should he want to go to a certain place he would point to that place. It is a sort of mental telepathy which is expressed in a sign language and is ordinarily easily understood, so don’t worry—just pay close attention and don’t lose your head and you will get along all right, for after all, flying over the front is not so full of thrills as one ordinarily is led to believe, and whether you live over your allotted twenty hours over the lines depends largely upon your ability and good luck and watchfulness.”

“Greenhorn” took it all in and said he understood fully. After quite a little delay in getting a serviceable airplane we finally made a stab at getting off. I told Greenhorn to take me to a little town called Avocourt, which was in No-Man’s-Land, and I carefully pointed it out to him on the map. Of course, Avocourt had been destroyed by shell fire and nothing remained but the ruins of the town, but they were plainly discernible from the air. I tested out my wireless and everything was O. K., so I motioned for him to head on up to the lines. I paid very little attention to the ground, intending to sort of take it easy until we got to Avocourt, thus getting a general idea of the lay of the country over which we were flying. I instructed him to let me know by shaking the plane when he came to Avocourt. He seemed to be flying along in good shape so I didn’t concern myself with our location until he finally shook the plane. He pointed down to an extremely large city and motioned his lips “Avocourt.” I looked down below me and recognized very well the historic city of Verdun, as I had flown over this sector one time with the French in the early days. I shook my head and pointed toward Avocourt. “Greenhorn” had missed Avocourt only by about fifteen kilometers. However, the kid was insistent and nodded his head in affirmation of his own decision and he pointed to his map again and pointed down and said “Avocourt.” I swelled out my chest and pointed to myself to impress upon him the lesson that I was running the plane as per our previous conversation and that he was to go in the direction pointed without further argument. He hastily acquiesced and turned the plane in that direction, and from that time on I used the cords attached to his arms to guide him. When we got over Avocourt I attracted his attention, pointed down and said “Avocourt.” He gazed down at the shattered ruins of what was once a town, but said nothing. However, his eyes and face expressed very well the fact that he would never have recognized Avocourt from her photograph. I couldn’t blame him, for from the air a ruined town is highly deceptive and unless one had flown over that sector he could not realize that the effect of artillery destruction could be so complete. In a moment he gave some sort of a shrug of his shoulders to indicate that he was entirely lost, so I signaled to him and gave him his directions. Then, taking my map, I pointed north and said “Montfaucon,” which is easily distinguished from the air for miles, being situated on the crest of a very high hill. “Greenhorn” immediately headed toward Montfaucon, thinking that perhaps I had pointed toward that town with the intention of going there. I did not have this in mind, but since one place was just about as good as another until we found a target I let him go.

Just over Montfaucon we were opened up on by the German anti-aircraft artillery. I heard a heavy thud under our tail and at once the plane began to side-slip and quiver. The “Greenhorn” was badly frightened and began looking in every direction. Then his eyes fell on me and I have never seen the equal of the expression on his face when he saw me laughing. He did not realize the significance until I pointed to the anti-aircraft bursts, which were fully three hundred yards behind us. I assured him that everything was O. K. and he had done well. That put him a little more at ease. After a while I spied a splendid target, so I started him back toward the line so that we could call our batteries. We then played over our own lines for about an hour, as we were having a great deal of trouble in getting any batteries to answer, since they had all started to move up farther to support the fast advancing doughboys. I didn’t know whether “Greenhorn” appreciated that ride or not, but believe me, that sight was beautiful. The heretofore impassable region known as No-Man’s-Land was now converted to Every-Man’s-Land, for the whole shell riddled section was simply covered with the advancing American doughboys—in trenches, shell holes, everywhere. The mighty tanks were slowly plugging and lumbering along over the shell holes and we could easily see our most advanced lines, the troops deploying, the German machine gun crews at their nests vainly attempting to hold back the advancing infantry, and farther back we could see the retreating Germans, their supply trains, artillery and convoys. I marked down the location of our advance units, as this was important information, and told “Greenhorn” to fly north. As we circled over Montfaucon to the west we drew a very heavy machine gun fire from the Bois de Beuges, which had put several holes in the plane, and since “Greenhorn” was getting more and more unsteady in his flying I thought it well for our own safety and comfort to get a little better altitude, so I motioned up and “Greenhorn” started a steep climb right off the bat. Of course, I did not intend for him to make such a steep climb, and as we started our ascent the machine practically stood still in the air in a stall. This gave the German machine gunners a chance to concentrate on us, and believe me, they certainly made the best of their opportunity. Fortunately, beginner’s luck was with the boy and we got out of it after he finally heeded my frantic effort to get him to fly ahead for speed and not for altitude. I looked the plane over carefully when we were without the range of the German machine guns. Other than a few holes in the wings and the body of the plane I could find nothing wrong with it; at least, all the flying wires and struts were still good and the engine apparently was running perfectly. Upon getting more altitude, however, the “Greenhorn” started in the direction of home without any orders from me at all.