RFC 2: A Brief Passing Thought 1914-1918 (Revised)
On 13 April 1912 the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was formed by Royal Warrant, and came into operation a month later when the Air Battalion was absorbed into the Military Wing of the new Corps.
I have created a gallery of digital art portraits, from which emerges a series of storylines. Brief passing thoughts. Or perhaps more. We all compartmentalise our days in this fashion without even realising it.
These portraits have no names. They are merely impressions. They represent all sides.
The one exception is the Article’s banner portrait, that of Captain Albert Ball VC RFC (1896-1917). Having secured his forty-fourth victory the day before his own death, not only was Captain Ball a legend and household name, but, as with all aces on all sides, mortality was ever present. For those serving with aces, they begin to perceive immortality. But this is so in every war. It is so, right now, in the War in Ukraine.
In 1915 the life expectancy of a Royal Flying Corps pilot and observer was 17.5 hours flying time or 11 days.
In 1917 this fluctuated slightly, to two weeks maximum.
This was also the case for both the French and German air forces in The Great War.
Writing elsewhere, my father’s brother had mentioned to Desmond and their eldest brother, Arthur, that the life expectancy was four operations in 1943 RAF Bomber Command. Sure enough, Sergeant-Pilot Kenneth Webb RAF VR went down on his fourth operation in April 1943 serving on 76 Squadron. My mother’s brother was slightly longer. Serving with the Royal Air Force Path Finder Force in 8 Group RAF, Flight Sergeant Flight Engineer Harry Marshall RAF VR almost completed a tour on 405 (City of Vancouver) Squadron, RCAF, ended abruptly in January 1945 when two Avro Lancasters, fully laden, suffered a mid-air collision. All fourteen airmen from both crews were killed.
I mention this because mid-air collisions were all too common. I remember my mother’s angry lament, But the war was almost over!
And we understand this only if we look at the situation as it then was. Paris had been liberated in August 1944. Victory, surely, was now guaranteed and almost certainly before Christmas!
That was the perception of many civilians in the British Isles. But the months that rolled on to 8 May 1945 would be the hardest.
That is why we cannot assume victory in Ukraine upon the basis of individual gains.
Let Captain Ball take up the theme afresh, enabling us to zoom back to 1914-1918 and what we now know as the First World War. Speaking of his first combat action with a German aircraft, Ball writes to his father that same evening:
“Please tell Cyril (Albert’s brother) that perhaps he had better stick to his regiment. I like this job, but nerves do not last long, and you soon want a rest.”
Cyril’s intention was to follow his brother and transfer into the Royal Flying Corps from the Sherwood Foresters ~ the Notts and Derby Regiment ~ in which they had both enlisted in the previous year.
The acclaimed RAF historian, Chaz Bowyer (1926-2008) records this very interesting observation on page 57 (ibid).
“More significant was this, his first reference to feeling the strain of constant operational flying. Since his first war sortie on February 21, [...] Albert Ball had completed 17 actual operational sorties, and had put in about an equal amount of practice and test flying locally around the unit’s bases.
During that period of seven weeks, he had been under heavy and accurate fire from anti-aircraft guns on each patrol, fought enemy aircraft, force-landed in damaged aircraft, crashed and written-off an aircraft ~ each adding to the mental stress of a boy, already highly-strung by nature. ”
Early Days
Albert Ball and fellow members of 13 Squadron at RFC Savy airfield on 17 March 1916. Ball is second from left and his observer-gunner Woolf Joel is first from left..
Behind, is Ball’s BE2c, Serial No. 4352
Captain Ball’s war ended on 7 May 1917. At that time he was the highest ace, and it is interesting to note that the German Air Force called him the British von Richthofen. Between enemies, that was an accolade not meant in jest.
In RFC 4 we will read of Major James Thomas Byford McCudden VC, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar, MM RFC, RAF based upon his own account over the five years covering 1912-1918, and in which we learn a very great deal about the esprit de Corps of the Royal Flying Corps both in peacetime and in wartime, and of the fledgling Royal Air Force. Something became very apparent.
Major James Thomas Byford McCudden
By Courtesy of the History Collection and www.bbc.co.uk
There is a tremendous sense of pride and ingenuity in the R.F.C. before the First World War and which had been present from the very day it came into being by the King’s Warrant in 1912.
In his autobiography published in 1918 shortly after his death in July, Great Britain’s highest scoring ace (with 57 victories to his credit), Mjr McCudden wrote in June 1918 of the strength of the R.F.C. on the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914.
“The R.F.C. at this time was roughly eight hundred N.C.O.’s and men strong, and about forty pilots, and despite, or perhaps owing to its lack of numbers, it was very efficient and highly disciplined. [...]
The original N.C.O.’s of the R.F.C. were largely transfers from the Guards, the Adjutant, Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett, being a Guardsman. The Royal Engineers had also contributed largely to the personnel. What accounted for this excellent state of affairs was that the R.F.C. tried to live up to Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett’s vow that the R.F.C. should combine the smartness of the Guards with the efficiency of the Sappers, and it was actually true of the pre-war R.F.C.”
There is a moving footnote added by the author’s friend, to whom he had entrusted the sheaf of handwritten papers comprising this priceless aviation record in 1918.
“Referring to the Adjutant, Major Barrington-Kennett died gallantly in France commanding a wing of a Guards battalion, having thrown up an R.F.C. Staff appointment, with the certainty of promotion to Brigadier-General, in order to do his duty to the Brigade of Guards, to which he belonged.”
A separate RFC Paper 4 is currently in draft and relating solely to Major James McCudden VC, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar, MM RFC, RAF.
15 May 2024
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LIVERPOOL
© 2024 Eyes to the Skies
First published 5 December 2023
Digital Artwork is by © 2024 KTW unless otherwise credited
Photographic images of Captain Albert Ball are by kind permission of the Trustees of the Late Chaz Bowyer, Historian
First Written on 29 June 2023
Digital Artwork is by Kenneth Thomas Webb
Lieutenant A Ball VC in 1916-1917
