OUR FIRST WORLD WAR
In part 50 of his personal testimony series, Peter Hart reaches July 1918. Even with the Germans faltering, battle-hardened Allied fighters were gearing themselves for yet more conflict ahead – or hoping to be sent home. Peter is tracing the experiences o
James McCudden James qualified as a pilot in April 1916 and shot down his first aircraft in September. In June 1917 he was made a captain. Having become the British ace with the highest tally of victories, in March 1918 he was transferred back to ‘Blighty’ for a tour as an instructor.
I am now in England training the young, but my heart is in France amongst the gallant boys who are daily dying and those who are dead, having given themselves to that most wonderful cause. On 9 July, McCudden set out to fly back to the western front where, promoted to major, he was to command 60 Squadron, based at Boffles in France. He had just completed his memoir, Five Years with the Royal Flying Corps. In his closing paragraphs he suggested that, if the war continued much longer, “One or two perhaps of the Allied aviators will have exceeded a total of 100 enemy aeroplanes shot down.” There is no doubt that he considered himself the prime candidate to be first to reach this target, but he would take no chances. In his own words, there would be no “dashing stunts” for him.
At about 5.30pm McCudden, flying his brand-new SE5a, found himself in hazy weather over Auxi-le-Château airfield, a mere five miles short of his destination. Rather than risk landing behind German lines, he decided to get directions at the airfield. He made a neat landing and, having got the directions, quickly took off again, as described by Lieutenant Louis Fenelon. The SE5a took off into the wind and at about 100 feet did a vertical turn and flew back across the aerodrome by the side of the wood. The engine appeared to be running badly. The pilot rolled the machine, which failed to straighten out, at approximately 200 feet. It crashed nose-down into the wood.
Corporal WH Burdett, who had known McCudden in 1915 when the future ace was a mechanic, also saw the crash.
When McCudden took off he put the machine into a nearly vertical climb, seemed to do a half-roll and then nose-dived into the wood behind the hangars. It was usual for scout pilots to perform some little stunt when leaving the aerodrome, and I think that is what he was doing. As his aircraft fell, McCudden switched off the engine to reduce the risk of fire, and undid his safety belt – doubtless remembering that his brother had died strapped into his aircraft when it crashed, while his unstrapped passenger had been thrown clear and survived. As the echoes of the smash resounded around the airfield, horrified ground crew and pilots ran to the scene. They found the SE5a scrunched into the trees on the south-eastern edge of the airfield. James McCudden had been thrown out and was lying beside one of the wings.
He was taken to a casualty clearing station where it was discovered he had a badly fractured skull. He never regained consciousness, and died at 8pm. On examining the engine, a senior accident investigator found that an obsolete air filter had been fitted, which would have led to the engine failing during a steep, climbing turn. The career of one of the greatest, most-deadly British aces of the war had been curtailed at 57 victories. He was just 23.
“As the echoes of the smash resounded around the airfield, horrified ground crew and pilots ran to the scene”
George Horridge Born into a wealthy textile-manufacturing family in Lancashire in 1894, George was commissioned as a territorial in the 1/5th Lancashire Fusiliers in 1913. After serving in Egypt and Turkey, in 1917 his regiment had been dispatched to the western front.
In the summer of 1918, Lieutenant George Horridge was still on the western front. He escaped German bullets and shells but was brought low by a terrible virus. I caught [the Spanish] flu when we were in the front line on the Somme, with the usual flu symptoms – headaches, a temperature, lassitude. I was sent to Rouen hospital. In my ward, the beds were in two rows facing each other, and I happened to be in the end bed. I’d been there two days, and still hadn’t recovered sufficiently to get up or walk about.
On this second day, a medical officer came through the doorway just to my left, then turned to the bed to his left. I heard him say to the officer in that bed: “It’s very hot in these wards – very uncomfortable – so we’re putting up a marquee in the garden. Are you prepared to go into the marquee?” This chap said: “Oh, yes – of course!”
The medical officer went down the ward and at one bed after another asked the same question. I presume he had to get the agreement of officers, in case anybody who was put into an open marquee died of pneumonia. By the time he got to the other end, I began to think to myself: “You’ve been in the army long enough to know that it isn’t very wise to do anything they want you to do, if its only voluntary.” So, when they got to me, I said: “No, thank you – I don’t want to go in the marquee. I’ll stop in the ward.” The medical officer reiterated how hot it was and all that. “No thank you,” I repeated. He asked the sister: “This officer been up yet?” She replied: “No, he hasn’t.” He said to me: “What service have you got?” By this time I had over four years’ service, I told him.
He got my hospital sheet, which was pinned to a board, wrote ‘D’ on it, and went out. I thought to myself: “Well, there you are, you stupid thing – you wouldn’t go in the marquee, and now you’ve got ‘D’ for duty!” But the sister said: “That means you’re a walking case for England!” Now, if that doctor had turned right instead of left when he came in the room, I should not have had time to think. I should have gone into the marquee, I should have recovered from the flu, and I would have been in the final battles of the war! So that was another bit of luck. George Horridge was sent to a hospital in England. Before he could be sent back to the front, the war ended.
Harold Hayward Born in 1897 in Alcester, Harold signed up with the 12th Gloucestershire Regiment. He was injured at the Somme in September 1916 but returned to the lines as an officer.
As second lieutenant, Harold was serving with the 15th Welsh (Carmarthenshire) Regiment on the western front. When they were out of the line, young officers took the chance to celebrate. I put on about a fourcourse meal [in the mess] and people were licking their lips. Everything was going quite well. Then the grub finished and the drinks came on. The band come into the hut to play – but all that they played was ‘ bunny hugging’. You had a partner and as the music struck up you got up and ‘ bunny hugged’ up and around all the evening between drinks. Apparently, at about midnight there were only two wallflowers, myself being one and the brigadier the other. I got up, staggered across the room, pulled him up and danced with him for three hours. Then they turned up with a stretcher and carried me back to my tent.
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