In France with the British Expeditionary Force, Greg was posted to 42 Squadron. This was one of the ‘corps’ squadrons, whose principal role was neither fighting other aircraft in the air nor bombing targets on the ground but rather cooperating with artillery – just as Greg had been taught at Hursley Park.
It wasn’t generally appreciated back home that this artillery cooperation work was actually the bulk of the work of the RFC and its successor the RAF.
How the Corps Squadrons Were Seen in 1917
The following article seeking to correct this misconception appeared in The Times on 19 September 1917. It was republished in the newspaper in edited form 100 years later. It is reproduced here with permission:
A transcript of the article follows:
The Work of our Airmen.
We are glad to notice in the list of awards for gallantry published yesterday the case of a young airman who has been decorated “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in cooperation with our artillery.” It is recorded of the officer in question that “by dint of great perseverance, skill, and very gallant flying ho has accomplished splendid work under very difficult circumstances.” On one occasion, “during a gale of wind, he successfully ranged three of our heavy batteries upon an enemy battery, which was completely obliterated.”
We mention this case by way of illustration, because it should help to correct a prevalent delusion about the work of our airmen at the front. The popular impression, which is to some extent fostered by the daily bulletins, is that airmen are chiefly duellists. They are supposed to be for ever challenging the reluctant German to mortal combat in the air, and these encounters seem to be regarded as the principal duty of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. It cannot be too clearly understood that they are generally incidental, and are not the prime object of the airmen. The day may come when conflict in the air will be the first aim, but at present our own men are chiefly engaged in other duties. Their most important work is to cooperate with the guns, a task which calls for incomparable courage and alertness, and is full of risk. Their general reconnaissance work is almost equally arduous, and the photographing of the enemy’s positions is a daily duty often conducted in the face of extreme danger. Latterly attacks on bodies of the enemy’s troops, delivered from a very low altitude, have become more frequent, while the bombing of enemy positions and aerodromes is now incessant. The fights with enemy airmen naturally attract public attention most, but the records of success and of loss should not be allowed to obscure the other and larger purposes of the air services.
Air work is revolutionizing artillery practice, and it accounts to a very great extent for the frequent overwhelming success of our gunners. On a favourable day one enemy battery after another may be silenced through the keen vigilance of the airmen. The public should try to realize how invaluable the cooperation with the artillery has become, and should dismiss the idea that the competence of an airman is measured solely by the number of enemy machines which he may manage to destroy. Another point to be remembered is that, broadly speaking, our air methods at the front are offensive, while the enemy are generally on the defensive. Occasionally enemy airmen come over our lines, and recently they have grown more daring in the practice of night raids, but it may be said with truth that our own men are always over the German lines. Most of the fights of which we read occur far behind the German front, in the course of some reconnaissance or other, which the enemy try to prevent. The result is that, if either airman or machine is badly hit, the chance of reaching our own line is lessened, especially if the too prevalent west wind happens to be blowing. In one respect the Germans have attained great skill. Some of their anti-aircraft gunners have, by long practice, become extremely accurate; yet, if the public knew how often our squadrons come under prolonged and heavy German fire, and return after accomplishing their objects without a single loss, they would perhaps be less critical of our air defences in this country. As to the constant bombing of German aerodromes in Belgium, it is hard to estimate the precise damage inflicted, but there is not the slightest doubt that many of our raids result in very considerable destruction of enemy material. It is reasonable to assume that these raids greatly lessen air attacks directed against England. If our airmen were not constantly attacking the aerodromes in Belgium, we should probably be subjected to much more frequent visitations in the eastern counties. No doubt air warfare is still in an intermediate phase. The time may come when the duties which now occupy most of the time of the air services will be regarded as subsidiary, and when the offensive possibilities of the new arm will be developed on an infinitely larger scale. Such changes, should they ever come, cannot be rapid. Most people do not realize that. aeroplane construction is now an exceedingly delicate, complex, and difficult business. It is far easier to talk theoretically of attaining victory through the air than to provide rapidly the multitude of machines, and of men to pilot, them, which a great expansion of air warfare requires.
It’s easy to see why the authorities were keen to publicise accounts of the scouts: they made for stirring tales of adventure and bravery – and to be sure the scout pilots were very brave – in what we would today call a high-tech environment. Readers at home could be proud of the men and the machines. It’s also easy to see how the pre-eminence of the fighter pilots stuck in the public imagination. There is more than a little resonance with tales of knights from the age of chivalry going off to duel on behalf of their liege.
The Perception of the Corps Squadrons Today
Well intentioned though the above Times article was, it did not succeed in correcting “the popular impression…that airmen are chiefly duellists”. Even today, 100 years later, many people think of aviators in the First World War being principally fighters (as the ‘scouts’ came to be known), duelling enemy aircraft day after day. And those that read a bit more deeply about First World War aviation may have come across accounts of the bombers, whose role developed as the war ground on. If London was being bombed, the home population liked to know that British aircraft were bombing German cities too.
But the corps aircraft – the majority of the aircraft in service during the First World War – were the unsung heroes. And they still are. The following two quotations, both from recent years, show an attitude not much changed from that underlying the Times article from 1917:
“The Western Front turned out above all to be an artillery war, and as the gunners’ eyes in the sky, the unglamorous corps aircraft repeatedly sought out vulnerable targets to ensure that they were destroyed or at least grossly inconvenienced by a stream of shells. These machines formed the backbone of the flying services, and without the mundane, daily toil of the BE2cs and RE8s, doggedly performed in the face of extreme danger, the British Army would have been unable to fulfil its part in the long struggle of attrition that was the Great War. It is to them, and not to the scouts in their DH2s, SE5s and Camels that the real credit of the first war in the air belongs.” [Steel and Hart, “Tumult in the Clouds”, Hodder/Coronet 1997]
The “contribution…of the corps squadrons [is] still underestimated by history” Barker, “A Brief History of the Royal Flying Corps in World War I” (Robinson, London, 2002)
The centenary of the end of the First World War is a good time to put right this underestimation. We must give the unsung bravery of the aviators of the corps squadrons its proper acknowledgement. The Greg’s War blog and website are an attempt to help in that effort.