Another Counter Battery Patrol, and more bombs dropped today; and more water in the carburettor, so an early return:
Log Book
Date: 26.6.18
Hour: 11.00
Machine type: RE8
No.: E27
Observer: Lt Roche
Time: 1 hr 10 m
Height: 3000
Course/Remarks: CBP. 4 bombs. Returned due to engine.
Diary
Wednesday June 26th. CBP. Dropped four bombs on houses. Late up & early down – water in carburettor.
Nothing to indicate where the bombs on houses were dropped, but it was probably somewhere in or around German-occupied Merville.
2nd Lt Roche
This was to be 2nd Lt Anthony Berthon Roche’s last flight as Greg’s observer. He was evidently still with 42 Squadron at least until 7 July 1918, according to the records of http://www.airhistory.org.uk/rfc/people_index.html, but Greg’s own papers contain no more information about him.
Back on Counter Battery Patrol after recovering from the flu, with Lt Roche (also recovered), meant a 5:30am start that was rewarded with a direct hit with a bomb on a bridge near Merville. Mac (Lt. Hugh McDonald), who died yesterday, was buried later in the day.
Log Book
Date: 25.6.18
Hour: 5.30
Machine type: RE8
No.: E27
Observer: Lt Roche
Time: 1 hr 30 m
Height: 3000
Course/Remarks: CBP. Direct hit on bridge. Wat. in Carb.
Diary
Tuesday June 25th. CBP at 5.30 am. Very heavy mist. Dropped bombs on bridge near Merville, (direct hit). Observer fired 100 rounds behind Merville.
Heavy low bands of clouds appeared about 6.45 to windward.
Engine became very rough owing to water in carburettor so came home. No Archie. No Huns.
Good landing.
Developed a cold as after effect of P.U.O.
Mac buried.
“Dropped bombs on bridge near Merville, (direct hit)”
An opportunistic departure from a counter battery patrol. Which bridge was it? Hard to tell, as there are so many, as this map extract shows:
Extract from a 1:20,000 map of Merville, May 1918 edition, with trenches revised to 19 June 1918. German works in red. Numbered squares are 1,000 yards. Map credit: IWM/TNA/GreatWarDigital
Merville still has still lots of bridges. One of today’s tourist information boards proudly says:
As the heart of the town is surrounded by water, it can only be reached by crossing one of the seventeen bridges.
It seems unlikely that even a direct hit with one of the 20 lb Cooper bombs that were carried by an RE8 would actually have brought a bridge down. And Greg would surely have proudly said so if he had done. (Spoiler alert: he did on a later occasion!)
Water in Carburettor
A recurrent problem, with the heavy mist and low cloud.
Lt. Hugh McDonald (Mac) Buried
Lt. Hugh McDonald lies buried at plot III.D.33 at Aire Communal Cemetery, next to his observer 2nd Lt. Cuthbert Alban Marsh at III.D.34.
On another damp day around the River Lys, Greg takes Lt Watkins as observer, since Roche has flu. Central Wireless Station tells them to reconnoitre an area by l’Épinette, southeast of Merville. But they didn’t see any guns firing and the damp air leads to water in the carburettor again.
Log Book
Date: 19.6.18
Hour: 3.30
Machine type: RE8
No.: E27
Observer: Lt Watkins
Time: 1 hr 10 m
Height: 3000
Course/Remarks: CBP. Came down due to water in
carburettor.
Diary
Wednesday June 19th. E27. Roche got an attack of the ‘flu’. Took up Watkins as observer, saw one Hun.
Asked C.W.S. for a target & got R VII. Went over to reconnoitre square R7 but owing to smoke from a fire just to windward was unable to see any guns firing in that square. Weather pretty dud & damp.
“Asked C.W.S. [Central Wireless Station] for a target”
CWS was the squadron’s Central Wireless Station. This station operated one of the squadron’s two radio receivers. The other was at Station Headquarters for practice and tests. As the General Staff’s “Co-operation of Aircraft with Artillery” booklet (SS 131) explains:
…the Central Wireless Station should be at some central position in the corps area sufficiently far back to prevent jambing. This station acts as a link between the squadron commander and his machines working on the line, and is of great value in preventing incipient failures in their initial stages. … Its utility is largely dependent on quick telephone communication to the squadron and to batteries. Whenever possible, therefore, it should be located near Corps Heavy Artillery Headquarters, whose direct lines run to the above units. At this station are also taken weather reports, hostile aircraft reports and, in case of sudden enemy bombardments or attacks, calls for reinforcing machines.
Square R7
This would be square R7 in Sheet 36A (zone RA), 2 miles (3.2 km) SSE of Merville, near Lestrem. At the time, there was some kind of well defended German post or position there, at l’Épinette:
Extract of 1:20,000 ‘Harassing Fire’ map showing Square R7 of 1:40,000 Sheet 36A and l’Épinette. This was the square given by the Central Wireless Station. Red markings show German trenches and wire entanglements. Black marking show centres of activity, occupied areas and numbered targets. Triangles indicate dumps, and the flag shows a headquarters position. The map is dated 27 June 1918, with trenches correct to 16 June 1918.
Nowadays, l’Épinette is on the southern edge of Merville-Calonne Airport:
Tuesday June 18th. E27. Counter Battery Patrol. Clouds low, atmosphere very damp, engine struggling along with carburettor nearly full of water. Eventually started backfiring, so made tracks for home. Good landing.
This wouldn’t be the last occasion of water in the carburettor.
Greg’s run of counter battery patrols continues. This time, clouds both interfere and provide a refuge. Water in the carburettor was a problem.
Log Book
Date: 17.6.18
Hour: 8.20
Machine type: RE8
No.: E27
Observer: Lt Roche
Time: 2 hrs 25 m
Height: 4300
Course/Remarks: CBP. Water in carburettor.
Engine rough.
Diary
Monday June 17th. E27. Counter Battery Patrol.
Very cloudy. Climbed up above clouds, very pretty but cold. Hun machines very active.
Dived down through clouds and got in a rain storm. Too dud to get any information.
Sunday June 16th. E27. CBP. Saw several huns. Dropped four bombs & fired 100 rounds. Sent UL UR UD. Got a lot of water in carb.
“Saw Several Huns” – Albatros C series?
Greg doesn’t record what sort of German aircraft he saw that day. They might have been scouts (fighters), or they may have been Albatros C series reconnaissance/light bombing aircraft (essentially the German equivalent of RE8s) such as this:
Albatros C series (C.III?) reconnaissance aircraft. Credit: Greg’s War Collection.
“Dropped four bombs and fired 100 rounds”
The bombs would have been the nominal 20 lb Cooper bombs featured yesterday. The armaments of the RE8 are given here:
Later in his log book Greg would record the number of bombs dropped and rounds fired, and from which gun, but he hadn’t started doing that at this stage.
“Sent UL UR UD”
Following on from yesterday’s post, in which Greg sent FL FR FD, these were weather signals sent to the squadron’s Central Wireless Station (CWS):
UL: Weather unfit for counterbattery work
UR: Weather unfit for registration [of artillery fire onto a target]
UD: Weather unfit for photography.
And after sending that trio, he no doubt headed for home: retour à Rely.
On another bumpy day, Greg was on Counter Battery Patrol duty. He dropped his first bomb – a 20lb Cooper bomb – and fired his first shots in anger, but without much success at least in the case of the bomb.
Saturday June 15th. E27. Counter Battery Patrol from 10 to 1 pm. Sent FL FR FD. Very bumpy. Dropped a bomb on a bridge, missed rather badly. Fired off 50 rounds into Hun lines from Vickers gun. Observer fired 100 from Lewis.
“Sent FL FR FD”
This somewhat cryptic sentence in Greg’s diary is in the active voice, not the passive voice. It refers to signals that he sent to the squadron’s Central Wireless Station (CWS), not places to where he might have been sent by them. In fact, they were weather signals:
FL: Weather fit for counterbattery work
FR: Weather fit for registration [of artillery fire onto a target]
FD: Weather fit for photography.
The corresponding ‘unfit’ signals would be UL, UR and UD, respectively.
Friday June 14th. RE 6548. Very windy, about 45 mph. Counter battery patrol 12.30 to 1.30. Fearfully bumpy. Good landing – rather more luck than anything else. Explosion near Merville.
Rely aerodrome certainly would have caught the wind. It is located on what passes for high ground in Artois, south of the Lys – just on the 100 m contour line – whereas the Lys valley around Merville is less than 20 m above sea level. Hence the fearful bumpiness.
After the false starts earlier in the week, Greg starts to ease into what will become one of his routine activities: the Counter Battery Patrol. This one, which at three hours duration was one of the longer ones, was enlivened by some ‘Archie’ – anti-aircraft fire.
Thursday June 13th. E27. Counter battery patrol from 4 to 7. Rather dud, engine rough.
One ‘Archie’ burst under tail. Two explosions in Hunland. Bad landing. Observer fired off 100 rounds into Calonne.
All the As: Archie, Ack-Ack and Anti-Aircraft Fire
‘Archie’ – anti-aircraft fire. Image: Greg’s War Collection. Click for larger image.
‘Archie’ and ‘ack-ack’ were both slang terms used by British airmen for anti-aircraft fire in the First World War. One is easier to explain than the other.
Ack-ack
Ack-ack’ is the easier term to explain, as ‘Ack’ was the letter A in an early military alphabet, as set out by The Royal Signals Museum here. AA or ack-ack was the standard abbreviation for anti-aircraft (fire).
Archie
But what of ‘Archie’? The most prevalent explanation seems to be that it derived from a popular music hall number called Archibald! Certainly not, first sung by George Robey in 1911. The story is that a pilot used to shout the song title, which was also the refrain, to his observer when an anti-aircraft shell exploded nearby (but missed), and ‘Archibald’ of course became abbreviated to ‘Archie’. Some accounts credit the first usage to Lieutenant Amyas ‘Biffy’ Borton of 5 Sqn RFC.
In a competing explanation, this source has a rather more elaborate account of the origin of the expression, quoting Ernest Weekley’s An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (1921) :
“It was at once noticed at Brooklands [where much aviation development and testing was carried out prior to 1914, and portrayed in the film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines] that in the vicinity of, or over, water or damp ground, there were disturbances in the air causing bumps or drops to these early pioneers. Some of these ‘remous’ were found to be permanent, one over the Wey river, and another at the corner of the aerodrome next to the sewage-farm. Youth being fond of giving proper names to inanimate objects, the bump near the sewage-farm was called by them Archibald. As subsequently, when war broke out, the effect of having shell bursting near an aeroplane was to produce a ‘remous’ reminding the Brookland trained pilots of their old friend Archibald, they called being shelled ‘being Archied’ for short. Any flying-man who trained at Brooklands before the war will confirm the above statement” (Col. C H Joubert de la Ferté, I M S ret.)
Well, which is right? Either way, you can hear Harry Bluff singing Archibald! Certainly not here:
Calonne
“Observer fired off 100 rounds into Calonne.” Calonne (today, Calonne-sur-la-Lys) is a small settlement 2 miles (3 km) south west of Merville, itself 17 miles (30 km) west of Lille. The German line ran through Calonne and Le Sart, to its north, at the time. Anywhere to the east of this line qualified as ‘Hunland’.
Calonne and Le Sart on a 1:40,000 map. Each square is 1,000 yards. Click for larger image. Map credit: IWM/TNA/GreatWarDigital.
Counter Battery Patrols
For an explanation of what counter battery patrols involved, see this new page in the ‘Setting the Scene – Background Articles’ series:
On the first day of war flying a week after his crash on 4 June 1918, Greg had a terrible day: he got hopelessly lost (in his own unsparing words), ended up at Bergues, near Dunkirk, and then smashed up his undercarriage in an awful landing (ditto) when he finally made it back to the aerodrome at Rely.
Tuesday June 11th. Gwen E27. On Counter Battery Patrol, from 7am to 10am.
Went up at 7 & landed again, weather dud.
Clouds at 600ft.
Took off again at 9am & ran into clouds at 300ft over the second line.
Got hopelessly lost; after about an hour’s flying sighted a small aerodrome. Made a good landing & enquired where I was. Found I was in Bergues, 6 miles from Dunkirk, Belgium.
After a rest, took off again & followed the main road at about 200ft, via Cassel & St Omer to the drome.
Made an awful landing, smashed the undercarriage.
I don’t know what the reference to “Gwen” signifies. An affectionate name for Greg’s newly assigned aircraft, serial number E27, perhaps?
Bergues
What a day for a novice on the front line. But it wasn’t all bad: at least he didn’t stray over the German line. Bergues is some 5 miles (8 km) SSW of Dunkirk and is in France, not Belgium. The German front line was about 18 miles (26 km) ENE from Bergues, at Rousdamme not far from where it emerged on the coast at Nieuwpoort (both in Belgium).
Perhaps during his rest in Bergues Greg sampled the local cheese that has been made there for centuries and for which the village is still known today.
Fromage de Bergues – purchased from the excellent Comptoir Laitier Fovet in Aire-sur-la-Lys, an essential stop for any cheese aficionado visiting the Pas-de-Calais/Nord region of France
Today, we have no more idea than Greg did as to what course he took on his way to Bergues. It was unlikely to be the straight line shown on this map, but the return journey following the roads via Cassel and St Omer is easier to be confident about:
Getting hopelessly lost and coming home on a modern map (courtesy Google). Click for larger image. Click here to see full Google terrain map (opens in new tab).
Smashing the undercarriage on landing must just have topped his day. He probably wished he hadn’t got up that morning.
