Doncaster

Trial and error: early pilot training for the RFC in the Great War

David Learmount Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Research I have been conducting into my grandfather’s Royal Flying Corps/RAF service in the Great War (1914-1918) has yielded unexpected detail about basic flying training for pilots in those early days. Or, more accurately, the lack of it.

When I began the research task – some three years ago – I was focusing on WW1 front line operational flying techniques. But it gradually dawned on me – as a former RAF Qualified Flying Instructor – that very little – even now – has been written about initial pilot training in 1914 and 1915.

Just consider the training context at that time. The Wright brothers first flew in 1903, so in 1914 aviation was still in its infancy.

When mankind first ventured into the sky he didn’t know what he would find, nor how to deal with it. You cannot select “the best” prospective pilots when you don’t yet know what skills or aptitudes aviators need, nor even how to recognise them when they are present in a candidate.

Indeed, the army and navy leaders in 1914 had only a rough idea of how aeroplanes might best be employed in the military context. So, beyond the obvious need to inculcate in pilots whatever magic skills are required to get the aircraft airborne and keep it there, they didn’t have a clear idea of what mission skills the crew might need, nor how best to teach them.

Right from the start, soldiers and mariners definitely knew that the ability to see over the horizon – or even over the nearby hill – would be highly desirable, and a bird’s-eye view would enable the aviators to identify and observe enemy positions and logistical preparations, then report back to surface units.

Air-to-air combat skills did not even begin to become an issue until mid-1915, because most of the aircraft in use at that time had originally been designed as unarmed reconnaissance machines.

In order to appreciate fully why pilot training was so primitive in 1914 and 1915, it is essential for researchers to remind themselves constantly how primitive the technology was, and how little the practitioners knew about aviating. In the RFC there were no trained instructors and no formal flying training syllabus until late in 1916. Learning to fly was an exercise in trial-and-error. To learn more, you had to survive each sortie.

Maurice Farman Longhorn, a training machine in 1915

Estimates of the number of pilot and observer deaths in the Great War have been set as high as 14,000, with 8,000 of them occurring during training. More recent studies, combining fatalities, missing, shot down, and captured suggest 9,000 is closer to the mark for the total, and the number of specific training casualties is uncertain – but it was staggeringly high by today’s standards. A young American aviator training with the RFC at its Montrose, Scotland training base in 1913 wrote home that “there is a crash every day and a funeral every week.” And that was just on his base.

At the end of my grandfather’s training course in June 1915, his flying log book recorded exactly 24 hours airborne time. To train for a private pilots licence today you would need 35 hours or more to gain the necessary skills to satisfy the examiner, and today’s aeroplanes are far more reliable and much easier to fly.

In the remarks column against the entry for Learmount’s last training flight at Brooklands aerodrome, Surrey, on 9 June, he wrote the following: “Pancaked over sheds, smashed undercarriage and one wing landing.” That was clearly good enough for the RFC, because three days later he joined No 7 Squadron at Saint-Omer in France “ready” to fly and survive in the hostile skies over the Western Front.

Evidence abounds that, until mid-1916, young aviators were sent to the front-line squadrons with the basic ability to get airborne, fly cautiously, and recover safely to their base aerodrome. The pilots were little more than drivers for the observer/gunners who would gather the intelligence the army needed. Mission training took place “on the job”. Pilots who survived multiple sorties, possibly by luck, acquired additional skills and knowledge by default, but almost certainly picked up many bad habits and misconceptions too.

Major Raymond Smith-Barry – a graduate of the very first course at the Central Flying School, Upavon in 1912 – and today credited with being the founder of modern aircrew training standards in the RAF – had served as an RFC pilot in France from August 1914. By 1916 he realised that the standard of flying among the arriving aviators was simply appalling, and he decided something had to be done. By late 1916 he had compiled a formal pilot training syllabus, which he first introduced at Grange airfield, Gosport, on England’s south coast near Portsmouth, where he was appointed Commanding Officer of No 1 (Reserve) Squadron – a training unit – and took up his appointment there in December 1916.

Smith-Barry also invented the Gosport Tube, a tube through which the instructor could speak to the student, which was widely fitted to training aircraft from June 1917 onward. The new flying training syllabus, plus the improved instructor communication, benefited training hugely.

Smith-Barry was clearly not the only RFC aviator who had noticed how inadequately trained the young arrivals in France were because, by mid-1916, some training bases back home were beginning to provide basic mission training for pilots who had completed their primary flying tuition. 2nd Lieutenant LW Learmount, my grandfather, who had only graduated from his primary training a year earlier, was made commanding officer of a training unit, No 15 (Reserve) Squadron, at Doncaster, South Yorkshire, in May 1916. Within days he was promoted to Lieutenant, then Acting Captain, to provide him with the authority to carry out the task.

There was clearly a realisation by then that German machines were getting faster and better armed, and that pilots were not only going to have to be drivers, but fighters and also bombers. Smith-Barry’s controversial (at first) insistence that pilots should be trained to fly their aeroplanes to the very edges of their flight envelope, and to recover successfully if they strayed outside it, was gaining ground.

Fast-forward a year or so to September 1917, and by that time Learmount – now an Acting Major – had been the commander of No 22 Squadron for about 9 months, flying Bristol Fighters over the Western Front in France, and he made it clear that he was not happy with the skills of the pilots arriving on his unit. He complained in a letter to HQ 9 Group that arriving pilots had no training in aerial gunnery, formation flying and navigation.

The written response – almost a rebuke – came direct from Brigadier General Hugh Trenchard, Officer Commanding the RFC in France, who made it crystal clear to Learmount that that the resources to do more were simply not available, and that he considered it the squadron commander’s task to bring the skills of his new pilots up to standard where they were found lacking.

You can find much more in my nine-part serial “Leonard’s War”, which traces Learmount’s path through the RFC/RAF from training in 1915 to demob in 1919. For any of you who have read it before, since then it has been considerably expanded and edited as new historic material has come to light, and it remains a work in progress to this day!

Leonard’s War episode 4: mission training at Doncaster, and air support for the Somme offensive

David Learmount Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

(For previous episodes, scroll down)

On 8 May 1916 2nd Lieutenant Leonard Learmount was posted from No 7 Squadron at Baillieul, Northern France to No 15 (Reserve) Squadron at Doncaster, south Yorkshire, a training unit. At the same time he was promoted to Lieutenant, and on 17 May he was made a Flight Commander, rapidly followed on 15 July 1916 by being appointed Commanding Officer of the 15 (Reserve) depot.

As an illustration of how highly-prized even a small amount of operational flying experience was, this posting for Learmount took place less than a year since he had completed his basic flight training. He had flown just 11 months over the Western Front with No 7 Squadron, had survived the experience – which many hadn’t – and here he was, commanding a training unit himself.

In that role, his career path crossed that of one 2nd Lieutenant James Kerr, whose log book Learmount signed off on 22 July, the latter having trained on both the BE2c and the Armstrong Whitworth FK3 at the 15 (Reserve) Squadron training depot. Learmount’s rank, as signed in Kerr’s log book, was Captain (presumably acting or temporary), and a note accompanying Learmount’s signature stated that Kerr had been “posted overseas” on 24 July. That was, indeed, the date that Kerr arrived in France, at Saint-Omer, and by the end of that month he had been assigned to No 5 Squadron operating out of Droglandt, not far west of Ypres, flying the BE2c and d. So it is clear that No 15 (Reserve) Squadron was not a unit preparing pilots for 15 Squadron, it was just the 15th Reserve Squadron so far formed, and its task was to meet a need by any and all active units for improved flying skills in the new trainees arriving in France.

The task of No 15 (Reserve) Squadron seems to have been to take new pilots who had learned basic flying skills and prepare them for the tasks that they would face over the Western Front – mainly reconnaissance and navigation skills, but also surviving air-to-air combat. The last few entries in Kerr’s log book contained the information that he had looped the BE2c once and the FK3 twice, a marked contrast to Learmount’s experience level at the end of his training a year earlier. “Stunting”, however, was not a part of training, and it was generally frowned upon at that time.

Back in 1915, pilots had been given no preparation for the mission skills they would need on the front line until they arrived there. Indeed, in his log book on arrival on 7 Squadron in France, Learmount remarked – on one of five familiarisation sorties out of Saint-Omer – that he had navigated by compass for the first time, and flown above cloud also for the first time. These few trips were clearly his mission preparation, and the final (sixth) one recorded in his training log book was a 10min sortie over the aerodrome at 1,000ft flown “for the benefit of Indian cavalry”.

There was clearly a growing awareness in the RFC that the quality and and quantity of training provided to pilots was insufficient. Indeed, as related in Episode 1 of this series, in July 1916 Major Raymond Smith-Barry, who had noted the low quality of trainees arriving for duty, had begun the process of compiling the RFC’s first formal flying training syllabus, but it had not yet been published and would first see the light of day in December 1916. Smith-Barry believed in the need to train military pilots to fly their aircraft to their limits, and to recover successfully if they exceeded them, rather than simply to get airborne and fly cautiously. As air-to-air combat was becoming increasingly routine, timid flying was no longer an option.

Learmount’s arrival at Doncaster in early May 1916 preceded – by a few weeks – the beginning of the massive and deadly Somme offensive by the British army 4th Corps, allied with Canadian and Australian troops. The artillery fired up early on the morning of 1st July. So supporting this push by maintaining air superiority above it was to be the task of many of the brand new pilots and observers that Learmount was preparing at Doncaster.

A general view of the Western Front 1915-16, with battle locations indicated

The priority in advance of the Somme push, was to get photographs and intelligence about the enemy’s movements, supply routes and defensive lines (trenches). The BE2c two-seater “tractor” biplane – one of the types in use for instruction at No 15 (Reserve) Squadron at that time, was a machine well-suited to the reconnaissance task, but not much more than that.

BE2c (Imperial War Museum)

In June and July – operating out of airfields in the vicinity of Arras – the BE2c for was mostly used for reconnaissance and as a light bomber, although it could be fitted with underwing-mounted rockets for attacking balloons. And unlike its unarmed BE pure reconnaissance predecessors, the BE2c observer/gunner was given a pivot-mounted Lewis gun, but more for self-defence than attack. Some BE2cs were given two Lewis guns. Unfortunately, because the observer’s cockpit was forward of the pilot’s, he was positioned more or less in line with the leading edges of the wings, which limited his field of fire considerably, with the propeller just ahead and the struts either side. The trailing edge of the upper wing, however, was cut away at its centre, allowing fire upwards, which was useful for attacking balloons.

Part of the Allied strategy leading up to the Somme push was to make good use of the RFC’s sheer numbers – far in excess of the numbers of aircraft available to the Germans – so they could keep control of the air above the battlefield. The combined aircraft fleets of the Allies exceeded significantly the numbers of German aircraft, even if their effectiveness didn’t match that of the newer German machines like the Fokker Eindecker. Often the BE2s were protected by a pair of Bristol Scouts which could escort them in their reconnaissance role.

In the last days of the Somme offensive, a BE2c (from 15 Sqn as it happened), was hit in combat with five Albatros Ds. The pilot, 2nd Lt JC Lees and observer Lt TH Clarke, were both wounded. The pilot brought the stricken aircraft to a crash landing in enemy territory near Miraumont where the two were taken prisoners of war. The German troops who attended the downed aircraft expressed disbelief that the British were still using such an old-fashioned machine. In fact they referred disparagingly to the aircraft as “kaltes Fleische” (cold meat). Over the five-month offensive from July to November the RFC lost 600 aircraft and 252 crew.

Meanwhile propaganda, normally perceived as information disseminated by the enemy, is a two-way art. Of course the RFC had to generate its own. It seems Britain’s political leaders wanted the people at home to be told about “our boys defending our skies”, because Zeppelins were now succeeding in bombing civilian targets in British cities – a development that had deeply shocked the public.

At about this time – although it was probably somewhat earlier in 2016 – Learmount was clearly chosen as the “right stuff” to provide the British people with a word-picture of what it was like to be an RFC pilot. So he duly wrote a story, published in the Daily Mirror, headlined “Mr Learmount at the Front – Experiences in the Royal Flying Corps”, claiming to be “extracts from a letter received from Lieut LW Learmount of the Royal Flying Corps from ‘Somewhere in France’”. When interpreted in the light of history, this “letter” seems to contain a compendium of experiences over quite a wide period. The newspaper cutting kept by Learmount’s family is not marked with its date, so the period of operations described in the article cannot be precisely identified.

Press cutting from the Daily Mirror in Autumn 1916, from Learmount’s family records

This is what the “letter” says:

“We are having a very strenuous time here. I suppose I put in about 5 hours every day. Not all of it is over the enemy’s lines, of course. A new duty is patrolling the town where we are stationed, as some time ago a few Huns came over and dropped bombs on us and were off again before we could get up to them, so we go up every morning and cruise around at about 10,000ft so that should any more of them venture an attack we are prepared for them.

“I had a most exciting time the other day. I was going to Ostend and just after crossing the Lines a German machine came up and attacked us with a machine gun. We soon brought ours into play, but owing to his vastly superior speed we were not altogether having things all our own way, when a little British Scout which had been patrolling somewhere near us [probably a fighter escort for the reconnaissance type] dropped from the skies and opened fire and, between us, we downed the Hun pretty successfully.

“After this we went on with our reconnaissance and on the way back we met another Hun, but on this occasion we managed to do him in ourselves, and proceeded gaily on our way, somewhat badly damaged it is true, but still we got home all right.

“These air duels are very thrilling, the sky is thick with bursting shells [“Archie”- or anti-aircraft fire] and amidst the roar of our machine guns you can hear the zip of the Hun’s bullets when they get pretty close, and all the time the two machines are circling about, dropping and climbing, each trying to get the other at a disadvantage.

“Aerial warfare becomes more and more like a sea fight as machines are improved, but unfortunately the Huns have usually got better machines than we have. I have so far flown a rather an antiquated type, a French make, but am now the proud possessor of the very latest British machine, a real beauty [BE2c?]

“We have got a most splendid lot of fellows in the RFC, and I am serenely happy among them, although I get depressed at times the way one after another of them disappears. It is so rotten to see a vacant chair at the Mess table every now and then, and to have to go and pack up some unfortunate chap’s belongings is positively horrible. It make one sick at heart to witness the slaughter, for it amounts to nothing less, of all these fine men.”

Tomorrow, Episode 5: Learmount is promoted from Captain to Acting Major, and given command of No. 22 Squadron at Bertangles, near Amiens, equipped with FE2b two-seater pushers, and gets increasingly involved in aerial photography over the heavily fortified German Hindenberg Line.