Document created: 21 June 04
Air University Review, January-February 1970

Military History and the First Great Air War

In a study made a little over a decade ago, Professor Richard C. Brown wrote that military history had never been a popular field of study in the United States. This lack of popularity, he observed, was due to a variety of reasons. First, there was the reaction of the scientific school, trained in the von Ranke methods, to the literary historians who monopolized military history writing. Second, many Americans held the belief that such historians served no useful purpose. Finally, because of the strength of the peace movement in the United States, especially in the 1930s, there was feeling that a study of military history would make us militaristic. Certainly all these reasons played a part in the neglect of the military aspect of our past. However, during and after World War II, a new interest in military history arose, developed particularly by the historical programs of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.¹

Many of the young historians who had worked in the armed forces’ historical programs continued their interest in military history after returning to the college and university campuses. As a result of their influence, an increasing number of history doctoral students turned their attention to this once verboten subject. In a paper read at the Philadelphia meeting of the Organization of American Historians in April 1969, Professor Allan B. Millet, of the University of Missouri, reported that during the period 1946-68 approximately 300 Ph.D. dissertations had been written on some aspect of military history.

Without a doubt, the study of military history has assumed new importance in the last two decades. Perhaps a hundred American colleges and universities, including many of the distinguished ones, have installed it in their curricula, and practically all institutions of higher learning offer quasi-military history courses, such as Civil War, the French Revolution, and the American Revolution. These military-oriented courses can be justified in a number of ways. Much may be learned about a society by a study of how it wages war. A knowledge of military history is useful, perhaps even necessary, as Professor Brown pointed out “if our citizens are to be able to make intelligent decisions on the problems facing our country now as in the future.” Certainly, for young men who are to spend even a part of their lives in the armed services, a study of military history can be a valuable experience. For the Ph.D. candidate in history, “a study of military history is almost imperative if he is to be able to interpret twentieth century history in a meaningful fashion.” Furthermore, military history is interesting and can contribute color and drama to any course in history. And there are job opportunities for historians with an interest and training in military studies. Finally, military history can be worthwhile throughout an individual’s life, as a hobby or avocation.²

Even though the study of military history on the college campuses has gone through periods of unpopularity¾and with the present anti-ROTC and anti-Vietnam outcry we may be entering a new, phase of hostility toward such courses¾interest on the part of the general public in the subject has always been high. Perhaps more books have been published in the last hundred years on the general subject of war than on any other, witness the veritable flood of Civil War books in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. During the last four or five years there has been a deluge of hooks and articles dealing with the First World War, especially on the 1914-18 air war. The latest, and in some ways one of the best, is Aaron Norman’s The Great Air War, an excellent example of the literary approach to military history.*

*Aaron Norman, The Great Air War (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968, $10.00), xi and 558 pp.

In this big, colorfully written volume, Norman, a pilot and free-lance writer, gives a comprehensive study of the air warriors, their aircraft, and their role in the First World War. The story of that great adventure is a record of the deeds of men, of those who fought in the clouds and those who brought into being an amazing procession of new airplanes. As pilots countered tactics and skills of foes in the air, so other men matched drawing-board skills with the designers of rival powers, seeking supremacy in speed, performance, and armaments. The author does an outstanding job of depicting the degree to which men of action were dependent upon the designers of the planes they flew. Indeed, command of the air rested with those whose aircraft served them best. For example, the Fokker E planes flown by such German aces as Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke were to dominate the air war from mid-1915 until mid-1916. Then in June 1916 the Allies were to regain control with the Nieuport 17 and the de Havilland-2 (a single-seat pusher). Allied aerial supremacy was short-lived, however, for in the late summer of 1916 the Germans were to introduce the D-type fighter such as the Albatros, the Halberstadt, and the Pfalz. With Manfred von Richthofen, Werner Voss, Oswald Boelcke (killed in a mid-air collision on 26 October 1916), and Emil Schaeffer leading the way, the Germans were to inflict tragic losses on Allied airmen until the spring of 1917. “Bloody April” 1917 was to be the climax of German air supremacy. Richthofen alone shot down 21 British aircraft during that month. In May of the same year the tide began to turn with the appearance of the Sopwith Camel, the Spad, the two-gun Nieuport, and the Bristol Fighter (a deadly two-seater), flown by men like William Avery “Billy” Bishop, George Madon, René Fonck, and Edward “Mick” Mannock. The last year of the war was to be a struggle between the improved Spads, Camels, and SE-5s and the Fokker (the triplane until late spring 1918 and the D-7 thereafter).

One of the most interesting of Norman’s 19 chapters is entitled “Squadrons Elite.” Here the author tells the story of such crack British outfits as 56 Squadron, which included such names as Albert Ball (44 victories), James McCudden (57 victories), A. P. F. Rys-Davids (22 victories), George Bowman (32 victories), R. A. Mayberry (32 victories), and R. T. Hoidge (27 victories); and 40 Squadron, led by such aces as Mick Mannock (73 victories), Cecil Lewis, and C. R. MacKenzie. The comparable German organizations include Jagdgeschwader I (the Richthofen Circus); Jagdgeschwader II, led for a time by Rudolf Berthold (a 44-victory ace); and Jagdgeschwader III, commanded by Bruno Loerzer, a close friend of Hermann Goering and a 41-victory ace. A separate chapter entitled “Les Cigognes” devoted to the famed French Groupe de Chasse No. 12, known to the Americans as “The Storks.” Commanded by Captain Felix Brocard and manned by such individuals as Georges Guynemer (53 kills) and Fonck (the top Allied ace of the war with 75 victories), this unit was, indeed, distinguished. Still other chapters take up the story of the Lafayette Escadrille and the Lafayette Flying Corps.

Four chapters dealing with the German attempt to bomb England are entitled “Monsters in the Sky,” “Gott Strafe England,” “Captain Strasser’s Crusade,” and “Wings Across the Channel.” The Germans, who were far ahead of everyone else in the science of lighter-than-air construction at the beginning of the war, refused to accept the general belief that the future lay with the heavier-than-air. Their Zeppelins (and other types usually included in the same generic class) were employed chiefly in night attacks on England. Actually the Zeppelins inflicted few casualties and caused little property damage. Their effect was on morale and measured by absenteeism from factories and some drops in the production of war material. The Gotha bomber raids on England late in the war were far more effective than the Zeppelin strikes. Although Norman gives us little in these chapters that cannot be found in such studies as John R. Cuneo’s Winged Mars: The German Air Weapon, 1870-1914 (1942), Kenneth Poolman’s Zeppelins Against London (1961), and Ernest Dudley’s Monsters of the Purple Twilight (1960), he does do a better job of relating bombardment to the total air picture.

In the chapter “A Red Eagle Falling,” which investigates the death of Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the author accepts the view that the great German ace was shot down by Canadian Captain Roy Brown. Over the years most fighter pilots and ex-fighter pilots—this reviewer included—have tended to support the Roy Brown thesis. However, a growing number of buffs have championed the theory that the “Red Baron” was killed by ground fire.³

Norman has attempted, with some success, to integrate the land operations with the air war, but his efforts are seriously handicapped by failure to provide even a single map. The average reader does not know the geography of northern France that well.

Although the dust jacket of the book describes The Great Air War as a “comprehensive account,” the author omits entirely the Italian theater of operations. No Italian aircraft is listed in the appendix, “Aircraft of World War I.” Certainly the three-engine Caproni bomber, one of the most advanced bombing planes of the war, should have been included. Nothing is said of Count Gianni Caproni, who may have influenced the strategic thinking of such individuals as Colonels R. C. Bolling and Edgar S. Gorrell of the American Air Service.⁴ Several bombing raids launched from Italian bases were worthy of note. For example, on 17 July 1918 no less than 53 Caproni bombers and 100 pursuit planes inflicted heavy damage on the big Austrian naval base at Pola, across the Adriatic some 60 miles south of Trieste. The author missed another interesting story when he failed to investigate the red-tape-cutting activities of Captain Fiorello H. LaGuardia, of the American Air Service, in Italy during the last year of the war.⁵

Even though The Great Air War is more than just another book on the glamorous air aces, Norman does reserve some of his finest phrases for them:

They fought their aerial tournaments with a romantic intensity unknown since the disappearance of the medieval knight. Later generations look back and think of them almost as we see knights of Camelot. Their names—Richthofen, Immelmann, Boelcke, Guynemer, Fonck, Nungesser, Garros, Bishop, Ball, Mannock, Rickenbacker, Luke, and many others—conjure images of immaculate valor, comparable to that of Launcelot or Gawain. (From the Preface of the book)

Indeed, the author handles both bombardment and pursuit with skill and understanding. But, like so many others who have attempted to tell the story of the 1914-18 air war, he does little with aerial observation work. The dedicated and hard-working reconnaissance pilot appears in the picture only when he becomes a victim of the dashing Udets, Richthofens, and Rickenbackers. There can be little doubt the observation crews served as important a role in the final outcome of the war as did the pursuit pilot. In fact, in the view of Major General Mason M. Patrick, Chief of the Air Service, “the work of the observer and the observation pilot is the most important and far-reaching which the air service operating with an army is called upon to perform.”⁶

Norman’s research seems to be based almost entirely upon published works, most of them secondary. His bibliography is extensive but does not include such vital primary sources as the Gorrell Collection in the National Archives or the rich resources in the Air Force Historical Division Archives. He has used an occasional footnote, but on the whole his documentation is inadequate for the serious student of the air war.

In general, The Great Air War is an accurate account, but there are a few errors that should be noted. Major Raoul Lufbery did not command the American Air Service’s 94th Aero Squadron, nor did Captain James Norman Hall. (p. 507) Lufbery, a recent transfer from the Lafayette Escadrille and a multiple ace, was acting as Officer in Charge of Instruction at the time of his tragic death on 19 May 1918. Hall, also a transfer from the Lafayette Escadrille and the future coauthor of Mutiny on the Bounty, became a prisoner of war on 7 May 1918 when his Nieuport shed its upper wing in a dogfight over the Toul-St. Mihiel sector.

Norman’s statement that Lufbery scored his 16th and 17th victories while flying with the American 94th Aero Squadron is also in error. True, Lufbery claimed the destruction of an enemy plane on 12 April while flying with the American squadron, but no confirmation could be obtained. All his official victories came while flying with the French. His fellow pilots insist that he actually shot down more than 40 German planes, a claim substantiated by entries in Nieuport 124 Journal de Marche, but only 17 were ever confirmed.

The author indicates (p. 489) that Captain James Miller, Commander of the American 95th Aero Squadron, was shot down while flying an unarmed Nieuport. It is true both the 94th and 95th Aero Squadrons were flying unarmed planes in March 1918; but when Miller was shot down, he was flying a fully armed Spad, borrowed from a nearby French squadron. On that flight he was accompanied not by French instructors but by Majors Davenport Johnson and Millard Harmon (both of whom would become general officers in World War II).

Lieutenant David Putnam was acting commander of the American 139th Aero Squadron, not the 134th as indicated by the author. (p. 311) Furthermore, the 12-victory ace (descendant of General Israel Putnam of Revolutionary War fame) was killed in a fight with eight Fokker D-7s on 12 September 1918, the first day of the St. Mihiel campaign, not 13 September as stated.

Norman describes the American-built Liberty engine as “much-publicized” but “quite inferior” (p. 487) and states that “few more than five thousand” were delivered. (p. 6) Actually, most authorities insist that the Liberty engine was one of the few real contributions made by the Americans to the war effort. Colonel Gorrell, in his book The Measure of America’s War Aeronautical Effort, stated that no less than 13,574 Liberty engines were produced and 60,000 more were on order by the United States and the Allies.⁷

The author mistakenly states that General Billy Mitchell achieved “overall command of American Aviation in France” some six weeks before the Armistice. (p. 497) General Patrick commanded all Air Service Forces in the AEF during the last several months of the war. Mitchell was the operational commander of the squadrons at the front. In his discussion of the St. Mihiel campaign, Norman gives altogether too much credit to Allied air power perhaps relying too heavily upon Mitchell’s Memoirs of World War I. Because of the heavy rain, high wind, and low clouds experienced on 12-13 September, the air units were able to get only a few planes into the air at any one time, and Mitchell’s grand plan of striking each flank of the salient with mass formations was never carried out. Although individual pilots and observers showed great courage and persistence, the air effort was, for the most part, ineffective on the first two days of the offensive. Only on 14 September was the weather conducive to large formation flying, and by that date the salient had been all but neutralized.

Norman gives the impression (p. 493) that the 253 bombers and 110 fighters which took part in the great raid on German troop concentrations at Damvillers-Wavrille on 9 October 1918 were American. True, General Mitchell organized the strike, but no American bombers were involved. Elements of the American 1st Day Bombardment Group did hit targets near the front lines during the day.

Frank Luke, the Arizona “balloon buster,” was officially credited with 18 victories, not 21. This, of course, is an easy mistake to make, since some lists do give Luke a total of 21 kills on his way to the Medal of Honor. One source, Major Harold Hartney, who was commander of the 1st Pursuit Group, states in his book Up and At ’Em (1940) that Luke should have been credited with at least 10 more victories than were confirmed.

Students of Latin American history may be startled to learn that Alvaro Obregon was President of Mexico in 1913. (p. 264) It is true that Obregon headed one of the Mexican armies at that time, and Didier Masson (later of Lafayette Escadrille) probably constituted his entire air force. Obregon did not become President of Mexico until 1 December 1920.

The name of French General Charles Lanrezac is spelled “Laurezac” at one place in the narrative. (p. 63) This is probably no more than a proofreading slip, since his name is spelled correctly later on the same page and also in the index. 

In spite of these shortcomings, Aaron Norman has given us an interesting and worthwhile book. Both the general reader and the serious student of military history will find The Great Air War useful. It certainly belongs on our bookshelves, along with Quentin Reynolds’s They Fought for the Sky, Arch Whitehouse’s Years of the War Birds, Herbert M. Mason’s The Lafayette Escadrille, and Walter Musciano’s Eagles of the Black Cross.

University of Arkansas

Notes

1. USAF Historical Study No. 124, The Teaching of Military History in Colleges and Universities of the United States (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Research Studies Institute, USAF Historical Division, 1955), p. 12.

2. Ibid.

3. Captain Frank R. McGuire, “Who Killed von Richthofen?” Cross and Cockado Journal, IV, 159-66.

4. J. L. Boone Atkinson, “Italian Influence on the Origins of the American Concept of Strategic Bombardment,” Airpower Historian, IV (July 1957), 141-49.

5. Maurer Maurer, “Flying with Fiorello: The U.S. Air Service in Italy, l9l7-1918,” Airpower Historian, XI (October 1964), 113-18.

6. Final Report of Chief of Air Service, A.E.F. (Washing­ton: Government Printing Office, 1921).

7. Edgar S. Gorrell, The Measure of America’s War Aeronautical Effort (Northfield, Vermont: Norwich University Press, 1940, pp. 69-71.  

Contributor

Dr. James  J. Hudson (Ph.D., University of California) is Professor of History and Assistant Dean of the Graduate School, University of Arkansas. He is former Chairman, Western Civilization Department, University of Arkansas, and visiting professor at Henderson State College. During World War II he served as a fighter pilot with the 350th Fighter Group in the Mediterranean Theater, flying 191 missions in P-39 and P-47 aircraft. He presently holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve. Dr. Hudson is author of Hostile Skies: A Combat History of the American Air Service in World War I (1968) and has published numerous articles and book reviews in professional journals.