On this Day (WWI aviation news)

[PJ Fisher]

Bleriot Ho Ho!

[PJ Fisher]

Lone German Aviator Bombs Dunkirk on Christmas Day... with Christmas Cards
Frohe Weihnachten!
(from the Evening Tribune, 4 January 1915):

[PJ Fisher]

American Aviatrix Attempts to Enlist
Katherine Stinson, who received brief mention here three days back, headlines today with her wish to join the war and fight over the front. Stinson began flying in 1912 when she was just fifteen years old. She was the fourth female pilot licensed in the U.S. As an international exhibition flyer (billed as the 'Flying Schoolgirl' and 'America's Sweetheart of the Air') she is said to have looped-the-loop 500 times. Despite her experience and enthusiasm, the U.S. government maintained its ban on women flying in combat (which would not be lifted until 1991). Stinson instead left for Paris and joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver.
(from the Lodi Sentinel, 28 December 1917):

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[PJ Fisher]

High-Altitude Affects Airmen
Here's an early report on impact of altitude on fighter pilot performance
(from the Daily Republican, 28 December 1918):

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[PJ Fisher]

Navy's Secret Nancy Outed
In recent weeks we've read of two giants that were flying during the war but were too late to the party to see front-line action: Britain's Handley Page V/1500, and Germany's DFW R.II. On this day in 1918, the world was introduced to America's giant Curtiss NC-class aircraft.  It may not seem as big, but the 'Nancy' shared the same 126-foot wingspan as the 'Super Handley' (the DFW's was 115ft).

As hinted here, just two weeks after the armistice NC-1 set a record by flying with fifty-one people aboard.  Who knows where they sat.  In May 1919, three of the first four NC's set out to cross the Atlantic. The plane pictured here didn't make it; neither did NC-3... though it did water-taxi the last 200 miles of high seas to the Azores. But NC-4 did - earning the distinction of being the first plane to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.  It survives to this day (image below from the NASM website).
(from the Sunday Star, 29 December 1918):

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[PJ Fisher]

Night Owls and Monsters
(from the Washington Times, 30 December 1917):


 

[PJ Fisher]

Castle's Monkey Bar
Where better a joint is there on the Western Front to ring in the new year of 1917?  Where else in the world can you be served imported hooch by a trained-monkey bartender while getting blotto alongside the godfather of 1910s 'social influencers'?  Vernon Castle, an Englishman living in America, had inherently more swagger than any Royal Flying Corps officer's swagger stick could imbue. He learned to fly in 1915, then immediately volunteered for the the RFC. He reputedly flew 300 combat missions [seems like a lot], felled two hostile planes, and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre (War Cross) for heroism. 

But Castle was renowned well before that.  He and his ballroom-dance-partner wife, Irene Castle, were nationally famous social trendsetters.  They toured America and introduced the latest dance crazes.  They were the original Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (in fact, that couple starred in a biopic of the Castles in 1939).  The Castles were also patrons of African-American culture; among other fad dances, they codified and popularized the foxtrot, the most enduring dance of the jazz era.  It's only natural that Vernon Castle would bring that party atmosphere with him to the war.  Too bad he never got his lion.
(from the Clarksburg Sunday Telegraph, 31 December 1916):

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Sidebar:  Based in New York, Vernon Castle's other 'partner' was the pioneering black bandleader and composer James Reese Europe, who was the among the very first black musicians to make records, including blues and jazz tunes (all before 1920). Interestingly, Europe also joined the war, enlisting in the all-black 'Harlem Hellfighters' infantry regiment, which fought on the front lines France.  There, Europe formed a regimental band and is credited with having introduced jazz to France.  Europe is largely forgotten today, partly because his career was tragically cut short when he was stabbed in the neck by his own drummer during the intermission of a performance in 1919, and because the records he made were shellacked using the Pathé system, which cannot be played on conventional phonographs.  Thankfully in the late 1990s someone invented a machine that could digitize Europe's old records. For your listening pleasure, here's a 1919 recording of Europe's song, 'On Patrol in No Man's Land', which he penned in hospital while recovering from a gas attack, and which he recorded just weeks before his death:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzc2SxA4rbc

Check out forum member pietro's scratch-built Curtiss JN-4 Canuck, which is similar to the one photographed behind Castle above:  https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=5995.msg108595#msg108595

[PJ Fisher]

Lone London Raider Repelled
With the war less than half a year old, even the sight of a single hostile airplane was apparently enough to draw thousands of people to witness the fireworks on Christmas Day, 1915.
(from the Dakota Farmer's Leader, 1 January 1915):

[PJ Fisher]

Germany's First Blue Max Strikes Again?
This wire from the Western Front identifies the German victor of this aerial battle as 'Lieutenant Ingelmann'. As we've learned, the press frequently mistranslated in those days... assuming this aviator is actually Max Immelmann, this story could relate to his combat over Valenciennes from two weeks prior, on 15 December 1915, when he downed a French-built Morane Parasol in British service (3rd Squadron; serial 5087; manned by 2nd Lt. Alan Victor Hobbs and Captain Charles Edward Tudor-Jones).  If factual, then this seventh victory (the article notes he had six previous) would be the combat that made Immelmann Germany's leading ace, ahead of Oswald Boelcke.  He would be awarded the Pour le Mérite just ten days after the publication of this article.
(from the Albuquerque Morning Journal, 2 January 1916):

[PJ Fisher]

Invisible Aeroplanes
Here's a blurb on early German experiments in 'stealth' technology. 
(from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3 January 1916):



More details on these developments along with a few photos of a cellon-surfaced Fokker can be found here: https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/german-stealth-aircraft-wwi/

[PJ Fisher]

Lost and Found
Two conflicting reports from the same page of the same newspaper alert us first of the death but then of the recovery of Flt Lt Francis E T Hewlett, who participated in the legendary Christmas Day Cuxhaven Raid (more on that later this week) but was presumed dead after having disappeared over the North Sea on the return trip.  Hewlett has an interesting back story because he was taught to fly by... his mom.

In 1911, Hilda Beatrice Hewlett (shown below alongside a B.E.2c) was the first British woman to earn a pilot's license.  She taught her son Francis later that year.  Alongside Gustave Blondeau, Hewlett also operated Britain's first flying school, at Brooklands, where T.O.M. Sopwith was a pupil.  The two also created the aircraft manufacturing business, Hewlett & Blondeau Ltd., which built Farmans, Caudrons and Hanriots under licence.  Just three months ago, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigstone opened the RAF's Hilda B Hewlett Centre for Innovation, named in her honour. 

Following his lost-at-sea rescue, Francis Hewlett went on to earn a Distinguished Service Order. 
(from the Alaska Citizen, 4 January 1915)

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[PJ Fisher]

Frontline Fisticuffs for Fallen Fighter
Some crazy stories originating from the eastern front today.
(from the Montreal Gazette, 5 January 1915):

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[PJ Fisher]

Cuxhaven Weihnachtsangriff
The Royal Navy's Christmas Day aerial raid on Germany's Kaiserliche Marine became major news across Britain immediately after the event was made public.  The story was still reverberating in the far reaches of the Empire on this day nearly a week after New Years, 1915.  Nine various early Short Folders set forth from the seaplane tenders HMS Engadine, Riviera, and Empress.  Seven completed the mission; six came back.  The final Folder, Short 135, fell into the North Sea due to engine trouble; though, as we know from two headlines ago, all aviators ultimately returned without casualty. Much like the Doolittle Raid of WWII that was also hampered by compromise, the Cuxhaven mission's strategic impact was nominal (they did not hit the Zeppelin sheds they were initially targeting), though it majorly boosted public morale and it promulgated the potential for ship-borne aircraft to impact naval strategy.  A virtual boatload of imagery depicting the raid circulated in the press over subsequent months, imbuing a sort of legendary aura that persists somewhat today.  Some of the more fanciful interpretations are included below.  All said, the raid was of novel historic significance.  In 1915, Flight magazine noted"

"The Cuxhaven raid marks the first employment of the seaplanes of the Naval Air Service in an attack on the enemy's harbours from the sea, and, apart altogether from the results achieved, is an occasion of historical moment. Not only so, but for the first time in history a naval attack has been delivered simultaneously above, on, and from below the surface of the water."

(from the Sydney Mail, 6 January 1915):

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I mean, who wouldn't want to enlist in the RNAS or at least build a model airplane after seeing all this drama? 
P.S. To anyone curious as to the whereabouts of the newly christened HMS Ark Royal (the first purpose-designed seaplane carrier) - being just a fortnight old, it was already being kitted for its voyage to the Dardanelles in support of the coming Gallipoli campaign.  Its flock included two more Short Folders, a handful of Sopwiths, and two Wight Improved Navy Planes (the subject of my latest scratch build project).  More on their story in future headlines!

[PJ Fisher]

Bring Me the Head of 'Captain Kettle'!
What other British aviator more deserved the prestige of having a bounty on his head than future Air Commodore Charles Rumney Samson, C.M.G., D.S.O., A.F.C., R.N.?  Though he never attained 'ace' status, Samson exemplified that generation's spirit of pluck and innovation which makes studying WW1 aviation so fascinating.  When it comes to making history, the guy got the job done. 

In 1911, he was one of the first four officers selected for pilot training by the Royal Navy, earning Royal Aero Club aviator's certificate, no. 71, on 25 April after only six weeks of flying.  He was the first person to fly an aircraft from a moving ship.  He helped establish the first naval flying station (at Eastchurch).  He was a pioneer in aerial wireless communication, bomb dropping and night flying.  Sampson led the flight at the historic Spithead Royal Review in the summer of 1914 (reported here back in August).  After the fall of Antwerp and the recall of some British forces to England, Samson reportedly used 'the slightest appearance of fog as an excuse not to cross the channel'.  He then went to command the first British armoured vehicles used in combat and led the successful raid on the Zeppelin sheds at Dusseldorf.  He dropped Britain's first 500lb bomb (flying a French pusher) and other uncanny field-improvised ordinance during the Dardanelles campaign.  In his 1928 book 'The War in the Air', author H.A. Jones recalled how Sampson bombed an enemy submarine to no avail then returned to attack it with his rifle. 

No wonder the Germans were offering £1,000 (nearly $160k today) for Samson's demise.  But they never caught 'Captain Kettle' (named after the fictional 'master of fortune' action character in a popular series of short stories by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne), and Samson went on to perform further feats.  Evidently British naval brass wasn't particularly fond of Samson either as he was called on the carpet more than once over various criticisms... but that's news for another day.
(from the Anderson Intelligencer, 7 January 1915):



More on Samson's terrestrial exploits via wikipedia:

"In the late summer of 1914, with too few aircraft at his disposal, Samson instead had his men patrol the French and Belgian countryside in the privately owned cars some of them had taken to war. The first patrol comprised two cars, nine men, and one machine gun. Inspired by the success of the Belgians' experience of armoured cars, Samson had two RNAS cars, a Mercedes and a Rolls-Royce, armoured. These vehicles had only partial protection, with a single machine gun firing backwards, and were the first British armoured vehicles to see action. Within a month most of Samson's cars had been armed and some armoured. These were joined by further cars which had been armoured in Britain with hardened steel plates at Royal Navy workshops. The force was also equipped with some trucks which had been armoured and equipped with loopholes so that the Royal Marines carried in them could fire their rifles in safety. This was the start of the RNAS Armoured Car Section."

Check out forum member jknaus' build of the Meng 1/35 scale Rolls Royce armored car:  https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=10187.msg185338#msg185338

[PJ Fisher]

False ID Fail
With dubious early-war reporting like this, no wonder ground troops fired at any airplane... friend or foe.
(from Popular Mechanics, January 1915):