Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy. Elmer Haslett
out the problems of adjustment of artillery fire on moving targets by airplanes—a question of prime importance in warfare of movement.
This officer during the course of his service at the Front not only contributed exceptionally distinguished personal services over the lines and as an operations officer but he also contributed ideas and suggestions of considerable value in the development of Air tactics and Air strategy, and as I have mentioned before he had the proud record of successfully executing every mission which he undertook during his entire service at the Front with the single exception of the mission he was on when he was shot down by superior enemy forces.
With entire frankness Major Haslett has told the story of how he succeeded in getting an assignment as an observer and in later getting duty with Colonel Brereton’s squadron at the Front. And by his own account he has shown with equal frankness that he had no hesitation in overcoming obstacles to this accomplishment by any means that came to hand. Perhaps some of the fastidious may find something to criticize in this. But Major Haslett’s all-impelling motive was to serve his country by meeting his country’s enemies on the battlefield. And it was this same all-impelling motive which gave inspiration to the personnel of the American Air Service, which brought to the Air Service proud achievement and dauntless courage in action. Service against the enemy is a good soldier’s ambition. This motive carried Major Haslett to the very front rank of all American observers, and gave him the adventure of which he tells in “Luck on the Wing.”
William Mitchell,
Brigadier-General United States Army.
Washington,
Feb. 24, 1920.
LUCK ON THE WING
I
BEGINNER’S LUCK
We had been up with the French Squadron for about three weeks and it had rained every day or something else had happened to prevent flying. We had a wonderful social time, but our flying had been so postponed that I actually began to think that the French did not want us to fly, probably lacking confidence in our ability, so, one day I walked up to the Captain and by means of his imperfect English and my perfectly inelegant French we managed to perfect some close, cordial and personal liaison. I told him that we appreciated the long, drawn-out dinners and the very excellent quality and quantity of the red wine and the white wine, but that actually we came up to take our first trips over the line and learn a little about observation. He shrugged his shoulders and said that he felt quite sure that we would be there for three or four months and that there was absolutely no hurry. I told him he did not know the American Army, for while I would admit that we had not shown much speed up to the present time in getting squadrons on the Front, or in the manufacture of our ten thousand airplanes a month, or our five thousand Liberty Motors, at the same time, somewhere, someplace, somehow, someday, we were going to make a start and that I was quite positive that we were not going to have any observers unless the French got busy and trained some for us, and that in my mind we would be leaving mighty soon and it might look sort of suspicious on paper if we had been with the squadron a month and had never taken a trip over the lines.
This sort of impressed the Captain and dear, old fellow that he was, he immediately ordered “Mon Lieutenant Dillard,” who was his Operations Officer, to arrange for me to accompany the next mission over the lines, as a protection. This was scheduled for the next day. A French Lieutenant by the name of Jones was to do an adjustment of a battery of 155’s, and I was to accompany him in another plane to protect him from any attack by German airplanes.
That night we played Bridge until midnight, whereupon we all shook hands, as is the French custom, and departed for our various billets. My Bridge had been rotten—my mind was on a different kind of bridge: How was I to bridge that next day—What did it hold? The night was chilly as the devil and as I picked my way in the darkness I could hear very plainly the rumble of guns and could see the artillery flashes very clearly, although the front was twenty kilometers away. I began to think about my first trip over the lines that was soon to come. I was mentally lower than a snake. I hadn’t prayed for some time and I was just wondering whether or not I would pray that night. My solemn idea of prayer was that it was an emergency measure. I was always reverently thankful to the Maker for His blessings, but He knew that for He must have known my mind. I believed that God helped him who helped himself, but when the question was too big for man to control, then it was the time to invoke the help of the Supreme Being. I was inclined to think this case was only a duty of war in which man should help himself. So, I had decided that I would go ahead and handle it as a man to man proposition, reserving invocation for a more serious situation, but as I was getting pretty close to my billet I heard a sudden noise that gave me a real thrill—a big cat jumped out of a box and ran directly in front of me. It was too dark, of course, to tell the color of that cat, but the condition of my mind convinced me that it could be no other color than black and that it was an omen that bad luck was sure to come my way. When that cat ran in front of me my Man theory was gone, absolutely; I knew quite well that I was going to pray.
I lay abed for fully three hours, going over in detail every piece of the machine gun, what I was to do in case of a jam of the machine gun, and what I was to do in case of stoppage of the gun. I was trying to picture in my mind silhouettes of the different German airplanes that had been on the wall at school, and which I, to my regret, had not studied. Then I remembered reading stories of how poor boys were shot down, and most of them on their first flight, and I thought of airplane accidents and I thought of my girl. In fact, I had such a variety of thoughts that when I finally dozed off, that quasi sleep was a nightmare, and when from nervous and physical exhaustion about three-thirty o’clock in the morning I reached the point where I was really sleeping, I was suddenly shaken, and, of course, I jumped as if branded by a hot poker. It was my French orderly telling me it was time to get up to make my flight. I first realized the truth of that little saying, “There is always somebody taking the joy out of life.” He was crying, “Mon lieutenant! Mon lieutenant! Il est temps de se lever,” which is French for “It is time to get up.” I had a notion to direct him to present my compliments to the Captain and to tell him that I was indisposed that morning but I couldn’t speak French well enough to express myself, so, there was only one thing to do and that was to make a stab at it. I dressed and took my nice, new flying clothes which I received at Paris, and hobbled the kilometre and a half out to the field. The crews were already there and also the other flying personnel. Of course, I put on a sickly smile as if to help things along, but honestly there wasn’t much warmth in my hand-shake. The Frenchmen were all excited, standing around a telephone in the hangar and I found out from one of them who spoke English, that they were trying to get the balloon to find out about the visibility. This pleased me for my feet were already chilling and I was as strong as horseradish for each moment’s delay. In a few moments the Lieutenant put the receiver on the telephone and with some sort of an ejaculation I saw the face of Lieutenant Jones, who was to do the adjustment, assume a very dejected attitude, for while these Frenchmen are the strongest people in the world for lying abed in the morning, yet they certainly hate to have their trouble in rising come to naught by reason of impossibility to perform the mission assigned and in this case I found that the visibility was “mauvais,” or “no good.” So, we just hung around.
In a few moments one of the enlisted men came up to me and saluted me smartly, and mumbled a lot of stuff about “voulez vous” something, “voulez vous” being all I could understand, so I beckoned one of the Lieutenants who spoke a little English and he asked me if I wanted a “Raelt Saeul” or “ordinary open sight.” I had never had a course in aerial gunnery and I did not know the difference; in fact, my experience in machine guns consisted of two lectures by a guy who didn’t know much about it, at Fort Sill, the dismantling of one gun and about an hour and six minutes in an open firing butt at Amanty, France. I was afraid “Raelt Saeul” would be something technical, in which case I would certainly demonstrate my ignorance, and to my dazed mind “open sight” certainly sounded frank and on-the-square, so, of course, I just shrugged my shoulders and pointed as if I were perfectly familiar with both but under the circumstances I