Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy. Elmer Haslett
the war between the United States and Germany had not ended and below me was the enemy. I was conscious of something within calling me to “Do my duty!” I did. The bullets began to sing at the rate of six hundred per minute, and my tracer bullets did not betray me. They were finding their mark. Measured by the standard that an Ace is one who gets five or more Boche, I became an Ace in a day—and also the first American Ace. However, strangely enough, when my friends to-day ask me, “How many boche did you get?” I can truthfully say, “Between seventy-five and a hundred,” but when they say, “How many boche planes did you shoot down?” I have to renig for I am not an Ace.
I was quite certain that my assumed reputation of “hardboiled” would be justified by this day’s performance. The mechanics took a just pride in the holes in our plane and patched them over, as was the custom, with miniature Iron Crosses, showing the date of the puncture. The next morning I noticed myself being pointed out by several officers of the squadron and this gave me the rather satisfactory feeling commonly described by the English as “cocky.”
Brereton had nothing whatever to say about the mission but Captain “Deac” Saunders said “Bully,” and called me “Hardboiled,” but my reputation lasted only two days, four hours and twenty minutes, for the Group Commander threw ice-cold water over everything by saying that he considered it very poor work, that it had no military value and that it only encouraged reprisals on the part of the Hun who would soon do the same thing. So, I was temporarily classed as bone-headed, and a “dud” and was in dutch all round. There was one little spark of encouragement in a remark that Brereton made, which got to me through the medium of a friend, and it took away the sting of the Group Commander’s criticism, for to me the only boss I had was Brereton, and what he said was law. The adverse remarks of the Group Commander hurt at the time, I admit, but when Brereton said he did not exactly agree with him that the mission had no military value, and also several months later, when this type of mission had so developed that we had special squadrons in the Saint Mihiel and Argonne offensives that did nothing but this particular type of work, I was happy indeed. Later, all types of planes were ordered to fire at troops on the ground when their assigned missions were completed, and the opportunity presented itself.
Shortly after this mission, Henderson, who was the Operations Officer under Captain Saunders, the Chief Observer, left for the aerial gunnery school in the south of France, with three other observers, to take a month’s course in firing and then return to the Front. This left the much coveted position of Operations Officer open and, of course, everyone was wondering to whom it would fall. It was the biggest job in the squadron next to the Commanding Officer and the Chief Observer, and since the Operations Officer dealt directly with the observers I was mighty anxious to find out who my new boss would be, so that I could make it a point to get along with him.
That night Saunders came around and called me out of a little game we were having—I thought perhaps I was scheduled to go on a special mission of some kind, but there was a surprise, undreamed of, awaiting me.
“Haslett,” he said, “Henderson is going to Caseaux to-morrow and I have recommended you to Brereton for appointment as Operations Officer. He kicks like the devil that you haven’t had much experience, but he likes that mission you got away with and thinks you are ‘hardboiled,’ so he may come across. He is going to decide before breakfast to-morrow.”
I could not believe what he had said and humbly asked him to repeat it all over from the beginning. I slept very little that night, for to me this was the biggest thing in the world, it would clearly indicate that I had made good and that my stay at the front was assured.
The announcement on the bulletin board the next morning was signed by Charley Wade, the best Squadron Adjutant I have ever seen, and stated that I had been detailed as Acting Operations Officer. I was the happiest lad in the world. I don’t believe any success I can ever achieve will make me as happy as I was when I read that order. The first thing I did was to consult Brereton and Saunders as to how they wanted it operated. Brereton gave me no dope whatever, except “to run it as I darn pleased and if it did not please him he would soon get some one who would.”
Thus I started. As new pilots reported I always took them over the lines for the initial trip. Saunders asked me to do this for he felt that I was either absolutely worthless or extraordinarily good. If I was worthless there would be no loss if the green pilot killed me, and if on my part, I succeeded in getting the pilot back safe, it would be wonderful training for the pilot. Some logic, I reasoned—thus my job of official breaker-in of new pilots. I say “breaker” for a new pilot coming to the front must be broken in just the same as a horse has to be broken for riding or driving. It is equally true in both cases that the first ride is the worst.
We had one boy who had been with us since the formation of the squadron, but who had been sick and was unable to fly. His name was Phil Schnurr, a young lieutenant from Detroit, Michigan. Phil did not get his first trip over the Front until some time around the first of June. Of course, I was the goat and took him across. It was not new for me as he was about the sixth I had broken in.
I emphasized to him that in my experience over the lines among other things I had found that the best way to get away from the “archies” was to dive when they got near you for the reason that it was much easier for the “archies” to correct deflection than it was for them to correct range. Whatever that means, it’s all right. Phil knew.
I decided that we would call on a battery and adjust the artillery on an enemy battery in a woods close by, which was causing our troops considerable trouble, so I explained to Phil just what we would do, going largely into detail.
The plane was a little shaky even at the take off, and I decided right away that Phil was not quite in the class with Rickenbacker, but I attributed the cause to his natural nervousness, which would soon wear off. After calling our battery by wireless for several minutes they finally put out their panels and we immediately went over to look for the hostile battery that had been reported the same day. I found it and we just started to cross the lines to go back into France when Fritz played one of his favorite tricks. The Germans allow the observation plane to cross the line and come in for not more than three or four kilometers, then when you turn to come out, having followed you all the time with their range finders, they suddenly open up with all their anti-aircraft artillery and generally catch you in their bracket at the first salvo. You are bracketed when they have fired the first shots—one above, one below and one on each side of you. It is not a pleasant position in which to be caught. But they did more than that to us—they not only bracketed us, but one shot got us right under the tail and when Phil heard that burst, known commonly as “Aviator’s Lullaby,” which is the most rasping and exasperating noise it is possible to imagine, he remembered my admonition to dive if they got close, so just as the tail went up from the force of the concussion of the shell directly below us, Phil pushed forward for all he was worth on the control stick. The sudden jarring of the plane from the explosion and the more abrupt dive, released the throttle, throwing the motor into full speed. And with one mighty jerk like the sudden release of a taut rubber band, all three forces working in the same direction, and aided by the flyer’s greatest enemy, Newton’s law of gravity, that A.R. omnibus started straight down in one terrible dive. Poor old Phil was thrown completely out of the pilot’s seat and was only saved from going headlong into the open air by his head striking the upper wing of the plane, which knocked him back into the seat, dazed and practically unconscious. The “hardboiled” observer in the back seat did not have a belt, for my famous A.R. plane was not equipped with them. I went completely out of the cockpit and in that brief second I had one of the rarest thoughts I have ever had—I was sure I was going to be killed and I regretted that it was in such a manner, for it was, indeed, unfortunate that I should be killed in an airplane accident when I might have died fighting in combat—there, at least, I would have had an equal chance with the enemy. As I shot out of that cockpit with the speed that a bullet leaves the barrel of a gun, my foot caught on the wire directly underneath the rim of the cockpit. With superhuman effort doubled by the intuitive hope of self-preservation, I grabbed the top gun which in those days was mounted on the top of the upper plane. Backward I fell. For a moment I was completely free of the airplane, in midair; as I fell my chin hit the outward pointing muzzle of the machine gun; I threw my arms forward and closed