RFC support at battle of Cambrai

[delta]

Being an ignorant pongo,until recently, I thought that RFC support to the tank attack was only recce and noise to drown out tank movements; I now understand that there were sorties in direct support of the fighting.

Can some-one point me in the direction of any history - showing who did what , when and where the supporting aircraft were based?

[Dolphin]

Delta

You might like to look at:

Volume IV of The War in the Air (the British Official History) by H A Jones - this contains the RFC's Order of Battle;

Volume VIII The Australian Flying Corps, of the Australian Official History by F M Cutlack - in particular Chapter XIV (the AOH is on-line at http://awm.gov.au/histories/index.asp);

A Brief History of the Royal Flying Corps in World War I by Ralph Barker;

Tumult in the Clouds by Nigel Steel & Peter Hart;

The Airman's War by Peter Liddle;

No Parachute and Open Cockpit by Arthur Gould Lee (a first hand account).

I hope this helps.

Gareth

[Old Tom]

Hello,

I don't think any WW1 aeroplane carried weapons to engage tanks unless the machine gun is considered effective. In any case the Germans did not use many tanks. One of the function of aeroplanes was to report the position of ground troops including tanks. Such missions were called contact patrols. Sometime the pilot could sound a klaxon using morse to request troops on the ground to identify themselves. I don't thin a tank crew would hear a klaxon,

Old Tom

[yellow]

I think the RFC actually bombed some of the German positions.

An interesting fact is that aircraft engine noise was used to drown out the engines of the tanks themselves.............clever dont you think?

Steve.

[Borden Battery]

Here is a selection from Professor Syd Wise and his work the The Official History of the Royal Canadian Airforce, Volume 1 which contains some material on air support for Allied tanks during the Battle of Cambrai. This is a detailed, high quality reference text for any student of the RFC/RAF and RCAF.

Regards

- Borden Battery

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Close air support was so successful in this operation that only thirty-seven of the 190 tanks [Allied] employed in the assault received direct hits. This unprecedentedly small casualty figure might have been even lower if the morning fog had not lifted gradually from the west, thus giving the anti-tank gunners a golden opportunity to engage their targets for the few minutes that they themselves remained invisible to the British close support machines!

The three fighting squadrons - Nos 3, 56, and 60 - which had been allocated to additional ground-attack roles sent their machines off in pairs at half-hourly intervals during the time that flying was possible. 'A series of low bombing and ground attacks were carried out ... in and around Bapaume. In the evening Sailly dump on the Bapaume-Peronne road was bombed and machine-gunned, and [enemy gun] activity or vital ground targets were to transmit their target locations by wireless telegraphy (Morse) to the C I B, which would immediately re-transmit the information by wireless telephone (voice transmission) to the appropriate artillery battery or fighter squadron headquarters. The original observer of the target was also to fire a red Very flare in order to attract any other British aircraft which might be already in the vicinity. A constant flow of information was ensured by instructing all artillery and contact patrols to make a routine call to the CHB every half hour. If a call was not made on schedule it could be assumed that the machine was for some reason no longer operational and a replacement was to be promptly dispatched.'

A direct wireless link between tanks and aircraft had for some time been recognized as the best solution to communications problems. As the events of July and August had shown, however, contemporary wireless telephony equipment was impractical for such an operational task. Although tests proved that it was possible for tanks to receive messages clearly in Morse from aircraft at 2500 feet altitude and 9000 yards away, the supply of wireless telegraphy sets for the allied armies had already been allotted to the end of the year. None were available for this new requirement. Consequently, communication between tanks and aircraft remained tenuous and irregular and was largely restricted to written messages dropped at tank brigade and battalion level and at pre-selected rallying points. 5

The essence of the new approach was the co-ordination of the various arms in a series of attacks based on the operational and tactical concepts of fluidity and of reinforcing success rather than failure. This form of warfare embodied all the fundamental principles, materials, and technology of the 'blitzkrieg' which so astonished the world in 1939 and 1940, first in Poland and then in France. From the experience of Amiens the allied commanders had now devised ways - not a moment too soon - to pull all arms together. The new techniques were not to be fairly tested upon their first application, however. The dawn attack on 21 August was launched, as so often on the Western Front, through a thick fog. The entire RAF flew only twenty-five reconnaissances and forty-five contact and counterattack patrols during the day; on the Third Army front no flying was possible until I 100 hrs, when the first contact patrol of 8 Squadron, piloted by Lieutenant A. Grundy of Merritt, BC, reported that the attack was developing successfully. On a counter-anti-tank gun sortie flown by 8 Squadron, Lieutenant F.A. Whittall of Westmount, Que., was also able to silence two enemy guns that were firing on British tanks. Driving off an enemy aircraft which was attacking another of the Armstrong-Whitworths, Whittall and his observer then engaged and silenced a third gun which was firing on two Whippet tanks. However, the bulk of the counter-anti-tank gun patrols were flown by the newcomers of 73 Squadron, out to prove their worth.'

The tank attack was restricted to the area between Bucquoy and Moyenneville, since the ground south of this frontage was unsuitable for tank action. No 73's first patrol, five strong and led by Captain W.H. Hubbard of Toronto,* attacked gun

Hubbard's wingman was R.N. Chandler, a young Londoner who was to be awarded a DFC for his work in the last three months of the war. Chandler emigrated to Canada in the early postwar years and joined the R C A F in 1940. He retired in 1946 with the rank of wing commander.

SOURCE: Canadian Airmen and the First World War - S. F. Wise

University of Toronto Press, 1981

Pp 544-545

[stan]

This was also the battle where the AFC squadrons dropped supplies of Ammo to the front lines using a system of small parachutes and double-bagged ammo containers.

[Paul Hederer]

No Parachute, by A.G. Lee (alrerady mentioned) is a great account of the intensity of the air support efforts at Cambrai.

Correct me if I'm wrong (been awhile since I've read it) but I believe Lee was shot down twice at Cambrai during the battle.

Here is a good general description:

"...Fuller had coordinated three elements into his battle plan: an improved artillery system, massed tanks (over 320), and coordinated ground attack by 300 aircraft from fourteen RFC squadrons. The planes attacked trenches, supply convoys, artillery emplacements and other front line installations.

They were highly effective, at times even saving the tanks from being pinned down. But the cost to the airmen was high. The German infantry had learned how to fight back against low flying aircraft, and once air reinforcements arrived the loss rate of ground attack aircraft was as high as 30 percent of aircraft deployed. Entire squadrons were wiped out in less than a week."

Paul

[Dolphin]

Correct me if I'm wrong (been awhile since I've read it) but I believe Lee was shot down twice at Cambrai during the battle.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Paul

You are correct. Capt A S G Lee of No 46 Sqn RFC was shot down while flying Camel B2457 on 22 November 1917 - the aeroplane was captured, but Lee made it back to the British side of the lines - and in Camel B6405 on 26 November.

There's an interesting comment on the ground forces' perception of the role of the RFC in Maurice Baring's Flying Corps Headquarters 1914-1918: "One day - the 25th - at No 46 Sqn, a pilot who was sitting next to me at luncheon, said that he had made a forced landing among the infantry the day Bourlon Wood was taken. It was practically taken by the co-operation of tanks and aeroplanes. 'I suppose you're pleased with us today,' the pilot said. 'Oh! Are our machines up?' the infantryman asked. 'They credit us with all sorts of superhuman things we don't do, and they at the same time ask us to do the impossible'."

Regards

Gareth

[delta]

Have just realised that, whilst i had read all the replies, I had failed to acknowledge the help from all above

My sincere apologies and many thanx for your help

Stephen

[stan]

Here's an interesting pic of one of the parachutes used for dropping ammo, that I spoke of earlier.

[Borden Battery]

A search through some of these old videos will show ammunition being dropped by parachute.

Borden Battery

The National Film Board WW1 Film Project

The NFB continue a program to digitize Canadian films from WW1. The only downside is having to use my least favourite media player, RealPlayer. However, the images have a haunting impact on the viewer.

http://www.nfb.ca/ww1/