FEAR

Apologies if this has been discussed ad nauseam.
Various aces we know were fearful; had various obsessions and paranoia.
Questions:
1 Were there any without fear?
2 Did such fearlessness have any disadvantages?

Peter S

[mike_baram]

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared."* - Edward Rickenbacker
I think Captain Eddie had the right answer....courage is the ability to overcome your fear and act when it's necessary.
Someone who is literally "fearless" usually either gets killed, or gets someone else killed.
That ain't courage, that's stupidity.

[Darryl]

Hello all,

I agree wholeheartedly with Mike.

I do think that there were a few "without fear" but it depends on WHEN and for how long we are talking about. Albert Ball seemingly was one but he was, at least by the end, out of his little tree house IMHO. Fear affects different people differently. There is the nagging dread that hangs around in the background and is quite easily overcome in moments of need. Then there is the paralysing terror which strikes some people in moments of stress. Military training is as much about countering this as anything. There is a story of a young rifleman at Xa Long Tan who could be heard reciting his rifle drill as he mechanically raised his head into the firestorm every few seconds and fired. (he was later killed).

The thing is that in the 'thick of it' fight or flight reflexes take over and very few would have had time to be scared. If it were me I think the worst time for fear would have been running up the engine before take off.

Motive plus opportunity!

Once you are in the air, eyes everywhere at once, freezing, nauseous, on edge, I don't think you have much time to be frightened. But if you did stop to think about it, you were probably dead. Many stories of 'green' pilots flying straight and level when attacked, paralysed with fear, have emerged from the two big ones, plus I suspect others this century.

Too busy most of the time in the air, too drunk most of the time on the ground is how most coped I think. Perhaps that is why old teetotal Albert (who was one of the greatest) found it difficult to stay 'normal' (whatever that is when placed under those circumstances!)

Most of the 'without fear' crowd spent a LOT of their time in the air, every opportunity in fact, excessively some might say. I think this was their way of coping with the 'fear'.

Just my demented Sunday morning ramblings, Mass was booked out......

Darryl

Thank you Mike for the reasoned reply but with respect (everybody uses that word when they are going to disagree) the question wasn't about courage; it was about fear.
There were Aces, I use the term advisedly who somehow thought they were immune to other peoples bullets. Cecil Lewis says so in his book and this presumably gave him more confidence. I think this also applied to Willie Coppens until he was wounded. How that would have affected him I don't know because he didn't fly again before the Armistice.
Regards
Peter S

Darryl
I don't think they were ramblings and I'm sorry Mass was booked out.
I agree that A.B. might have been without fear in the beginning and that his nerves were jangled at the end. "I'm feeling rather pooh! pooh!" I think were the words he used in his letter.
The question was about Aces and not green flyers. Your point about training to get an automatic response that overcomes fear is very true.
To return to the question did McCudden have any fear? He certainly had a healthy respect for his own skin and caution was his watchword but he does not mention fear in his book. He refers only to his lack of a sporting instinct as time went on.
Bishop (this should bring in Al) doesn't seem to have been troubled by it but then he never spent a great deal of time at the front when shooting down most of the German Air force.He did his killing in a wonderfully short time.
Yeates certainly suffered from it and his fear is marvellously expressed in the description of following his "Fearless Flight Commander."
If anybody was fearless, it might have been MacLaren. My only evidence is again 'Winged Victory'
Barker is a case in point that he spent all his time in the air? Wasn't the reason here that he wanted to be Number one. I don't know if he suffered from fear or his ambition overcame it.
It's 4a.m. here and sleep is impossible.
VBR
Peter S

[Darryl]

Peter,

Mac I would say had plenty of fear. He was a not,I believe, as a rule, popular with his men (although most would have followed him to hell and back). Part of this would have been his 'common' background. Starting as an Ack would not have sat well with some of the 'landed gentry'. But a lot of it I believe is for the same reason as Ball. He was aloof, probably a little crazy, but above all a cold, calculating tactician. His very scientific approach would indicate to me that the man suffered fear.

Much of our fear is based on the unknown. Most terminally ill people don't go crazy. I believe this is because of the certainty, at least of the dying, (after that, now that is what makes people fearful). However people who are waiting for results are quite often in a shocking state...uncertainty.

Now all this *does* have a point. I think Mac's idea, at least subconciously, was analyse it, identify it, remove uncertainty...fear gone..QED.

People of this mindset are given to lack a certain amount of tolerance to those who aren't. Mac certainly wasn't seen as obnoxious in this regard, in fact he was a patient and caring teacher. But several things I have read indicate that he didn't suffer fools gladly.

Bishop I am no expert on but I think he may have been one of those truly rare individuals who didn't often suffer fear.

Barker, yes, i think the one is tied very closely with the other. If you are the best have you anything to fear? Therefore by trying to be the best, that drive, you block a lot of your fear.

It all such an intangible thing and fear is relative. Who hasn't had their heart race because they are late for work or an appointment? Hardly world shattering, but at that moment, distressing nontheless

BTW, don't fret too much about Mass they wouldn't recognise me anyway*G*

regards

Darryl
.

[stephen]

The two pilots who immediately came to mind when inquiring about fearlessness were Ball and Luke. Ball, if he had any fear, masked it with courage. Perhaps Ball's meticulous manner with his airplane was a thin disguise for something that could be be called fear. Or at least respect for fate - terms that must somehow overlap.

Luke, who most assuredly had little if any understanding of the concept, hadn't been at the game long enough to develop a good, healthy poop-in-the-undies fear of death. And its too bad. He was brave, as the citations say, above and beyond the call. And he seemed to have no respect for his own mortality.

Someone better versed on Germans could, I'm sure, come up with excellent Central powers examples, but a good case could be made for the two mentioned above.

[Barrett]

"Fearless" is a vastly overused adjective; all normal humans feel fear to various extents for various reasons. I recall reading a comment by a retired Israeli infantry officer that he had known one truly fearless soldier, a great fighter, but an unsatisfactory human being and marginal leader because he set an unrealistically high standard.
Of the hundreds of combat aviators I've known, and the dozens I've known well, only Marion Carl may have approached real fearlessness. In large part I think it was supreme confidence--in the 25 years I knew Marion, I never had the feeling that he felt he might die in an airplane. And of course he didn't, though he'd admit that he probably should have! As noted previously, in the absence of fear there's no courage.
Another Guadalcanal veteran, a retired 3-star admiral, made a telling point. He said that courage is often commensurate to how much food, sleep, and rest an individual has had in a given period. "Just because a man is brave one day doesn't mean he'll be brave tomorrow." Marion felt that over the long run, about 25% of aviators retained their combat effectiveness.

I appreciate this discussion. Here is my two cents:
I vote for Frank Luke. However, he appears fearless but he also
gives many indications of being self-destructive
if not suicidal. Fearlessness is a quality
but Luke's example may not be commendable.

[Vin]

Fear is the emotion experienced in the face of impending evil. All pilots faced impending death. All pilots experienced fear. Unless a pilot was incapable of experiencing emotion then he experienced fear. Other than in films, there was no such thing as a fearless pilot. As to how a pilot was able to function in the emotion of fear, well, you cannot go past what Darryl and Barrett have suggested

So, Peter

1. No
2. Not applicable.

For Darryl, even Dermot Brereton has admitted to fear on the field.


Vin