Aviation and the Bigger Picture

[Graeme]

Spot on, Hugh. 7 Sqn was equipped with the RE8 from July 1917 through to December 1919 (according to "The Squadrons of the Royal Air Force" by James J Halley).

Graeme

[Vigilant]

Nice bit of research, Hugh. Most interesting. (I wonder what the poor chap in the back seat thought as his pilot dove down through the smoke and shot yet again!)

On the subject of contact patrols I think it is instructive that 'pure' contact flying was still an important task right at the end of the war. By 'pure' I mean locating the position of troops. A lot of books confuse contact patrol with ground attack - whereas they seem to have remained fairly distinct tasks. On the British side 2-seaters generally flew contact, while single seaters did ground attack.

As for how effective they were - God knows. But I suppose some information coming through the fog of war to the rear was a lot better than none.

I'd be interested to hear how the Germans came up with their CL-type concept. How did the CL planes fit in with the ground troops? Were they used in defensive battles?

Vigilant

I think Vigilant's got it: RFC/RAF contact patrols were better than nothing. Not much, though. Most of the memoirs I've read don't have much positive to say about the job. And it's not necessarily the violent attention it drew (though that was obviously a factor). But the systems designed for contact patrols almost never worked the way they were intended. Soldiers dumped their reflective panels as soon as they got into No Man's Land, or the cloth panels were chewed up by artillery fire or buried in mud. In the smoke, flares were almost invisible. And the systems of identification broke down so that while pilots could see troops, they had no idea which units they were seeing.

And, of course, by the time the information was delivered to observation posts from which it could be reported by telephone to the various HQs, it was out of date.

My opinion is that no offensive in WWI was subject to any meaningful degree of direction from the rear once the troops had left their trenches. Of course, I'm one of those who holds that, magnificently as the airmen of WWI did their jobs, ultimately they didn't have all that important an effect on the conduct of the war.

Other than dictating the actual rhythms of day-to-day experience, that is.