Morrie's Years in the Great War

In the summer of 1914, an aviator flying a Wright Model B biplane offered rides at the State Fair. Morrie flew as a passenger a dozen times that day, using up all of his liquid cash. Being in the air caused Morrie to have an irrepressible grin; he couldn’t help it, and he didn’t even mind the bugs in his teeth. The pilot told him of the Army’s Aviation school at North Island, San Diego, California, that had been developed only a couple of years prior after moving from College Park, Maryland. The Army needed a flight school that could fly year-round, and not suffer from bad weather. Southern California provided this, while the winter weather in Maryland did not.

He enlisted in the Army the next morning. Basic Training was in Camp Beauregard, so Morrie was spared the effects of the economic panic that occurred in Louisiana in late 1914 as the war overseas depressed markets. Throughout his training, he tried to be the model soldier. He felt he needed to be, in order to be considered to go to Aviation school. But his first assignment was as an MP at Fort Beauregard. He chafed, but did his duty. But that didn’t stop him from talking to his commanding officer about becoming a pilot.

Under what must have felt like a barrage of requests, his commanding officer managed to get him the transfer he so desperately desired, and he was shipped off to San Diego to become a military aviator, at Rockwell Field. He did everything he could to make the grade, and learned quickly, flying both the Curtiss Model E, and Model G. He still grinned uncontrollably every time he took off. He loved flying. That feeling as the wings bit into the air and the airframe shoved him upward made him giddy. His wish was for larger fuel tanks, so he could stay in the air longer. Landing was always a kind of disappointment.

In 1915, he volunteered to go overseas and help the Allies against the Germans. The US hadn’t entered the Great War yet; there hadn’t been an agreement made between France, Britain, and the United States that the US could agree to. But Morrie felt the need to do his part, and it would give him plenty of flying time. So his superiors provided him with a passport, and after some back and forth negotiations with the British military, sent him as an auxiliary in the British Army.

February 23, 1915 was a grey, overcast day as the steamer went up the Thames towards London. There were trees along the banks, but Morrie, standing at the starboard railing, could see the grey, smoke-stained buildings of the city behind them. The air was tinged with coal soot, it’s sharp, acrid scent biting in Morrie’s nostrils was almost a welcome relief from the horse dung and urine smell that pervaded the city. His gloved fingers tapped impatiently on the railing as it steamed up the Thames towards the wharves.

As exciting as it was to finally be in Europe, and on his way to the Royal Flying Corps to fight in the Great War, Morrie hated packing. But after fifteen days on board the steamer, he was ready to leave. He packed his few things quickly, leaving his duffel on the bed until the HMS Victoria was docked. He checked himself in the mirror, standing at attention in his dress olives and peaked visor cap. His tanned, young face, clean-shaven but for a thin mustache, looked back at him, a rakish, lopsided smile breaking out despite his military training.

It took another half hour before the mooring lines were tied off and the ship was moored to Royal Albert Dock. The gangways followed soon after, and the passengers began to file off. Under the tread of dozens of feet, Morrie could feel the gangway flexing under the oscillating weight of the debarking passengers. As he made his way down the gangway, his duffel over his shoulder, he could see a British soldier wearing the olive tunic and khaki drill breeches of the Royal Flying Corps holding a sign that had “LT. MAURICE BROOKFIELD” in hand-written, block capital letters.

Morrie stepped out of the line of passengers, and saluted the soldier. It also appeared that his transfer to the Royal Flying Corps involved a promotion. As it turned out, all pilots were lieutenants, and all pilots-in-training- were 2nd lieutenants.  “Maurice Brookfield, reporting for duty!” he stated.

“Very good, sir,” replied the soldier, “Come with me.” He turned sharply and strode down the dock. Morrie hurried his pace to walk just behind the Brit. Their pace was quick, quite a bit faster than the milling civilian passengers who appeared, in contrast, to be merely dawdling. Morrie looked at the man, who was of average height, with a lean build and short brown hair. On his shoulders were his rank insignia, designating him as a 2nd Lieutenant.

“What’s your name, Leftenant?” he asked, remembering to use the British pronunciation.

“Braxton, sir,” came the reply.

“Nice to meet you, Lt. Braxton. It’s good to finally be here.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“Where are we headed?” Morrie asked. They were approaching a gate, crowded with people leaving the Port of London and entering the city proper. He could see several horse drawn carriages, with a scattering of automobiles amongst them. A motorbus drove by, tall and bright red, the top level crowded with passengers, some gawking, some with their faces buried in the day’s newspaper.

“We will be going to Farnborough Airfield. That’s in Hampshire, sir.” Braxton could see the confusion on Morrie’s face. “Hampshire is southwest of here. It’s a two hour drive.”

The pair reached the street, turned left, and walked about fifty yards before Lt. Braxton stopped in front of a black, hardtop sedan. The driver got out, came around the car to the sidewalk, and stood at attention. He was a cadet in the RFC, likely sent to escort 2nd Lieutenant Braxton. He opened the rear door, and indicated for Morrie to give him the duffel. After Morrie had done so, the driver stowed it in the boot at the rear of the car. The two other soldiers got in, Morrie in back, and Braxton in the passenger seat.

The driver got in, and they were off. London was a bustling town, the streets filled with all manner of vehicles, from horse-drawn carriages of various kinds to automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians, and the occasional motorbus and trolley car. As Lt. Braxton had estimated, it took about two hours before the grassy field and scattered buildings showed that they had arrived. As Morrie watched, an Avro 504 biplane rolled down the field, pitched up, and was airborne, climbing into the cloudy sky with the whiny buzzing of its Gnome Lambda rotary engine.

Reporting to his superior officer, Captain Jack Higgins, he learned that he was going to be assigned to the No. 10 Squadron, stationed there at Farnborough. It was a training squadron, formed to create skilled pilots. Lt. Brookfield was to be a teacher.

He was surprised, to say the least. While he was good at being a pilot, he actually hadn’t been flying for very long, and to be put in the position of pilot trainer wasn’t something that he had expected. Their need for pilots must have been great, indeed.

At the end of the “interview” with Capt. Higgins, he saluted, turned smartly, and, following his first orders in his new assignment, left the headquarters building and got himself established in the officer’s quarters he was assigned to. It was late afternoon, and he was scheduled to get familiar with the Avro 504 biplane the next morning.

After morning chow, he was met by Lt. George Taylor, the pilot who had been tasked to get Morrie up to speed on the unfamiliar aircraft. “Hello, Leftenant,” he said. “I’m here to make sure you don’t crash our planes.” Taylor’s grin belied his words.

“I’ll do my best to not damage them too much,” Morrie replied.

Lt. Taylor brow dipped in concentration. “Where are you from, Leftenant?”

“Nawlins,” Morrie replied, then seeing confusion spread across Taylor’s face, clarified by enunciating clearly, “New Orleans,” in the best non-New Orleans accent he could manage.

“Ah! You are from the south part of the colonies, then!”

“Yes,” the American answered, and continued, “from the southern part of the United States of America.”

Taylor’s grin widened, as did Morrie’s. “And call me Morrie, unless you need formality. I’m not used to the new rank, yet.” Taylor nodded, and Morrie asked, “How about yourself? Where do you come from?”

“I grew up in Coventry. My folks still live there, although I moved to Birmingham a few weeks before I joined the Army. Didn’t even get to fully unpack, which is convenient, I suppose.”

Lt. Taylor was a handsome, young man of probably 19 years. Clean shaven, he had dark, almost black hair and brown eyes, and walked with what Morrie was to associate as a pilot’s swagger. “Let me show you the plane,” he said, turning to leave the mess hall. He had on a leather and wool pilot’s jacket over his pilot’s uniform, and, taking his aviators’ helmet and goggles from under his arm where he had been carrying it, put it on his head.

The pair strode out into the morning sunshine, which came and went with the motion of the scattered cumulus clouds that dotted the sky. The airfield was a bright green field of grass. A row of planes was lined up on one side, by the hangars that protected them from the weather when not in flight.

The Avro 504 was a biplane, painted green and red, with the British rondel painted on the wings and fuselage. Between the wheels of the front landing gear was a single ski-like skid. A Foster-mounted Lewis light machine gun was mounted in the center of the top wing. The Foster mount was a rail that allowed the pilot to slide the gun down to where he could reload the ammunition drum, then slide it back up onto the top of the wing. Guns mounted on the fuselage in front of the pilot had a tendency to shoot up the propeller, as the British didn’t have synchronization gearing until 1916. So if they wanted guns on the planes, they had to be mounted using makeshift methods.

Taylor led Morrie over to the first plane in the line. “You’ll be flying this one this morning,” he pointed out, “if you want to call it that. You’ll be mostly just taxiing around, getting used to the controls.” He and Morrie walked around the airframe, with Taylor pointing out the various features. Most of those Morrie was familiar with, since biplanes shared a great deal of features with other biplanes. Then they got to the cockpit, and Morrie was shown the instruments and controls. Also, fairly familiar. Taylor then went over some of the flight characteristics that Morrie would be experiencing, how the controls felt, and how responsive the plane was to pilot control.

“I’ll be flying that one, over there, when we later get up into the air,” Taylor pointed to the next plane in line. “Why don’t you get in, and we’ll taxi around a bit.”

Morrie nodded, put on his own helmet and goggles, and boarded the plane. Taylor had him taxi up and down the aerodrome field, giving Morrie a feel for the way the stick handled, how the rudder turned the plane, and how the block tube and fine adjustment levers function. Those two adjacent levers controlled the fuel/air mix; too lean, and the engine cuts out, too rich, and the engine stops. Many pilots had lost their lives in training because they hadn’t paid enough attention to those levers.

Lt. Taylor, once satisfied that his charge wasn’t going to stall the engine before ever taking off, allowed Morrie to try a few short airborne hops. It took all of Morrie’s patience to not pull back on the stick and just…fly! But he put his impatience to be in the air in a box, gritted his teeth, and followed Taylor’s orders. Short hops at very low altitude. But it was necessary, he realized. The plane had a tendency on takeoff to roll to the left, due to the spinning radial engine, and this, combined with the distractions of the fuel mix levers, made for some tricky training hops. But he figured it out to Taylor’s satisfaction, and relatively quickly. After all, he was a trained pilot, not a cadet. He got used to the controls, and by the afternoon they refueled his plane, and he was able to actually make an actual flight.

During the next week, he received instruction and guidance from several pilots: Lt. Tedder, Lt. Harris, Lt. McCudden, and, of course, Lt. Taylor. Collectively, they made sure he knew what he was going to have to teach to the pilot-cadets. He flew every day, letting the Avro 504 seep into his soul and muscle memory. By the end of that week, he felt ready to instruct new pilots-in-training.

From March to July, 1915, he taught hundreds of pilots how to fly. But flight was in its infancy, and it was still very, very dangerous. Several pilots lost their lives in training, a tragedy that affected everyone on base very deeply. The instructors, because they felt responsible, the airmen, because the dead had been friends and companions, and of course the other pilots, because it could have been them. And might yet be. But the pilots that survived the training period went off to become parts of other squadrons, mostly headed to France, to fight the Huns.

In late July of 1915, the No. 10 Squadron was deployed to Saint-Omer, France. They weren’t trainers anymore; they were to support the troops on the front lines. A headquarters was established, and while most Royal Flying Corps squadrons passed through the headquarters, they moved on to other bases along the Western Front. No. 10 Squadron, however, stayed.

He no longer flew a trainer; the Avro had been a good plane in 1914, but it was not sufficient for combat use any longer. Instead, the squadron was outfitted with Bristol Scouts and RAF B.E.2s. The Scouts, originally designed as a racing plane, were armed with a Lewis machine gun mounted on a swivel on the left side, near the cockpit. The trick was to fire it at such an angle as to avoid shooting the propeller. The B.E.2s were reconnaissance aircraft and light bombers, and were two-seaters. They were adequate for recon missions, but were outclassed in combat by the Fokker Eindecker monoplane, which was causing some major losses due to the fact that it had synchronization gear for its machine gun, making it a much more effective fighter plane.

The missions were not explicitly combative; they were primarily reconnaissance, artillery support, and surveillance. While the pilots did carry a pistol, they were also armed with binoculars, cameras, and radios. Morrie spent quite a few missions assessing artillery strikes, correcting them when necessary, and scouting out enemy positions and movement. Every once in a while, German planes would be spotted, and there would be some dogfights. He got his first confirmed kill on April 13, 1916.

In September of that same year, the squadron got some Bristol Scout D’s, armed with the new synchronized Vickers machine gun. While heavier than the Lewis light machine gun, the Vickers gun was both more reliable and powerful, and easier to synchronize with the propeller. By November, he had shot down another German plane; it had been on a reconnaissance mission. In March of 1917, the squadron received some Bristol Type 22 (F2) aircraft, and he started to fly in those. It was a two-seater, with the observer behind the pilot. Of course, Morrie was never the observer. When it came to flying, he was the one who liked to be in control of the plane. It was a reconnaissance aircraft that doubled as a fighter; it had a powerful Rolls Royce inline engine, a Vickers synchronized machine gun mounted on the fuselage, and a Lewis light machine gun in the observer’s seat, attached to a pintle mounting.

And he had a knack for getting the plane out of rough situations. He always seemed to see the enemy before they saw him, and if he couldn’t shoot them down quickly, he was able to somehow get out of most of the dogfights when he had to. The other pilots called it luck. Morrie would just shrug, and let them call it what they will. Whatever it was, there was no shortage of observer crewmen who wanted to fly with him. He got a reputation for flying defensively.

He awoke on April 9th 1917, at dawn, as he usually did. Stretching, he swung his legs out of the bed. He was grateful he actually had a bed, and a room to himself, being a Lieutenant. The airmen who serviced the planes didn’t rate their own quarters, or even a solid roof over their heads. They were in tents, on cots.

It bothered Morrie that there was such a barrier due to class. Although he supposed it was better than just discriminating on skin color alone, like they did in the States. He shook his head. He knew quite a few Creoles and Negroes, and they seemed just as capable as any white man. His mother had never told him that Negroes were inferior, but he did pick that idea up from other schoolchildren and people in the community. Those comments that he had heard didn’t really correspond with what he experienced, however.

But it didn’t matter, here. There were no Coloreds in the No. 10 Squadron. He had seen a few pass through Saint-Omer, on their way to other aerodromes scattered throughout France, but none had stayed. He ignored the thoughts as best he could, dressed, and went to the officers’ mess for breakfast.

He met up with Harold Carmichael, one of his observers, and who was also a friend. “Hey, Harry,” he greeted.

“Morning, Morrie,” Harry replied, indicating an empty seat at his table. “Get some eggs and have a seat.”

Morrie nodded, went to the chow line, and was served some breakfast by the cook, a lovely local lady by the name of Molly. He didn’t know her last name, but she had a cute smile and long curly hair, tied up on her head in braids. He smiled at her as she scooped eggs and bacon onto his plate. “Thanks, Molly,” he said. The thoughts of taking a tumble with her flitted through his head—again—and he pushed them aside, again. The last thing he needed was to get in trouble with the locals!

He made his way through the tables back to where Harry sat, along with two other pilots: Lt. Denis Murray and Capt. Edward Norris. He set his plate down, and sat in the chair Harry had pulled out for him. “Morning, fellas,” he greeted the trio. He got a series of replies.

“When are you guys scheduled to go up?” he asked, before shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth.

“Same as you and Harry,” replied Norris. “Take off at 8 am. Supporting the Poor Bloody Infantry at Arras.”

“Wait, supporting them? As in close air support?” That came as a surprise. Last night’s briefing only mentioned aerial reconnaissance.

“Ah, sorry mate. I meant recon. It still supports them, though.”

“Well, yeah. Sorry, it’s early.”

Harry laughed. “No excuse. You’re up this early every day!”

“Shut up and let me drink my coffee.”

Denis spoke up. “Barbarian. Civilized folk drink tea.” He held up his cup a moment, before taking a sip.

“That’s me, a barbarian. Tea just doesn’t cut it.”

The aircrews were busy outside on the green field, getting the planes ready for the morning sortie. It was a bustle of motion: lorries drove men and materials from storage buildings to the planes and back; airmen wielding wrenches and pliers swarmed over the planes; wheeled cradles full of bombs were being moved from plane to plane, supplying the airmen with ordinance to load onto hard points. The flapping of the Union Jack could be heard, and the windsocks placed strategically around the airfield snapped in the gusts of wind, giving an indication of wind speed and direction. Which was necessary, as the planes required a headwind to get airborne.

He slipped his aviator’s helmet and goggles on his head, and pulled on his gloves. It was a chill morning, springtime, but only barely. His Bristol Type 22 F2A was practically brand new, just arrived from Britain last month. It didn’t even have any bullet holes in the fabric yet. Of all of the month old new planes, his was the only one that he knew of in the squadron that hadn’t felt the bite of lead. Yet. The Allies were starting a new offensive though, and flight operations were stepping up for it.

Engines were starting, and Morrie could hear the cries of “Contact!” as propellers were spun. As he climbed into the pilot’s seat, Harry followed him, climbing into the observer’s seat behind him. Morrie glanced at the instruments, doing a preflight check. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Harry adjusting his mounted camera, radio, and binoculars, stowing them out of the way before checking to make sure the Scarff ring-mounted Lewis gun was loaded and ready. Morrie checked the forward machine gun: loaded and working according to specifications.

Plane ready, he lowered his goggles and fired up the ignition, calling “Contact!” to the airman at the propeller, who yanked down on it, jumping back out of the way as it caught and fired to life. The smell of burnt oil flooded back out of the exhaust ports, and the biplane trundled out onto the airfield. He made his way towards the downwind side of the field as pair after pair of aircraft took off, heading into the wind. At the end of the field, he spun the plane, lining it up against the wind, and waited while the plane in front of him accelerated, rotated up, and became airborne.

Grinning, as he did every time he was taking off, he shifted the engine from idle to full power, and sped down the grassy runway. Soon the air pressed the plane upwards like a hand under each wing, and he was in the bright blue cloudless sky.

He formed up in formation with the squadron as they circled the field, waiting for all of the planes to become airborne. When they had all reached altitude, the formation turned southeast, towards Arras and the Front. They had been assigned to support the First Army, led by General Henry Horne; that army was to attack the northern part of the eleven mile offensive front. The plan was to bombard the enemy for a week or so to soften them up, then advance.

In the distance, Morrie could see columns of smoke, rising into the air. The shelling had started. Soon it wasn’t columns, but a wall of black and grey smoke. Planes peeled off from the formation, to take up station in their assigned areas, to watch and report on enemy movement and activity. Harry was peering down with binoculars, occasionally snapping pictures with the camera, and chattering into the radio as he discovered things.

Morrie spent the time putting the plane into a lazy figure eight course over his assigned area, his eyes sharp as he kept on a lookout for enemy aircraft. They were bound to be coming in sooner or later. He frequently used his thumb to eclipse the sun so he could check if there were any Huns up there. They liked diving out of the sun. It was effective. So Morrie did what he could to prevent them from surprising him, all the while remaining at a relatively low altitude so Harry could take pictures.

To the south, he thought he saw some flashes of goldenrod that could have been German biplanes, but he couldn’t be sure since they were so far away. In any case, they weren’t anywhere near him, and hopefully his RFC companions in those areas would take care of them.

Lt. Harry Carmichael was busy watching the ground, both with binoculars, and with the camera. They could see the trenches and earthworks that the Germans had constructed, and from this high of an altitude, they appeared like swarming ants.

“Morrie! Put us in a right banking turn!” called Harry, over the rush of the wind. Morrie, knowing that his observer needed a better view of something, obliged, and the biplane went into a steep-banked turn. The Bristol dropped altitude, the steep turn shedding lift quickly. Morrie snap-rolled it back into level flight, and climbed for altitude, anticipating another steep banked turn. He wasn’t disappointed; Harry called for a second turn and snapped pictures like mad, then got on the radio to describe what he had seen. Morrie kept scanning the skies, actively leaving the ground-watching to his observer copilot.

That was the extent of the action that day.

Six more days went by, in much the same way. By then, of course, the initial reports started coming in about Royal Flying Corps planes getting shot down by a seemingly unstoppable force of German twin-gunned Albatross biplanes. Sleek and streamlined, they would attack in groups, overwhelming the scattered RFC planes. Unfortunately, the RFC planes needed to be spread out, in order to surveil all they needed to surveil. One third of the active duty planes were assigned as close infantry support, so those flew in larger  groups. But the scouts couldn’t really bunch up effectively, not and fulfill their missions.

The next day, General Trenchard ordered the reconnaissance aircraft into flights of six-plane groups. These six planes were to stay close enough together to support each other if one of the six was attacked.

German tactics were defensive in nature. British and French tactics, on the other hand, had to be offensive. In many ways, this gave the Germans an advantage. They flew above their own lands, so if they had to make an emergency landing, it was fairly easy to get the plane up and flying again. If an RFC pilot had to crash land, it was in enemy territory, and they would likely become a prisoner of war. The Germans also attacked in packs of six to eight aircraft, and their Albatross D’s were superior to the majority of now-obsolete RFC airframes, both in guns and in general performance. From the pictures taken of the Albatrosses, Morrie knew that he would have loved flying one. Maybe someday. It was a sleek, beautiful plane. Too bad it was in enemy hands.

He shook his head, getting those thoughts out of it and focusing on the day’s mission. Their squadron was to provide artillery coordination in the area around Souchez, in order to drive the Huns back in a complicated series of creeping barrages. While the timetables had already been planned, the forward observers were necessary to fine tune the targeting. Most of that was his observer’s job, however.

The morning was bright, although the sky was partly cloudy, with a low layer of puffy cumulus clouds, and a higher layer of cirrus above that. He could see sun dogs on either side of the sun. He grimaced. Those cirrus clouds will make visibility difficult, especially since Fritz will likely be flying higher than they could. They had to clearly see the ground. The Germans just had to see them.

The airmen were making the final touches on his craft, but he walked all around it anyway, checking for himself. He saw nothing amiss, as usual. The aircrew were good. He climbed in; Thomas Gadd was his observer today, and he was already in his seat, checking his Lewis gun. He gave Morrie a thumbs up and smiled as Morrie got seated and strapped in. Tom was a good guy, solid, and kept his cool. Morrie liked him. A lot, actually. He was down to earth, companionable, and outgoing. A good drinking buddy who knew when to stop.

Soon they were in the air, arrowing out towards Souchez. Again the bombardment had kept going, and there was a wall of grey and black smoke on the horizon, reaching up into the sky. Even at altitude, the low rumble of the artillery was audible. Just beyond the smoke was the small town of Souchez, currently under the control of the Germans, who were using it as a fortification.

His squadron split up, spreading out a bit to cover a larger area and better coordinate the artillery strikes. But they didn’t spread out too far, per orders. Morrie kept an eye on them, too, in addition to looking for German jasta groups. “Jasta” was what the Germans called their squadrons, and came from the word “jagdstaffel”. What he feared most was seeing Baron von Richthofen’s signature red-painted aircraft. Or, worse, not seeing it. There was a thought he didn’t want to dwell on.

As usual, he started flying in figure eight patterns, covering his area and giving Tom a good view of the area. He could hear, over the engine and the wind, occasional words and snatches of sentences as Tom spoke into the radio transmitter.

Blossoms of fire and smoke and dirt erupted beneath them. “Huzzah!” Tom cried; Morrie assumed the shells landed where they had been directed. He grinned.

The grin disappeared in a flash; he had a feeling something was wrong…there! Diving upon them was a pack of six German planes. “We’ve got company!” he shouted to Tom, as he slammed the stick to the right, and pushed on the right rudder pedal, sending the Bristol into a diving right turn. He didn’t hear the machine gun bullets zing through the space he had just been in. He leveled out going the direction opposite the attackers, and climbed. He needed altitude. He could hear the chattering of the Lewis gun as Tom tried to hit the German planes as they flew past. Morrie hoped that the other members of his squadron saw the attackers, and were on their way to help.

The jasta had broken up, scattering in several directions as they reversed direction, trying to make sure that no matter where his Bristol went, at least one of the Huns would be in a position to attack. He climbed in a banking left turn, aiming to come around and face the enemy so he could get a shot at them himself. The Albatrosses flown by the Germans were on par with his Bristol, performance-wise. He did have the advantage of a gunner, though. He hoped it would be enough.

He picked out a German plane, and flew at it, his fine control of the airplane aiming the forward gun. He was glad that he didn’t have to worry about shooting his propeller. The planes neared each other, and tracers started spouting from the guns, and, although he could hear the whine as they passed, no bullets hit anything.

Tom fired his gun at the passing aircraft, and he could see the bullets rake through the wing, but the damage was too minimal to matter.

Morrie pulled up, snap-rolled into a tight left turn, and flew into a cloud, where he immediately dove to shake any pursuers. He burst out of the bottom of the cloud a moment later, and tried to reacquire the enemy positions. He could see others of his squadron in the dogfight now, so he was no longer the only target the Germans had. “Tom! Do you see them anywhere?” he shouted.

“Not yet!” Tom was trying to look in all directions at once. “Got ‘im! 2 o’clock high on the right!”

Morrie flicked a glance, saw the brownish dot, and turned in that direction. Almost as soon as he did so, he could tell that the German pilot saw him as well, and Morrie started to roll and skew the plane in order to be a harder target to hit. He could see sporadic tracers flying past the cockpit. He fired the Vickers, a short one second burst, and the plane flew past on the right. Tom fired a series of bursts as well as the two planes flew farther apart. Smoke erupted from the engine; Tom must have hit something important, but Morrie had pulled back on the stick and was already most of the way through an Immelmann turn—a climbing 180° turn with a half twist to keep the plane right side up. He needed to get the gun trained on the enemy again, but he saw that the German was in a spinning dive, and likely out of the fight.

To his left and forward, he could see one of his fellow pilots being chased by a German Albatross, the two planes jockeying for position. He turned towards the German biplane, and, as he did so, the British Sopwith Pup’s engine burst into flame, spewing a line of black smoke.

“Damn it!” Morrie swore, gritted his teeth, and began the process of trying to get behind the enemy. With any luck, it would take another second or two before they were seen by the victorious German pilot, who seemed to be following the downed British plane. But that wouldn’t last, and Morrie had to make the most of what time he had to get into position.

The enemy pilot had seen them, and started juking back and forth, occasionally rolling, trying to get Morrie off of his tail. It was a turning war, and the two pilots were pretty evenly matched. Except that Morrie had Tom, who was taking potshots at the enemy any time his plane got off angle enough for Tom to avoid hitting the propeller with his bullets. Twice Morrie saw a row of bullet holes rip through the fuselage and empennage of the Albatross, and each time the plane was forced back into line where Morrie might be able to take a shot himself.

And, finally, he got his chance, as Tom’s stream of bullets arced wide to the outside, the Albatross swung back in line, crossing Morrie’s line of fire. And Morrie took advantage, squeezing off a burst that raked down through the upper wing, through the fuselage, and out through the lower wing. Smoke erupted from the engine as it caught fire, and the Albatross flipped over and spun downward.

He looked around, trying to get a sense of situational awareness. A couple of things stood out: four of the six planes in his squadron were downed, they were over territory held by the Allies, and the four remaining German planes were retreating back to their own territory. Whether they were running out of fuel, or ammo, Morrie wasn’t sure. He turned to follow the remaining RFC airplane back to base.

Bloody April continued in that same vein. The Battle of Arras was succeeding, and territory was being taken from the Germans almost every day. But the loss of pilots and observers was tragically high. The German tactic of flying defensively allowed them to both pick the time of the engagement and to concentrate their forces. The British, on the other hand, had to support a much larger front, for a longer period of time. Even though they had superior numbers, the toll being taken by the Germans destroyed morale. In the end, the Allied forces could chalk up a victory, but at a huge cost: a quarter of the pilots of the RFC had been killed or lost in action. The Germans had shot down 245 aircraft, losing only 66 themselves.

Morrie was good at avoiding getting shot down, but wasn’t able to get another kill during Bloody April. His observers, however, managed to get five between them.

In early July, the squadron received some Sopwith Camels, a plane that required a skilled pilot. Morrie was one of those skilled pilots. The Camel had a rotary engine and relatively short wings. Effectively, the setup acted as a gyroscope: banking to the right (with the engine) was snappy and quick, and tended to drop the nose; banking to the left (against the engine), was sluggish and tended to make the nose rise. A clever pilot used this to his advantage, compensating for the physics that governed flight in this plane. And Morrie did just that, as often as he could.

The US officially, and finally, entered the war on April 6, 1917, but as they needed to train an army, didn’t arrive on the Western Front until the summer of 1918. Morrie, and his compatriots, were very glad they had finally decided to help.

In September, 1918, he got his fourth and final kill, but not before his plane took some significant damage. He limped back to the Saint-Omer aerodrome, one elevator sheared clean off, and his left wings doing their best to impersonate a sieve. Compensating for the lowered lift on the left side, and lacking fine control over pitch, he managed to land the plane on the grassy sward, even if the left side dipped, dug into the rain-softened earth, and pivoted the plane into the ground. It was a rough landing, and the plane was damaged so bad that by the time of the ceasefire in June, it still wasn’t airworthy. But he walked away from it, albeit with a limp from a gash on his thigh where one of the wooden fuselage struts splintered and tore through it. He needed 37 stitches, and a new pair of pants.

It was a cold October 3rd afternoon, mostly cloudy, and those clouds looked an angry dark grey. Rain was inevitable, and Morrie tucked his scarf into his leather flight jacket. He slipped on his gloves as he strode towards his Sopwith Camel. Thunder cracked in the distance. And he was to go flying into it.

He climbed into the cockpit, checked the controls and indicators, and checked his twin Vickers machine guns. They were in working order and fully loaded. Four Cooper bombs were loaded on the  hard points beneath the fuselage, for use against German positions. He turned on the ignition, and the airman spun the prop. The engine roared to life, spinning like a top, and spraying castor oil in a fine mist. It was the one thing he hated about the Camel…the continuous bath of castor oil. It got everywhere; he breathed it, it got in his mouth, it covered his goggles until he wiped it off with his scarf. But it was a common feature of the rotary engines. He taxied, turned into the wind, and took off, doing his best to keep his mouth closed and fighting his now-reflexive grin.

He powered upwards, arriving at the same altitude as the rest of his squadron. Their mission was to provide close infantry support for the British 25th Division, which were currently assaulting the village of Beaurevoir. The Australian 2nd Division was simultaneously attacking the village of Montbrehain.

While the Poor Bloody Infantry had managed, with the help of the Australians and Americans, to widen the breach in the Beaurevoir Line, it failed to capture the high ground just beyond it. But at least there was a breach, which allowed them to move forward and attack the German positions in the villages and the high ground beyond them.

They flew towards the conflict, keeping a wary eye on the thunderclouds, which were starting to pile up into anvil heads that towered into the sky. The sun was in the west, at their backs, and the golden light shone upon the pillars of frothy clouds that seemed to be centered on their target. Three planes dropped altitude, readying for attack runs on the German lines, while the other three held back, watching for the Luftstreiträfte. The three Royal Flying Corps planes strafed the enemy infantry positions, and dropped their bombs, the explosions sending dirt, timber, and bodies flying.

The three ground attack planes made a circle, and made another strafing run. Morrie inverted the plane, checking the position of the attacking British Infantry, then righted the plane, again scanning the skies for enemy fighters. He saw no one but the RFC in the air here. It made him nervous.

The radio chattered. It was Nigel, the lead pilot in the first ground attack trio. “Make your runs, Morrie! We’re coming up to watch your tails! Over.” True to his word, Morrie could see the three planes climbing for altitude.

He signaled his two wingmen, pointing down with his hand. The two other pilots nodded, and, as one, they dove to make their own attack runs on the fortified German positions. On his way down, he could see the British forces and their tanks creeping closer to the enemy entrenchments. A creeping bombardment would have been a better choice, but the battle had become so chaotic with the mix of Allied forces (not to mention the relative greenness of the American troops), that there was no way to plan and prepare for that tactic. He focused on his strafing run, lining up as best he could to send his streams of bullets down the length of the trench. That was difficult, since the trenches zigzagged every ten or twenty yards. The hard corners made explosions less effective. So he hoped that his four 20 pound  bombs would do some actual damage.

He heard the zing of rifle slugs whistle past his head, and he rolled the Sopwith Camel to evade and fired his machine guns. The spiraling plane turned the stream of bullets into a narrow cone, increasing the coverage of the shots and forcing the Germans to duck back into their trenches. He righted the plane, and, sighting a tower with a pair of machine guns in it, lined up for a bombing run. His hand hovered over the four switches, and he dropped two bombs at the moment he hoped would put the ordinance at the base of the tower. He pulled up, then tipped over to the right and down to begin another strafing run going back the way he came. His bombs had damaged the tower, but it was still standing, and still a threat.

He cursed. If his wingmen didn’t take it out, he would have to make another attempt with his last two bombs. Explosions from tank rounds erupted below him as he lined up to make another strafing run. He did a quick check to see if there were any enemy planes, but there were none. Only the thunderclouds, which were now overhead, and sending down rain. Soon visibility was going to be problematic, once the slanting sunlight couldn’t get under the clouds.

At the end of the run, he again pulled up, gaining altitude, and again turned the plane to start his second bombing run on that machine gun nest. The three planes of his flight were in a line, each strafing the trenches, keeping the Germans’ heads down to allow the PBI a chance to advance. But that pair of machine guns were making hash of them.

He lined up, targeting that tower. He released a bit later this time, and the two bombs struck the tower at the midway point. As he pulled up out of the bombing run he could see it toppling over, the machine guns finally silenced. He grinned, and did a quick barrel roll.

The clouds finally darkened the sun, and the rain seemed to intensify. Lightning flashed, followed almost immediately by the crashing of thunder. “Crap,” he said under his breath. He again checked around, looking for those damned enemy aircraft. He wasn’t expecting to be able to see them, and he wasn’t wrong. He didn’t see them. But he didn’t get the feeling that they were there, either, which left him confused and worried.

He got on the radio. “Nigel, lead your boys in again. Well take the cap. Over.”

“Aye,” Nigel replied. “Can’t see shit, though, in this rain. Over.”

“Tell me about it! Lousy weather to be flying in! Over.” Morrie glanced down, into the twilit valley that he was flying over.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of green. “What the hell…?” he muttered, and turned his plane, spinning it to the right. Sopwith Camels had been built to be extremely maneuverable, with about ninety percent of their total weight close to the engine. That, combined with the short wings and spinning engine, allowed it to turn on a wingtip…as long as it was a right turn. Left turns were slower and wider, so much so that most pilots who wanted to turn left, turned 270° to the right instead. Morrie was no different, and he knew that it could throw off pursuing aircraft as well. The downside was that the enemy knew about that characteristic as well, so they would typically evade to the left.

He again saw a flash of green light, coming from the forest east of Beaurevoir, on the high ground that the Allied offensive had as its primary goal. He raised the binoculars to his eyes, but couldn’t see much in the dimness, even with the increasing number of lightning flashes. He flew in a wide arc, keeping the area where the green lights had been seen just off his right wingtip, waiting for the next flash of green, should there be one.

He wasn’t disappointed. There it was again, the green light, flickering, but this time lasting longer than just a flash. Binoculars up to his eyes again, he peered through them, acquiring the target.

“Jesus!” he cried, dropping the binoculars as he put both hands on the stick and turned to the right. He lined up the plane, aiming at a mass of writhing green limbs, and opened fire, the tracers guiding his hand as he sprayed the area with bullets. As he flew over the small clearing in the woods, he saw a group of human figures diving for cover and…something…bathed in a flickering green light that seemed to cast no shadows. He pulled back on the stick, rising at a steep pitch, and, as his plane slowed, spun it on its right wing and dived back down, guns blazing, aimed at the glowing green monstrosity that shouldn’t exist. Bullets slammed through the thing, dug into the dirt, and sparked off of the slab of stone that lay in the middle of the clearing. The robed figures ran into the forest, trying to avoid the machine gun fire. The green light disappeared in a flash, taking whatever it was that was in it with it.

The robed figures had vanished into the woods; even if it had been full daylight, he wouldn’t have been able to find them through the canopy of trees. He circled around the area once more, just to be sure that whatever it was didn’t come back. There was a naked human figure, sprawled half on, half off of the stone slab, covered in a dark substance that could only have been blood.

He keyed the microphone on the radio. “This is Morrie. I just saw…something. A green light, on the rise east of Beaurevoir. Did anyone else see it? Over.”

He got a chorus of “No,” “Nope,” and “See what?” No one else had seen any green lights.

“Damn it,” he swore again. As this was a ground attack mission, no camera had been installed on the plane, so all he had were the memories of the incident. He spoke over the radio, “I saw a clearing with some kind of…religious ritual taking place…some kind of human sacrifice on an altar.” He paused, trying to decide whether to tell his compatriots about the thing he saw in the light, and decided against it. He didn’t need to be sent off to some asylum; he didn’t have shell shock. “I disrupted it with my guns, and they dispersed. Over.”

He could see one of his flight’s planes approaching on a vector from the direction of the town, and as it got close, he gestured down towards the clearing. The pair circled it, both pilots examining the site as best they could from several hundred feet up.

“Morrie,” Captain Cecil Faber said, over the radio, “That sacrifice looks like a woman, over.”

“Yeah, I thought that’s what it looked like. But I wanted a second pair of eyes on this, so I am not considered crazy, over.”

“Christ Almighty! What the hell was going on here? Over!”

“I don’t really know, sir. I saw a green light, and something in that light, but there is no evidence of any of that there now. Over.”

The light was increasing; the clouds were starting to break apart, and the lightning and thunder had ceased. The storm was lessening.

Odd, thought Morrie. That storm looked pretty major, and it’s breaking up already?

He shrugged, noticed that their fuel was getting low, and Capt. Faber ordered the flight to head back to the St.-Omer Aerodrome.

His after action report mentioned the ritual, and the sacrifice, but he kept the green light and the Thing out of it. Anyone he mentioned it to told him he had been seeing things, as no one else saw any green light, and from Morrie’s description, it would have been hard to miss had it actually been there. So he kept it quiet, and flew his missions. None of his other missions had anything out of the ordinary happen, and he more or less forgot about it.

In late October, 1918, he got a letter from his mother’s friend, Sally Mae. She lived across the street from the small house he and his mother had shared, and had been a friend of his mother’s for fifteen years. It wasn’t a long letter, although “Auntie Sally” had been like family to him. It was short and to the point, and told him that his mother had died of the Spanish Flu, and rather suddenly, like many of the victims of the pandemic. It was devastating news. And he hadn’t been there for her. Given the time it took for the mail to arrive from across the Atlantic, she must have died in early October, right at the beginning of the fall surge in cases. There had been some cases in St.-Omer, but luckily no deaths. The Royal Flying Corps medics were pretty good, and although he had heard of many cases where people had died, it hadn’t been anyone he knew, just names of strangers. And now his mother was dead.

He had been fairly regular with his letters home, averaging about one a month, mostly telling her things like “…another recon mission…” and “…oh, this week we actually saw some enemy planes!” During Bloody April, he had sent home three le8tters. It had been a busy month. And his latest letter, that he had sent out only a week earlier, would reach home and have no one to read it. He spent the day in his room, with a bottle of bourbon he had been saving for a special occasion. Today, he figured, was “special” enough. The bottle was empty by the time he turned into bed.

From November 11, 1918, when the Armistice was signed, signaling an end to the fighting, to when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, officially ending the war, Morrie flew air cover missions, although the Germans didn’t violate the Armistice. Everything was quiet, and Lt. Maurice Brookfield enjoyed the flying, and the not getting shot at part was his favorite.

He went back to the States in August, 1919, after the Treaty of Versailles was signed and the Great War was officially over. He was no longer needed in Europe. He had put in five years in the Great War, done his part to help the Allied forces, and shot down four enemy aircraft. He had been hoping for a fifth, just so he could say he was an Ace, but most of his flight time was spent doing reconnaissance. Only after Bloody April did he have many fighter patrols. So he was a little disappointed, but not terribly so. His pride didn’t hinge upon his fighter ace status, and he personally thought that his flying kept him and his observers alive, and that was enough. He had lost a lot of good friends to the War, but fortunately he still had quite a few that had made it out alive.