Churchill's Ace (Epic War Series Book 1)
Read Churchill's Ace (Epic War Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Greg M. Sheehan
Tags: #Epic War Series
Churchill’s Ace
By
Greg M. Sheehan
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2016 by Greg M. Sheehan
All Rights Reserved.
Queens Alexandra’s Military Hospital
Luftwaffe Flight Testing Center Rechlin
Luftwaffe Flight Testing Center Rechlin
Luftwaffe Flight Testing Center Rechlin
Luftwaffe Flight Testing Center Rechlin
1918
World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars... At least, that was the hope. The century had recently turned, and surely mankind had better things to do besides sticking pointed bayonets into the air and boasting, “God is on our side,” as they raked the enemy with machine gun fire.
That, of course, wasn’t the case not by a long shot. But World War I, was the first war to usher in aerial combat. That was like saying the Middle Ages introduced the world to the plague. That wouldn’t get a round of applause from anyone, especially those who died.
But nevertheless, airplanes did make their stage debut. At first, their performance was rather innocent and even wondrous as the airplane added another spatial dimension to the military mix.
Powered military aircraft started the whole affair rather meekly, and without malice. They seemed somewhat harmless and to a hardened soldier stuck in the trenches nothing more than a gimmick, something that you would lay two bits down to take a peek at a carnival. The crowd would be amazed and then trudge home to their wretched lives.
The gangly and odd inventions were initially used to scout enemy troop formations below on the battlefield. Maybe that was just an excuse for the purveyors of the modern marvels to look around, take in the sights and report the following to headquarters. “Yes General Hornblower, these flying machines are most valuable. I have to report that the Germans are well entrenched, with machine gun nests and barb wire. And there isn’t anything alive in no man’s land. It is most dangerous down there on the ground.”
General Hornblower would go into deep thought and say, “Quite right. Now, what else can you tell me about the enemy? What is he up to?”
“Sir, I think they’re hunkering down in those trenches. That is the situation at the moment. Now we can’t be too sure what the Jerries have in mind. You can’t trust them you know.”
After scratching his chin, the General Hornblower would say, “Tell me; how much does one of these new found contraptions cost the Royal Crown?”
“Sir.”
“The plane!”
“Thirteen hundred pounds, more or less. But look what they can do for us.”
“I see…”
Down below most soldiers in the trenches kept their heads down and ignored the flying machines, because they had enough of their own problems. In no particular order, those were disgusting filth from living in the mud, poor food, rampant disease and enemy machine gun bullets flying overhead.
Death was lurking around every corner. That wasn’t being over dramatic. The enemy was within rifle range just on the other side of the trench. You could hear him; you could even smell him if the wind was right. He knew where you were and what you did. When you went to sleep, when you made breakfast. And if you were dumb enough to attempt it, when you went "over the top" to attack him for king and country, that was akin to committing suicide.
Not everything would kill you. Some things only made you wish you were dead. Trench foot was debilitating and insidious. That malady alone was responsible for thousands of casualties, and there wasn’t anything anybody could do about it. Not as long as you stomped around in a wet trench twenty-four hours a day for weeks upon end.
Eventually and very much sooner than later, the skin on a soldier’s feet would come apart. Then the unlucky man’s foot was subject to infection and if left untreated gangrene. That meant amputation and an unsightly foot that was to be hidden from view, from the rest of the world until the day the man died.
But that was assuming the soldier survived the war in one piece or even with a few things missing from his body. Or maybe he outlasted the Great War and brought home a few souvenirs, like shrapnel embedded in his back. He’d have to sleep on his side for the rest of his life. He would be grateful; most of his comrades who had bit the dust were permanently on their backs in cheap wooden coffins.
Therefore, some soldiers did look up thru the mud and muck and wished to hitch a ride on one of the new flying machines. The aircraft buzzed around far overhead, without a worry in the world. Their trench in the sky didn’t have rats the size of artillery shells or enemy bayonet charges in the middle of the night, where you didn’t know when your next breath would be your last. No, It was different up there. Cute little scarves gently tied to the necks of pilots, fluttered in the breeze as the planes doodled about in the air.
Often the pilots put on a show for the boys in the front lines: loop de loop, barrel rolls, even stunt stalls and dead man spins. Some of the soldiers clapped at the entertainment. Others grunted and headed for the latrine, hoping that the enemy was also watching the two bit or in the German case, two pfennig show.
The enemy had a nasty habit of lobbing artillery shells at the other side’s latrine complex, which usually was behind the lines and definitely downhill. The shelling was timed to coincide with when the latrine was packed with poor saps.
The latrine was chock full of lime, which was caustic and smelled horrendous. No one with any brains lingered at the site for any longer than they had to. There were rumors that you would get sick if you hung out there long enough. That was true.
Up above the British and German pilots often waved at each other, like they belonged to the same fraternity or gentlemen’s club. “Glad to see you. Please join us for cocktails at the officer’s club just before dinner. Proper attire required. We will toast our flying machines and the beautiful girls waiting for us in our comfortable barracks.”
These modern flying machines and their occupants floated far above the trenches and destruction, pretending that moral superiority was the order of the day. After all, they were better educated than any infantryman and were, indeed, one of the few chosen to take flight, like magnificent birds reaching for the sun.
As was the case with human nature, it wasn’t long before things took a turn for the worse. Soon pilots were firing pistols at each other, but that was more for harassment and bragging rights than anything else. Invitations to cocktails and dinner were rescinded at that point. However, things were still somewhat in order if only barely.
That changed when lethal machine guns were mounted on the good flying planes. Scouting the enemy now became for the weak and frail of mind. Manhood, glory, metals and a roll in the hay with an impressed girl would be determined by besting your opponent, which meant sending him and his plane, which surely was now a death trap, spinning in flames to the battlefield below to die with the lowly infantryman.
The real show began for the soldiers in the trenches, as airplanes were blasted out of the sky. They all ended up in the same place nose down in the mud on the battlefield. A wrecked plane, with its wings shredded and a pilot headless or not, was a curious sight.
At first, it was as odd as finding a dinosaur in no man’s land. Within weeks, it was commonplace, and soldiers if they could get close enough to the wreckage, would pilfer anything not nailed down. The dead pilot was forgotten as soon as his after effects were recycled. Smokes, boots, scarf, revolver, dry socks, they were all fair game. In the end, the dead pilot was no different than a spent soldier. They both were dead and eating mud.
Captain William Ashton entered the ready room of the RAF 5th Brigade. The room wasn’t anything fancy; it was a commandeered French farmhouse near Amiens. The quaint town in northern France had the unfortunate fate of being in the middle of a never-ending slugfest between the Germans and the Allies, who were the French and British. The surrounding area changed hands numerous times, and it didn’t take long for the landscape to take on all the ambiance of the moon, barren, uninviting and shell craters which were full of rain and dead bodies.
Outside the ready room, where milk cows once grazed and chickens jockeyed for position, sat a section of Sopwith Camels, the mainstay of the RAF fighter force. The airplane had turned the tide in the battle for air supremacy against the German Albatross, the Kaiser’s best fighter plane.
In the hands of an experienced pilot, the Sopwith Camel was deadly. RAF crews joked that the biplane offered a pilot the choice between "a wooden cross, the Red Cross, or a Victoria Cross."
Captain William Ashton was an ambitious young pilot. He tried to keep that to himself, but everyone could see it. The signs were everywhere. The way he dressed; the way he talked about the enemy and what he was going to do to them in the air. To some, it seemed that he was bragging and rather full of himself. But Captain Ashton knew it was the truth, at least as he saw it. That’s all that mattered.