Meeting the Enemy (30 page)

One pilot who received mixed treatment on capture was Captain Harold Rushworth. The thirty-seven-year-old had been badly wounded in the right knee while serving with the infantry at the Battle of Loos. After recovery he joined the RFC. In August 1917, while flying over the Ypres Salient, he was attacked and wounded in the ankle, bullets also smashing the aircraft’s rudder bar and perforating the petrol tank. In a spin from 12,000 feet, he regained partial control three-quarters of the way to the ground. Directing his plane into a straight dive, he crash-landed in a potato field, knocking himself unconscious.

I found myself being pulled out from the wreckage by some German private soldiers of a Württemberg Minenwerfer Company. They handled me very gently and at once rendered ‘first aid’ to the best of their ability. I was particularly struck with the manner in which they removed my boot from my injured foot, keeping a careful watch on my face for any indications of pain. They used two of their own handkerchiefs to form a tourniquet with which to stop the bleeding, and bandaged the wounds with their own field dressings. One of them went off to fetch a stretcher, and soon afterwards a German staff officer of high rank arrived on the scene. He appeared to be extremely angry, and insisted on my standing up in his presence. This I did, but apparently I fainted, and the next I remember is being carried off the field on a stretcher.

Since victorious pilots made a point of visiting the crash sites of downed aircraft, former opponents were commonly brought face to face. Captain Francis Don was shot down by, he discovered, one of the great German aces, Lieutenant Werner Voss (forty-eight victories). Voss’s continued attack on Don and his observer after they landed ended only when Voss himself touched down in order to meet the two airmen. ‘He hastened to inform me that I was his 34th victim’ and was ‘perfectly polite’.

Lieutenant John Howey’s meeting with the enemy was memorable not least for an unholy row that broke out in his presence. Bethke, the German pilot, claimed victory but was accompanied by a German officer from the anti-aircraft battery who also claimed the ‘kill’, maintaining his battery had fired the decisive shell.

The two German officers commenced to have a very heated argument with each other in German, both were very red in the face, and I expected to see them come to blows any moment. Then one of them left and the other turned to me and said in perfect English: ‘Excuse me, but were you brought down by a shell from one of our anti-aircraft guns or by one of our aeroplanes?’ He then explained to me that he was the pilot of one of the two German machines . . . He insisted on shaking hands with me, and said he was sorry we could not have another fight together.

While the men had striven to bring each other down, there was no animosity. On the contrary, Howey gave Bethke his mother’s address and his wristwatch to post home and Bethke assured Howey he would ‘do his very best in the matter’. Shortly afterwards an interpreter entered the room and Howey was taken to the town hall in Courtrai for questioning.

Meeting on cordial terms proved useful to stricken RFC pilots eager to let comrades know they were alive. Werner Voss spoke English and, while talking with Captain Don, offered to drop a note over British lines confirming that the officer was a prisoner. ‘He asked the number of my squadron and the locality of the aerodrome, this of course, I refused. However, he promised to drop a note anywhere over the trenches, and he took my name and rank and those of my observer.’

In 1916, much the same offer was made to Lieutenant Harvey Frost and his observer, shot down by another ace, Max Immelmann.

I wrote that I was ‘slightly wounded and doing well . . .’ The German aviator who had been deputed by Immelmann to drop our note, visited us [in hospital in Courtrai] and told us that he had gone over in a ‘Fokker’ and dropped it on the aerodrome at Bailleul. He had been chased by two British machines on his return. The observer of the LVG [a two-seater reconnaissance plane] we had been fighting also visited us, and showed us photographs of the wreck of our machine. All the officers of the German Flying Corps that I met in captivity were very chivalrous and anxious to do anything in their power for our comfort.

Immelmann presented Frost with a pipe.

Wherever Royal Flying Corps pilots were taken after capture - and many were made transitory guests at the aerodrome mess - their initial treatment at the hands of the enemy appears, in the main, to have been exemplary, impressing those who received such courtesy.

Grinnell-Milne was taken to an officers’ mess in a comfortable chateau where he and his observer chatted with German pilots until four in the afternoon. ‘Here we were entertained to a most excellent lunch, accompanied by numerous wines and liqueurs.’ Second Lieutenant Patrick O’Brien, taken instead to an artillery officers’ headquarters, was given wine and sandwiches before Lieutenant Müller took him to a ‘clearing’ house for flying officer prisoners.

I was there two days and was not put under any guard, but Lieutenant Müller slept in the same room. I know no German, but he spoke English very well, and he told me that he had come from South America on the same boat [from New York] as [Sir Roger] Casement, and that they both came on forged passports. He told me he had translated two books for Casement.

I had my meals in the dining room in an adjoining house, and with the exception of breakfast which I had alone, I had them in company with Lieutenant Müller. I was given three meals a day and tea. I used to get roast meat, potatoes, two kinds of bread and jam. I also had a proper bed to sleep in.

There was an innate affinity between British and German pilots, the vast majority of whom were officers. Combat took place between gentlemen, as they saw it, men who had devised and therefore understood the rules of the ‘game’ even if those rules were interpreted and executed ruthlessly. The German staff officer who had insisted Captain Rushworth stand in his presence was old-school and did not understand the pilots’ etiquette. During Rushworth’s careering descent, he had shot down an enemy aircraft inadvertently crossing his path. ‘The [non-flying] staff officer considered it an act of treachery,’ wrote Rushworth, ‘in as much as, in his opinion, the surrender was consummated when my machine was rendered uncontrollable.’ It was not a view shared by pilots serving in the victim’s squadron: they regarded Rushworth’s action as ‘perfectly legitimate’.

Cordiality was understandable, but the Germans were the enemy and active war did not end with capture. Regrettably, once-clear distinctions blurred amidst handshakes and liqueurs, the risk that Royal Flying Corps pilots would be seduced by such bonhomie was all too real, as Lieutenant Patrick O’Brien saw when taken to Courtrai. ‘There were two British officers who had been there for some time with whom I and the others did not care to associate, as in our opinion they, or rather one in particular, was too familiar with the German commandant, going to tea with him and, I believe, to church. Everyone thought it was going too far.’

The early appearance of Intelligence Officers would alert British pilots to the fact that questions were bound to follow, questions they were not at liberty to answer. These enquiries could be batted away without too much difficulty and might not need to be addressed at all. When Captain Frost was introduced to Max Immelmann, the German ace arrived accompanied by an Intelligence Officer. ‘When I refused to answer any of the questions,’ recalled Frost, ‘Immelmann very considerately requested him to stop worrying me.’

It would have been entirely understandable if British pilots, still experiencing the euphoria of having survived, relaxed. Waving away Intelligence Officers would encourage British pilots to drop their guard as mess wine and good food were served. In such a convivial atmosphere, British tongues might wag, as the Germans well knew.

It is impossible to gauge what chat was mere banter and what constituted ‘softening up’, or direct efforts to collect intelligence. Lieutenant Geoffrey Parker, taken prisoner in May 1917, recalled meeting a German captain who was ‘most interesting’.

He informed me that his relatives were English and that he was a professor of History at one of the German universities. He asked me one or two questions as to the number of my squadron, where our aerodrome was etc and I replied that I would rather not answer . . .

He could not understand why we had come in [to the war]. I then gave him my reasons. He went on to say that every nation had the right to expand, and that Germany was fighting for expansion. I asked him how he explained Belgium and he said . . .

Such conversation seems innocent enough but did Parker say more than he remembered? Where did the conversation lead? What, if anything, might the captain have been trying to winkle out of his prisoner? It is interesting how many captured pilots made reference to the excellent English spoken by Germans they met, and to the number who claimed either familial ties in Britain or pre-war residency. Were their numbers suspiciously disproportionate, or just representative of the significant influx of Germans into Britain? After speaking to a German interpreter, Lieutenant Howey was approached by a German staff officer whose English, he noted, was superb.

‘I see you are in the Bedfordshire Yeomanry, I know a few of your officers very well.’ He told me he had been educated at Oxford, and was billeting in the town with a friend, who had also been to Oxford, and he would like me to come and dine with him. He explained that I would have to give a verbal promise not to escape, otherwise I would not be allowed to dine with him, but would be placed in a cell for the night, from which there would be no possibility of escape. I agreed to this, and he took me round to his billet. His name was Oppenheim. He lent me five pounds, as I had no money at all, and he took me into the town to buy a few things. He gave me a very good dinner of champagne and oysters, and told me he had procured a very comfortable room in the Red Cross hospital, where I could sleep the night. In this hospital I was treated exceedingly well. The next morning I was taken round to Oppenheim’s billet again.

If there was a blueprint on how to soften up an enemy officer then surely this was it. Asking Howey to promise on his honour not to escape manifestly led Howey to believe he too was dealing with a man of honour, a man not involved in espionage or intelligence. The German officer’s action might seem somewhat unsophisticated today, but RFC pilots were untutored in the concepts of subtle interrogation.

How much was gleaned from officers young and junior in rank is, nonetheless, debatable; not much, believed Grinnell-Milne. In unsubtle questioning, he was asked about the disposition of corps and divisions, of which he knew almost nothing. He was then taken from the enemy’s aerodrome to Army Headquarters where he and other captured officers were ‘pumped’ for information; he wrote that ‘all kinds of tricks [were] played on us in an attempt to extract important news which, perhaps fortunately, we did not in reality possess.’ Grinnell-Milne did not record what those ‘tricks’ were.

It was tempting for captured officers to turn the tables and feed the enemy utterly useless information. Grinnell-Milne got into conversation with one German officer who astonished him with the name of a new secret British aircraft known as the Crosse and Blackwell, fitted with two new-style engines of great power and made by Huntley – ‘I forget the exact name,’ remarked the German.

‘“Huntley and Palmer,” I suggested timidly, suddenly tumbling to the hoax of which this poor man was the victim.’

The yarn may have worked that time although Captain Francis Don was doubtful about the wisdom of playing such games. ‘I know that some officers take a very natural delight in stuffing these interpreters with false information. However, they are so clever and plausible in their methods that I venture to suggest that this should be discouraged.’ Whether Don was aware or not, those methods included the newly embraced art of bugging.

The idea that one gentleman officer might be party to eavesdropping on another’s conversation was anathema to most British officers, but the Germans saw no contradiction in this pursuance of war by other means. The Germans consequently stole a march on the Allies in developing operations that became common practice in the years ahead. Don arrived in Karlsruhe after a stay in hospital recovering from the wound to his arm. Karlsruhe, as Don came to understand, was another place of ‘clearing’ for prisoners coming directly from the front or hospital. In the city there was a ‘hotel’ to which officers were sent prior to leaving for a POW camp. Don believed his experience at the hotel was typical of that of all officers sent there.

I was first of all locked into a small room alone. Soon a very plausible German interpreter (officer) came and made himself pleasant. He explained that he had to interrogate us simply for form’s sake and because ‘the camp commandant is rather a fussy old man’. I adopted the attitude which I have always found completely successful, namely, to tell him that I have promised my government only to give my name, rank and regiment (R.F.C). That I am honour bound to give nothing more – ‘Do you expect me to break my honour?’ This invariably shuts them up. Not finding me communicative, he produced a pocket-book and rather astonished me by informing me of the number of my squadron and of the name of my squadron commander and asked me if it was correct. I, of course, gave a non-committal answer. He then informed me that he thought I had been in the 7th or 9th wing, which was wrong.