Air Power On the Western Front in 1918

By Group Captain John Alexander

The article was first published as Chapter 17 of the Army Staff Ride 18 Reader in July 2018.

From 1917 all air services were increasingly specialised by air power role and ever more autonomous. All armies had recognised the utility of battlefield aerial observation before 1914: the four RFC squadrons totalling 63 aircraft that accompanied the BEF in 1914 were solely for reconnaissance. The French and German Armies had also recognised before the War the potential of aircraft to fight other aircraft and attack ground targets. Both France and Germany initiated strategic bombing campaigns in 1915: while the French bombed German industry, the Germans attacked British civilian targets with Zeppelin airships. In 1914 the RNAS had split from the originally joint RFC formed in 1912 because of its focus on attack, strategic air defence, and seaplanes, and deployed a wing to join the French strategic bombing campaign in 1915. When it ended in 1916 the RNAS fighter and bomber squadrons reinforced the RFC on the Western Front.

Despite differences in composition, each air service had a broadly similar structure. By 1918 each BEF army had an RFC (and from 1 April 1918 RAF) brigade of at least three wings (units commanded by lieutenant colonels). One of the wings, the ‘corps wing’, consisted of several Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) squadrons (commanded by majors) of up to 20 aircraft each. One such squadron was allocated to each army corps for tactical ISR, sometimes allocating individual flights to specific divisions. These tactical ISR squadrons (called ‘corps squadrons’) provided liaison officers to corps and divisions. Each RFC/RAF brigade also included an ‘army wing’ consisting of fighter, day-bomber, night-bomber and fighter (long-range) reconnaissance squadrons, which the brigade commander retained control of. The third wing of a brigade was equipped with kite balloons for artillery observation.

The French and German air services had separate units specialised in long-range artillery, photographic and high-altitude reconnaissance. German doctrine was to allocate small tactical ISR units of six aircraft (Fliegerabteilung) to divisions, although resource constraints meant this was not always possible. Control of all fighter and bomber units was retained by the commanding general of the Air Service (Kommandierender General der Luftstreitkräfte (Kogenluft)) at GHQ (Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL)).

The French Air Service specialist long-range reconnaissance Groupe Weiller, however, identified Operation Marneschutz-Reims/Friedensturm in July 1918. Its commander Paul-Louis Weiller, an ex-gunner and leading innovator of aerial photography, had recently convinced General Phillipe Pétain to form this specialist group of high-flying Breguet 14 aircraft. By this time, the Germans had lost control of the air and were unable to conceal their intentions. As a result of this success, from 28 July Weiller reported directly to the new Allied Généralissime Marshal Ferdinand Foch, flying reconnaissance sorties up to 200 kilometres behind the lines.

The Allied attack at Amiens on 8 August 1918, in contrast, achieved total surprise, in part because of British control of the air as well as sophisticated deception measures, notwithstanding the near invulnerability of the oxygen and heated-suit equipped German Rumpler C.VII reconnaissance aircraft, capable of flying at 100 mph above 18000 feet. At Amiens the Allies assembled 800 British and 1104 French aircraft against initially 395 German machines.

Increasingly, the balance of air power in 1918 reflected Allied industrial and economic strength and the impact of the naval blockade on Germany. Although the German Air Service enjoyed a slight qualitive advantage in the Fokker D.VII fighter, well-handled Sopwith Camels, SE 5As, Bristol Fighters and French SPAD XIIIs could match it. Furthermore, only 2000 Fokker D.VIIs were made, compared to 8500 SPAD XIIIs. German industry was not only running increasingly short of raw materials, but was also fragmented, using many types for each role when the Allies by 1918 used one or two. During the war German industry produced twice as many types and half as many aircraft as the French. Additionally, aircraft and fuel shortages severely degraded Germany’s pilot training, increasing flying accidents, and further reducing combat strength and qualitive advantage. The elite German Jagdgeschwader Eins started the Battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918 with only 21 of its 52 established fighters available; it finished on 11 August with eleven. At the same time, British pilot training was rapidly improving, with pilots arriving on the front-line with 65 hours flying rather than thirteen hours as in 1917.

All air services used day and night-bombers for air interdiction and offensive counter-air (OCA) operations. British ‘army wings’, for example, used DH4 and DH9 day-bombers with two 112-pound or twelve 25-pound bombs, in formations of six to eight aircraft, typically bombing from around 1000–5000 feet in daylight and used squadrons flying obsolete FE2b and HP 0/400 aircraft by night. Before the German Spring Offensive, the General Staff in London was concerned that British air interdiction bombing efforts were diffuse and called for a greater concentration of effort. Bombing, however, was inaccurate, with limited destructive power, as demonstrated by the British failure in early August 1918 to destroy the Somme bridges during the battle of Amiens.

Given the right circumstances, air interdiction and OCA were effective, bombing crowded rear areas between 15 and 70 kilometres behind the front. Prominent examples included catching aircraft on the ground, as the Germans did at Doullens on the night of 26–27 March, or on 10–11 August 1918, when eleven German Gotha bombers destroyed over 50% of British vehicle spares in France in a depot near Calais. The resultant estimated financial cost exceeded that of all 52 German air raids on Great Britain during the war. Of note, German night bombing in Britain and France was enhanced by the use of radio navigation beams. In response to nearly 4000 German night interdiction sorties over the British front between May and October 1918, the RAF in mid-June redeployed a night-fighter squadron from London’s home defence to France, which subsequently shot down 20 German raiders for no loss, with the South African Major Quintin Brand becoming Britain’s first night-fighting ace.

The British, French and German transportation, industry and population targets for strategic attack were adjacent to the Western Front. The bombers used in 1915 for French attacks on German industry in the Rhineland and in the occupied Saarland were soon transferred to Western Front roles, and their accompanying RNAS wing at Luxeuil was transferred to the BEF in 1916. The German Zeppelin threat to the UK was largely defeated by 1916, whereas the daylight Gotha bomber raids on London in June and July 1917 killed several hundred people and caused Lloyd George’s government to fear the bombing’s impact on war production and political stability. Both General Sir Douglas Haig and Trenchard, however, were loath to transfer squadrons of modern aircraft from the Western Front to defend London or to bomb Germany. Consequently, the South African General Jan Smuts’ War Cabinet reports recommended a unified commander for London’s air defences and the formation of a separate air ministry and air service to rationalise aircraft production and create a surplus of aircraft to defend Britain and bomb Germany. British air defences eventually consisted of eighteen squadrons of modern fighters and numerous searchlights and anti-aircraft guns, all diverted from the BEF. Following the loss of 62 Gotha bombers in raids on England between September 1917 and May 1918, including 42 by flying accidents, the Kogenluft in May 1918 switched Bombengeschwader der OHL (Bogohl) 3, the ‘Englandgeschwader’, from raiding England to reinforcing air interdiction on the Western Front.

Meanwhile, in October 1917 the British formed a bomber wing in France to bomb German industry in the Rhineland and Saarland, which became VIII Brigade RAF and then on 6 June 1918 the Independent Force, commanded by the recently resigned Chief of the Air Staff, Trenchard, who reported directly to the Secretary of State for Air. Eventually consisting of ten squadrons, in five months the Independent Force dropped 537 tons of bombs in 1918, but only 47 tons on German industrial targets. The remainder was on German railways and airfields near the front, supporting French and US operations in the Meuse-Argonne, both in response to requests from Foch and also because losses to Trenchard’s day-bombers disrupted deeper raids. To defend the homeland the Kogenluft employed 240 modern fighters, 1200 anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, warning and reporting observers, and even decoy targets. As a result, the Independent Force in August 1918 dropped 100 tons of bombs at a cost of 81 aircraft lost. Monthly losses averaged over 70%, predominately to day-bombers. Immediate post-war survey showed the raids had no impact on German industrial production, often failing to find the target. Two-weeks before the Armistice, Britain, France, Italy and the US formed an Inter-Allied Independent Air Force to bomb Germany in 1919 with additional and more capable aircraft such as the four-engine Vimy bomber. The force was under Foch’s command, however, and would be used to support army operations if he ordered it.

The Allies in 1918 increasingly exploited air power’s flexibly to reinforce each other. The British twice deployed IX Brigade RAF, the BEF’s reserve Brigade, to support the French defence against Operations Gneisenau and Operation Marneschutz-Reims/Friedensturm in June and July 1918 respectively. At Saint-Mihiel the Allies assembled 1400 aircraft; two-thirds French or British. Likewise, in the Meuse-Argonne the raw US Air Service was supported by the French Division Aérienne and Trenchard’s Independent Force, and each US corps had a French tactical ISR squadron.

The history of air warfare in the First World War is a history of innovation and adaptation, at a unique rate. One only has to consider the difference between the box-kites flown in 1914 with the aircraft of 1918. In contrast types such as the B17, Spitfire and Bf109 saw service throughout the Second World War, albeit heavily modified. There are countless examples of the rapid innovation and adaptation of air power in 1918, for example with the British from the Battle of Hamel onwards assigning No 8 Squadron RAF to provide tactical ISR for the tanks and after Amiens using the fighters of No 73 Squadron to ground-strafe German anti-tank guns. The RAF also innovated with air command and control. Increasingly Bristol Fighters were equipped with radio and allocated in small numbers to tactical ISR squadrons. Recognising the failure of command and control at Amiens the British within two weeks had created a radio-equipped Central Information Bureau (CIB) which used signals intelligence to detect and then ground-control the interception of German tactical ISR aircraft. The CIB also collected information on ground targets from tactical ISR aircraft and transmitted them to fighters holding in a cab rank above the front-line using voice messages over radio telegraphy (R/T). The British and French, and latterly the US, exchanged aerial photographic best practice. But there were examples of dogma as well, such as the British relentless offensive air patrols, which were not stopped until September 1918.

There were both similarities and differences in the command of the air services on the Western Front. All were increasingly autonomous. The German Army Commander of the Air Service (Kogenluft), established in October 1916, worked directly to the OHL and commanded all flying, signals and Flak units. He retained central control of most fighters and the relatively few German bombers, allocating them as required, delegating to army corps and, where numbers allowed, divisions, task organised predominately tactical ISR units under army (Kommander de Flieger (Kofl)) and corps Grupperfüher der Flieger (Grufl)) air commanders, who also commanded the Flak units.

British command arrangements on the Western Front were unchanged with the formation of the RAF. The ‘GOC RFC in the Field’ became the ‘GOC RAF in the Field’ and retained command of the BEF’s air component. While most of the RFC/RAF strength was allocated to the numbered army RFC/RAF brigades, other than the GHQ reserve (IX Brigade RFC/RAF) which represented only 15% of the RFC/RAF strength, control was in fact centralised with the GOC. Hence, Salmond’s rapid concentration of force against Operation Michael and to reinforce the French, as previously mentioned. Furthermore, British Army and RFC/RAF commanders closely co-operated whereas according to the historian E R Hooton, German general staff officers often marginalised their air commanders once an operation started. The US system followed the British model though with different terminology for air formations as did the French Air Service, latterly commanded by General Maurice Duval. In May 1918, however, Pétain formed the Division Aérienne under Duval to concentrate France’s fighters and bombers, some 600 aircraft, to support manoeuvre.

Air warfare was fought by junior officers and NCOs. The commanders-in-chief of the major powers’ armies on the Western Front were not aircrew, of course, but all were proponents of air power in support of their armies. The French and German Air Service commanders, Duval and General Ernst von Hoeppner, were not flyers either. Although Trenchard and the American Expeditionary Force Air Service commander, Brigadier-General Billy Mitchell, were both trained pilots, they had no combat flying experience, whereas Salmond had from commanding 3 Squadron RFC until May 1915. By 1918 formation commanders, such as RAF brigade commanders, were typically seasoned in air combat. Many RFC/RAF squadron commanders, however, did not lead every mission as they were considered too valuable to lose. As the historian George Williams notes, this was problematic for the Independent Force as it meant the leadership had little idea of the challenges of navigation and bombing and how to address them, or indeed the effectiveness of the raids. Nevertheless, despite the horrendous losses aircrew morale held up and there was no shortage of volunteers for aircrew training and to join what Prime Minister David Lloyd George called the ‘cavalry of the clouds’. The aces were famous even if individual combat had been replaced by ‘big wing’ air combat and ground strafing. Furthermore, in 1918 British aircrew life expectancy on operations and in training markedly improved, though its offensive doctrine meant British aircrew losses in 1918 were double French and German.

In stark contrast, the RAF was rapidly demobilised and focused entirely on colonial control until in 1922 Lloyd George’s government formed a Home Defence Air Force of fighters and bombers to counter the so-called ‘French air menace’. Post-war revisions to the British Field Service Regulations and various mechanised experiments from 1922 onwards included air support. The Ten-Year Rule, however, meant preparing an expeditionary force for European war and retaining the air land integration lessons of 1918 were not priorities for either the British Army or the RAF. Much hard-fought learning was therefore lost and had to be painfully re-learnt during the Second World War.

Biography: John Alexander is a part-time historian at the Royal Air Force’s Air Historical Branch, a Whitehall bureaucrat working on national security, and an RAF Reserve. As a regular he specialised in air/land integration, including in the Falklands and various Middle Eastern campaigns, was twice a Chief of the Air Staff Fellow, conceptualised future conflict for the 2010 SDSR, and spent his final six years in the Service in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The author wishes to thank Major General (Ret) Mungo Melvin, Senior Mentor Army Staff Ride 18, for his help with this chapter.

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