Pusher Aces of World War 1 (Aircraft of the Aces 88)

100 Pages·2009·31.11 MB·English

by  Jon Guttman

A resident of Leesburg,
Virginia, JON GUTTMAN
is research director and
contributing writer for Weider
History Group Publications.
Specialising in World War 1
aviation, he has written 14
titles for Osprey, including
SPAD VII Aces of World War 1,
SPAD XII/XIII Aces of World
War 1 and Balloon-busting
Aces in the Osprey Aces
series, and Lafayette
Escadrille, Groupe de Combat
12 'Les Cigognes' and 1st
Pursuit Group USAS in the
Aviation Elite Units series.
HARRY DEMPSEY has been
passionate about World War 1
aviation for over 30 years,
resulting in his production of
some of the most technically
accurate artwork on the
subject for Osprey's Aircraft
of the Aces series. He has
illustrated all the World War 1
titles in this best-selling series
to date.
Pusher Aces of
World War 1

SERIES EDITOR: TONY HOLMES
O S P R EY A I R C R A FT OF T HE A C ES * 88
Pusher Aces
of World War 1
Jon Guttman
Front cover First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Osprey Publishing
During the afternoon of Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford, OX2 0PH
22 November 1916, Obit Stefan
44-02 23rd St, Suite 219, Long Island City, NY 11101, USA
Kirmaier, who had taken command
of Jasta Boelcke' shortly after E-mail: [email protected]
the death of its namesake on
29 October, and who had scored
© 2009 Osprey Publishing Limited
his 11th victory two days earlier,
was leading four Albatros D Ms
west of Bapaume. 'Five of us were All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study,
underway, and we were attacked by research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Design and
two big squadrons at the same time
Patents Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
over there', Ltn Erwin Bohme
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electri
subsequently noted in a letter.
'Each of us had to handle several cal, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without
opponents. I saw Kirmaier as he prior written permission. All enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.
hotly pursued a Vikkers [sic] two-
seater, but had several behind him'.
CIP Data for this publication is available from the British Library
One of the British flights aloft
that day was from the Royal Flying
Corps' No 24 Sqn. Capt John O Print ISBN 978 1 84603 417 6
Andrews, in DH 2 5998, was leading
PDF e-book ISBN 978 1 84603 897 6
'A' Flight back from a previous scrap
in which his engine had been
damaged when he reported being Edited by Tony Holmes
attacked at 1310 hrs by a flight of Page design by Tony Truscott
Albatros scouts that did not actually
Cover Artwork by Mark Postlethwaite
open fire on him. Andrews turned
to get on the tail of his lowest Aircraft Profiles by Harry Dempsey
assailant and emptied a drum of Index by Alan Thatcher
Lewis rounds into it at short range.
Originated by PDQ Digital Media Solution, Suffolk, UK
2Lt Kelvin Crawford, in DH 2 5925,
Printed and bound in China through Bookbuilders
also got a few rounds off too before
engine trouble forced him to break
off the engagement and hastily land. 09 10 11 12 13 11 1098765432
The 'hostile machine', as the RFC
communique described it, 'crashed
on our side of the lines near Les
Boeufs'. Crawford, who alighted FOR A CATALOGUE OF ALL BOOKS PUBLISHED BY OSPREY
nearby, found its remains just MILITARY AND AVIATION PLEASE CONTACT:
behind the frontline British trenches
near Flers and recovered the two Osprey Direct, c/o Random House Distribution Center,
machine guns, with 500 rounds 400 Hahn Road, Westminster, MD 21157
each, from the wreck. The pilot, E-mail: [email protected]
Kirmaier, had been killed by a bullet
in the back of the head. Coming less Osprey Direct, The Book Service Ltd, Distribution Centre,
than a month after Hptm Oswald Colchester Road, Frating Green, Colchester, Essex, C07 7DW
Boelcke's death, Stefan Kirmaier's
E-mail: [email protected]
demise was a demoralising loss for
Jasta 'Boelcke'. The next day, the www.ospreypublishing.com
Staffel got its revenge when Ltn
Manfred von Richthofen shot down Osprey Publishing are supporting the Woodland Trust, the UK's leading
DH 2 5864 after what he called 'the woodland conservation charity, by funding the dedication of trees.
most difficult battle I have had' for
his 11th victory. His opponent, who
also died from a single bullet in the
back of the head, was Maj Lanoe G
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Hawker VC, CO of No 24 Sqn [Cover
artwork by Mark Postlethwaite) I would like to thank those colleagues whose invaluable assistance in the
scavenger hunt for photographs and supplementary information made this book
what it is - Frank W Bailey, Jack Eder, Colin Huston, Norman Franks, Phil
Jarrett, William Nungesser, Walter Pieters, Les Rogers, Greg VanWyngarden
and Aaron Weaver. Thanks also to the late John O Andrews, Gwilym H Lewis
and Thomas G Mapplebeck. This book is dedicated to their memory, and to
their comrades-in-flight.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
A SIMPLE SOLUTION 6
CHAPTER TWO
BELGIUM'S FIRST ACE 12
CHAPTER THREE
BRITAIN'S FIRST FIGHTERS 1 8
CHAPTER FOUR
FIGHTING'FEES' 22
CHAPTER FIVE
SINGLE-SEAT PUSHERS 30
CHAPTER SIX
PUSHERS IN DECLINE 60
APPENDICES 90
COLOUR PLATES COMMENTARY 92
BIBLIOGRAPHY 95
INDEX 96
A SIMPLE
The popular image of World War 1 aircraft underwent a swift
evolution from floundering motorised kites to relatively fast, sleek
biplanes, and even monoplanes, that laid the groundwork for the
modern aeroplane as we know it today. Seeming somewhat out of place,
however, even amongst the earliest of warplanes are the 'pushers'. These were
quaint looking contraptions whose crews rode in nacelles that resembled
bathtubs with engines and airscrews (propellers) in the back. Such an
arrangement usually required the tail surfaces to be attached to booms or,
more often, a lattice of struts and bracing wires whose appearance fairly
screamed 'drag', 'slow' and 'ungainly'.
The greater efficiency of tractor aircraft had already been proven
before war broke out in August 1914. How then, posterity may be
tempted to ask at first glance, can these awkward looking monstrosities
have coexisted with more advanced designs over the battlefield for so
long? The answer lies in a classic example of form following function.
The first controlled heavier-than-air flight by the Wright Brothers in
December 1903 had been achieved using an aeroplane fitted with rear-
mounted propellers. This was also the case with the first European flight,
made by Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont in the autumn of 1906. At a
time when the very configuration of the aeroplane was still being defined,
the pusher arrangement made sense. It made even more sense when
thoughts turned to the aeroplane's first military application as a means of
scouting and intelligence gathering. Where better to put an observer than
up front, where he could have an uninterrupted panoramic view forward
and in all directions but aft?
So it was that at the very start of the war French Voisin and Farman
pushers shared the skies over the Western Front with tractor recon
naissance aeroplanes such as the British BE 2 and the German Albatros
B II. Then in late August 1914 some airmen decided to stop sharing
and start shooting.
The quest for control of the skies was initially pursued in one of three
ways — mounting a machine gun to fire above or around the propeller;
devising a means of synchronising the weapon with the engine so it
only fired when the prop was not in the way; and literally avoiding
the problem by putting the engine behind the machine gun. The last,
seemingly simplest, method lent the pusher aeroplane a renewed martial
validity. Indeed, it led to a series of Allied pusher fighters that were able
to hold their own against their German counterparts - including the
Fokker Eindeckers, with their synchronised machine guns — until 1917,
when the gap in performance between them and their tractor-engined
counterparts became indisputably hopeless.
Until then, pushers made history. The first destruction of an aeroplane
in air-to-air combat using firearms was achieved from the nacelle of a
French Voisin 3LA on 5 October 1914. Belgium's first ace scored his first
five victories in two-seat pushers. Britain's first production fighter, the
Vickers FB 5 Gunbus, earned one of its pilots a Victoria Cross (VC), and
A Voisin 3LA preserved at the made such an impression in 1915 that when in doubt the Germans
Musee de I'Air et I'Espace at Le referred to nearly every British pusher they encountered as a 'Vickers'.
Bourget, in France, demonstrates
In mid-1916 Maj Lanoe G Hawker's No 24 Sqn, with its Airco
the pusher's approach to mounting
DH 2s, became the first single-seat fighter unit in the Royal Flying Corps
a forward-firing machine gun,
while the Nieuport 11 behind it, (RFC). DH 2s were involved, directly or indirectly, in the deaths of
with its above-the-wing mounting, pioneer German aces Otto Parschau and Oswald Boelcke, and of
represents another (Jon Guttman)
Staffelfiihrer Stefan Kirmaier - and, on the debit side, in the rise of his
most famous protege, the future 'Red Baron' Manfred von Richthofen.
One DH 2 pilot, Lionel W B Rees of No 32 Sqn, also earned the VC.
The most successful pushers of them all, however, were large two-
seaters built by the Royal Aircraft Factory - the FE 2b and FE 2d. Even as
late as mid-1917, their crews were demonstrating how deceptive their
ungainly appearance was, with exploits that included the valour that
earned Fit Sgt Thomas Mottershead a posthumous VC. Moreover, 'Fees'
were credited with killing German aces Hans Berr, Max Immelmann,
Gustav Leffers, Karl-Emil Schafer, Kurt Schneider, Alfred Ulmer and
Ernst Wiessner, and with wounding the 'Red Baron' himself.
FIRST BLOOD
Powered flight was not yet seven years old when, on 23 July 1910, August
Euler was issued with German Patent DRP 248.601 for a fixed, forward-
firing machine gun mounting for an aeroplane. Later that same year,
Gabriel Voisin raised a few eyebrows and some skeptical amusement when
he displayed a sketchy mount for a 37 mm naval cannon on one of his
pusher biplanes. In Britain, Capt Bertram Dickson wrote a memorandum
to the standing sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence,
advising that the use of aircraft in time of war to gather intelligence 'would
lead to the inevitable result of a war in the air, for supremacy of the air, by
armed aeroplanes against each other'.
Serious efforts to make Dickson's concept a reality began in 1912. On
7 and 8 June, US Army Capt Charles De Forest Chandler demonstration-
fired a Lewis machine gun that had been rigged to a Wright Model B,
piloted by Lt Thomas DeWitt Milling, at ground targets. In Britain on
24 July, Geoffrey de Havilland flew a 'Farman Experimental' FE 2 that he
had designed for the Royal Aircraft Factory, the aeroplane being powered
by a rotary engine and boasting a mounting for a machine gun in the front
observer's cockpit.
In that same year, Vickers' newly created aviation branch received an
order from the Admiralty after the recent creation of the Naval Wing of
the RFC. The Royal Navy wanted a 'fighting biplane' that was armed
with a machine gun for offensive, rather than defensive, purposes. After
some consideration, the firm opted for a two-seat pusher with a 7.7 mm
Maxim gun in a ball-and-socket mounting (which offered 60 degrees of
elevation and traverse) in the nose of a two-seat nacelle. Dubbed the CEFB
Destroyer', Vickers' 'Experimental Fighter Biplane' featured unequal-
span, forward staggered wings that employed wing warping for lateral
control and paired tail surfaces. Power was provided by a 60-80 hp
Wolseley V8 engine and the airframe made extensive use of steel tube and
aluminium skinning.
The EFB was first exhibited at the Aero Show in Olympia, London,
in February 1913, but when it underwent gun testing at Joyce Green,
the Destroyer briefly left the ground and then promptly nosed over.
Undeterred, Vickers produced an EFB 2 that had increased lower
wingspan, no stagger, a 100 hp Gnome monosoupape rotary engine
and a new nacelle with celluloid side windows, but the same ball-and-
socket Maxim gun mount. This machine also eventually crashed, at
Bognor, in October 1913, but not before it had been flown frequently
at Brooklands by Capt Herbert F Wood (the company's technical
adviser) and Vickers' chief pilot Harold Barnwell.
Next came the EFB 3, also fitted with a 100 hp Gnome monosoupape
rotary engine. After a decent showing at the Olympia Aero Show in
March 1914, Vickers received a six-aeroplane order from the Admiralty -
this contract was taken over by the War Officer upon the start of the
conflict in Europe. Vickers continued development with the EFB 4,
which featured a more streamlined nacelle and only two tail booms. The
single prototype flew in July 1914.
The first of Vickers' efforts to dispense with its 'experimental' status
was the FB 5, which again used a 100 hp Gnome monosoupape and
mounted a 0.303-in Lewis machine gun atop the front of the observer's
pit. Dubbed the Gunbus, this Vickers offering attracted production
contracts for both the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and the RFC on
14 August 1914, although examples would not reach the front in force
for more than 11 months.
By then the RFC had claimed more aerial combat 'firsts' with its
pushers. On 22 August 1914, Lts Louis Aubon Strange and L Penn-
Gaskell of No 5 Sqn, flying Farman F 20 No 341, claimed to have fired at
a German 'Taube' or 'Aviatik'. Three days later, Lt Hubert D Harvey-
Kelly of No 2 Sqn, flying a BE 2a, encountered a Rumpler Taube, which
he and his observer, Lt W H C Mansfield, assailed with small arms until
its unnerved crew landed near Le Cateau and ran into a nearby wood!