The First World War in the Air has gripped me ever since I was a little boy. Back then, I was thrilled by the idea of chivalrous men in open cockpits flying at each other's throats.
Over the years, I learnt that there was a lot more to their story than dogfights over No Man's Land. Why would both sides send men up in expensive aeroplanes just to shoot each other out of the sky? What would be the point?
The fact is that most of the young flyers were doing different things. They were taking photos of enemy positions and troop build-ups. They were guiding the artillery's gunfire onto enemy targets. They were dropping bombs. They were machine-gunning troops in low-level attacks. And it was to defend the aircraft that were doing these jobs, and to attack the enemy who were carrying out their own jobs, that fighter aircraft - machines with the sole purpose of attacking other machines - were built.
That's how a war within a war started - a war of dogfights, chivalry, aces and a life expectancy for new pilots that fell as low as eleven days, in April 1917.
When we started making this programme, I was interested to see what Andy and Mark, our modern-day pilots, would make of their 'flying birdcages' and the tasks that they were set. These are men, after all, who have flown modern combat missions - and I wondered whether they would find Avro 504s and SE5s dull and undemanding.
Not a chance. You only have to watch Mark's face as Andy's engine cuts out in the Avro, or hear him yelping as he's trying to take pictures over the edge of the Bristol Fighter, to realize that they were both experiencing something new and exhilarating. They were feeling a connection with the men who had first flown these machines almost a hundred years ago.
And if Andy and Mark, men who have flown in the Red Arrows, are exhilarated, can you imagine how the young men of 1917 must have felt? It was these boys who were responsible for the incredible advances that were made. The fact that their wood and linen machines (the wing of an Avro weighs about the same as a bag of potatoes) went from dropping feathered darts in 1914 to mounting huge scale bombing raids on enemy cities in 1918 was due to the skill and ingenuity of the men who flew them and worked on them. If they tried something and it worked, they tried it again. If it didn't work, they discarded it. This was the birth of modern warfare, and it wasn't the generals and the staff officers who were making up the rules.
Something that excited both Andy and Mark was the fact that, when they were dogfighting, they were involved in an intimate personal duel. They could see each other's faces and watch each other's head movements. This element of personal combat is different not only from modern jet fighters, but also from the mechanized and impersonal fighting that was taking place on land and at sea during the First World War. It is why pilots became national heroes whose faces were reproduced on posters and cigarette cards, and why they became known as 'Knights of the Air'. Perhaps it isn't very surprising that First World War flying gave birth of a new breed of soldier. Eccentric, free-thinking, lacking in traditional discipline, some were as unmilitary as military men could be. Here are a few of my favourite characters from the British side:
Robert Loraine - A West End actor in peacetime, a squadron commander in wartime, he built a theatre on his aerodrome, and mounted productions in which parts were taken by pilots, observers and mechanics. Performances had to be cancelled when the leading actors were lost over enemy lines. He was court-martialled in 1917 for drunkenness - and acquitted.
Archibald James - Member of 6 Squadron, brought eight hounds out to France, got hold of some horses, and went hunting for hares in sight of the guns. 'There were only two or three little thorn hedges in the whole area,' he said, 'and we jumped them as often as possible to keep up the illusion that we were a hunting club.'
W.E Johns - A pilot with 55 Squadron, IAF, who went on to write the Biggles books after the war. In Affaire de Coeur, Biggles falls in love with a French girl who turns out to be a dangerous enemy spy. In 1918, Johns was admitted to hospital suffering from both syphilis and gonorrhea. Biggles reacted to this experience by keeping women at a safe distance. One hopes that Johns did the same...
But for all of the novelty, the ingenuity and the characters, these are not the elements of First World War flying that make the biggest impression on me. It is the human side - the fear, the danger, and the methods used to deal with them - that fascinates me. I read about these men, I listen to their stories, and I wonder whether I could have coped.
Some didn't. They suffered mental breakdowns, and their medical notes speak of nightmares, incontinence, tremors, vomiting, suicide attempts, and many other symptoms of blind terror. Others barely got by, drinking themselves insensible every night. Some of the best known aces - such as Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron himself - ultimately brought about their own deaths by breaking basic rules of flying safety. It is as though they were taking control of their destinies, rather than struggling on in the knowledge that death lay in wait at some uncertain future time.
Joshua Levine is the author of Fighter Heroes of WW1 (opens in a new window)
