My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyThe BE2C was a sturdy machine which could be put into a dive, but this had to bedone with care. There was at that time a craze in design for what was called automaticstability which was embodied in the BE2C. If you stalled one of these machines itwent into a dive from which it recovered automatically and bobbed up like a cork inwater. All very excellent but it required elbow room to do it; if you made a mistakenear the ground that was that. This capacity to withstand a dive, or rather a powereddescent, was however very useful for returning against an adverse wind. The nosecould be pushed down to give a speed of over 100 miles an hour, but this process, ofcourse, brought the aircraft continually nearer to the ground, and after a long flightentailed crossing the trench zone very low indeed. Here the partridge on the wingenjoyed another sport. Intensive machine-gun and rifle fire at once began, and gavethe bird the sensation of being at the wrong end of a rifle-range without the usualprotection, as the bullets zipped through the wings. The only safeguard was the smallwooden seat on which you were sitting, and the smack of a partly spent bullet couldoccasionally be felt upon it. The instinct of manhood in this disturbing situation wascarefully to compress treasured possessions within this exiguous area of protection.A rather similar sensation was afforded by the aerodrome at Poperinghe, because itwas bordered by a field of hop-poles with a pond in one corner. In the event of anengine beginning to fail at take-off—which occurred fairly often—the pilot hadsometimes to circle over the hop-poles to land against the wind. It was theninteresting to look over the side and to speculate which of the hop-poles would strikehome if the engine gave up completely. Poperinghe was an aerodrome of manyhazards, as the golfers say of their more interesting courses. Returning fromreconnaissance in poor visibility we once broke cloud for the first time just over theaerodrome. Immediately a French 75 battery which was stationed there for ourprotection opened fire and gave us a proper pasting. The pilot very skilfully dived inand pulled out just over the ground to land. The Frenchmen then saw at once we werean allied machine. Justly incensed, I got out of the machine and walked toward theFrench battery. A figure advanced to meet me, holding some object under his arm. Hewas the French battery commander; as we approached each other he held out a shellcaseand with a completely disarming smile said—'Souvenir'. It was the case of one ofthe French 75 shells he had fired at us, and to this day I still have it in the form of anold-fashioned dinner-gong. It took the place of the melodious cow-bells at Rollestonwhich used to be sounded in our childhood to summon us to the happy board.Our relations with the French gunners, and with their flying squadron which sharedthe aerodrome with us, were usually of the happiest. Perhaps natural affinity wasenhanced by fate's fortunate dispensation that the chauffeur of the French squadroncommander, in the genial, democratic forms of French military organisation, was thehead of one of the best-known brands of champagne in France. We tended afterwardsin their mess to see through a roseate glow even the most trying incidents of the day,as when the two squadrons took a different view of the direction of the wind, with theresult that two machines landing from opposite points just managed to avoid meetinghead-on in the middle of the aerodrome and escaped with a mutual ripping of wings.There was much improvisation in those early days among the French, who had thatcapacity to a degree of genius. But we English were able to make our contribution inthe efforts of one of our most gifted members, who later passed into the immortalityof heroism. L.G. Hawker was there in his early days with the squadron, very young,48 of 424