Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men (13 page)

And within bare months, a 500-mile-long system of trenches had been dug by both sides, stretching from France’s border with Switzerland near Basel in the south all the way up across northern France to the Belgian coast, with a million soldiers manning the barricades and 100 yards or so of vicious no-man’s-land between them—the whole muddy mess, replete with minefields, barbed wire, machine-gun nests and pillboxes, being pounded by some 10,000 artillery guns. It was warfare on a scale unseen before, and the way forward was not apparent to either side, other than to keep pouring in fresh recruits to replace the tens of thousands of soldiers killed or wounded every month the bloody war blazed on. Every yard gained was paid for with blood.

One bold proposal to break the impasse emerged in late November 1914, from the First Lord of the Admiralty, a man by the name of Winston Churchill. Frustrated that, to this point, Britain’s previously supreme naval power was having little sway on the conflict, he had come up with a plan for the navy to help strike a massive blow. Why not, he put to the War Council, have a powerful squadron steam up through the narrow straits of the Dardanelles and strike at Constantinople, which lay at the heart of Germany’s new ally, Turkey?

If done on a large enough scale, it would mean the Germans would have to bleed soldiers from both the Western Front in France and the Eastern Front in Russia to fight on a third front in Turkey.

In the meantime, as the whole war effort became bigger by the week, with more and more resources pouring in, and more soldiers from both sides killed, it had become ever more obvious that Baden-Powell’s observation of six years earlier that Wilbur Wright was ‘in possession of a machine that could alter the destiny of nations’ was being proven correct. This was apparent even in those early days of the war when the primary use of aeroplanes was to dissipate the fog of war, by acting as far forward scouts, with planes carrying pilots and observers over the enemy to report on upcoming terrain and enemy troop movements and positions. They could also occasionally report on how well targeted their own artillery was. But it would not be long before the nature of the struggle for air supremacy was moved up several notches.

One day shortly after the war began, a young French flyer by the name of Roland Garros—who was already famous in France as the first man to fly across the Mediterranean in 1913—was cruising with an observer at 5500 feet above the town of Saarbrücken, on the German side of the French–German border, when suddenly he saw it. A German plane! Complete with its own observer, the plane marked with large black crosses on its wing was clearly heading towards French lines to do its own bit of spying. What to do?

The obvious—take a shot. While Garros manoeuvred his plane on a close parallel course to the German, his observer took out the carbine he had with him and did his best to draw a bead on the target, just 300 feet away. To Garros’s frustration, this was not a ‘shot that rang around the world’. In fact, in all likelihood not even the German pilot who was the target heard it. To the amazement of the Frenchman, after the carbine was fired there was no sign whatsoever of a hit having been registered and it was obvious that the observer had completely missed. Cursing wicked fate that had given him a flying companion so hopeless with a gun in his hand, Roland Garros returned to base and planned his next move.
¹²

At much the same time, the German aristocrat and cavalry officer Manfred von Richthofen was concluding that the air war might be important, and in fact the best part of the war to be fighting in. No matter that in the first days of the war, on horseback with the rest of the Uhlan Regiment No. 1, he and his fellow officers had looked at the planes overhead with such complete contempt that they fired on them
all
, regardless of whether they were friend or foe—for who knew which was which?

Then one day von Richthofen was on duty near Verdun when he saw an aerial battle between a German Taube and one of the new French Nieuport fighters. Actually, it was less a battle than a killing, as the Taube was only an observer plane while the Nieuport had a newly installed Hotchkiss machine gun firing 8-millimetre solid brass bullets. Though the Taube dived, darted and dipped to get away—as a sparrow might try to escape a hawk—in the end, the German plane was shot down, exploding into a ball of flame before it hit the ground, not 500 yards from where von Richthofen stood. Despite the death of his countryman, the sheer wonder of the chase took von Richthofen’s breath away. As a lad he had loved to hunt prey with his brothers on the family’s huge estate in Silesia. What must it be like to hunt
men
?

He decided on the spot to seek a transfer, to get away from trying to fight this war on horseback—a method that was obviously outmoded—and see if he, too, could not become a war pilot.
¹³
Perhaps then he could avenge the unfortunate German pilot who had died before his very eyes.

Roland Garros was not the first pilot of either side to be frustrated by the lack of ability to do damage to the enemy. On one celebrated occasion an English pilot had been so angered that he had thrown his empty, impotent revolver at the propeller of a German plane in the hope that it would bring the bastard down.
¹⁴
But Garros was the first to take matters into his own hands by trying to invent something better.

Voila!
Within a week Garros had organised as his observer a man who was reported to be one of the best shots in the French Army.
Maintenant
they would see what they could do to a German plane! And sure enough, just an hour after taking off, as the French pilot and his observer were nearing the town of Lunéville, with the majestic Meurthe River ribboning away below to the far horizon through the quilted patchwork of farmlands, they spied a German reconnaissance plane, an Albatros BII.
Aux armes
,
citoyens!

Bringing his plane in much closer this time, Garros was able to provide an easier shot for his companion. And it might have worked, too. But after the observer had indeed fired two careful shots at the Albatros for no visible results—careful, because all observers with guns had to be very sure not to fire forward anywhere near the propellers of their own plane—suddenly the German observer pulled out a machine gun and started spraying them! Happy just to make an escape from the fusillade of bullets, Garros returned to base, his mind whirring with both frustration and an idea he was forming on the next leap forward in aerial warfare. Certainly, most, when they heard of his idea, would say it was completely crazy, but with the right mechanic helping him, Garros thought he just might be able to make it work. That mechanic, Jules Hue, was extremely capable and together they began to work on Garros’s plan.

At last the day had come.

On 9 February 1915 Charles Kingsford Smith turned eighteen, and—with the written consent of his parents in his pocket—his first act was to present himself at the recruiting office at Sydney Town Hall, not even half a stone’s throw from his old school of St Andrew’s, to enlist. With whom, though, was he going to join, if not the infantry, as he had promised his mother?

Until this point Kingsford Smith had been so keen to ‘join up’ that he hadn’t actually focused on just what he would do, so one thing was as good as another. Just a little more than a week later, 1017 Private Charles Edward Kingsford Smith—all 5 foot 7
¹
/
₂
inches for only 10 stone and 7 pounds of him—found himself on the western outskirts of Sydney at the Ingleburn Army Camp, learning both how to be part of a disciplined army and how to fire big guns. Neither was easy…

Fact was, Charles Kingsford Smith and discipline—both self and imposed—simply didn’t quite fit together. As his parents and teachers could attest, while he was a lad of many talents, these did not include such basic things as punctuality, punctiliousness, knuckling down, knuckling under—or doing anything he didn’t really want to do—most particularly following orders he didn’t like, which were…let’s see…most of them.

Similarly, it was obvious to the young man from the first that artillery was not his thing. After all, there really wasn’t a lot to firing big guns, apart from getting the shell properly into the breech, pulling the lanyard and then coping with the noise of the massive explosion, which could make your ears ring for hours afterwards. Perhaps he’d be better in another division of the army? Something perhaps involving…motorbikes?

Exactly! As it happened, the army did have a need in the Signal Corps for young men who could drive motorbikes fast. The idea was that in the heat of battle, the dispatch rider would be useful in taking messages back and forth from the front lines. The moment the opportunity to be a dispatch rider came up, just a few weeks after he had begun at the Ingleburn camp, Kingsford Smith grabbed it and was soon transferred to a camp at Broadmeadow, on the southern outskirts of Newcastle, to train with the 4th Signal Troop of the 4th Divisional Signal Company.

There was, frankly, little the army could teach Chilla about how to ride a motorbike fast, after his already intense training around the streets of Neutral Bay, though it was an absolute joy to have the official brassard of a dispatch rider on his arm when in traffic, because it signified that he was given special leave to disobey road rules. Beyond that, he engaged in lessons about such basic things as rifle drill, bayonet practice, correct method of dress, how to salute officers and specific signalling skills, such as the operation of field telephones, flag signalling, and how to send and receive Morse code. The key to learning Morse code, he found, was memorising which configuration of dots and dashes went with what letters of the alphabet, and then practising over and over again, until he could instantly recognise letters and then whole words and even whole phrases.

At least it was something to occupy his time until he could do what he wanted to do most, which was to get back on the motorbike.

One day, about a month or so after her Chilla had departed for the Broadmeadow camp, Catherine Kingsford Smith was just finishing off the washing-up after lunch when their street was suddenly filled with the sound of roaring engines, as though twenty motorbike riders were trying to outdo each other over who could make the worst cacophony of deafening sound. Like everyone else in the quiet leafy street, she rushed outside to see what on
earth
was going on…only to find her laughing youngest child on his massive army motorbike—a Bullock Precision Big Four machine with a 4.25-horsepower engine—tearing up and down the street, and around and around, waiting for her to appear.
Oh, my dear, my dear!
On his arm, the brassard of a dispatch rider; on his face, a grin as wide as Sydney Heads. All up, a devastatingly handsome young man in uniform, her boy. He was home on a couple of days’ leave and couldn’t wait to show his mother—and, yes, everyone else in the neighbourhood—his new mount. Wasn’t she a beauty?

Yes, Chilla. And in all the excitement and carry-on, Catherine clear forgot about the appointment she had in town, and now it would be too late to catch the ferry, but a still laughing Chilla told her not to worry; he would race her along to the car ferry, riding pillion, at double speed. And to her amazement, she agreed…

Had the time of her life, too.

Yes, sir, there was just something about her youngest son…

While Chilla adored his mother in turn, still Nellie Stewart ran a close second in terms of his affections. Having seen her perform on several occasions, Chilla was completely smitten by her talents and beauty, though in a completely reverential and respectful sense. He was so taken with her that his sister Elsie, who had embarked on a theatrical career and knew Nellie Stewart slightly, arranged a brief meeting between the two, during which Miss Stewart handed her younger brother a signed photo.

The inscription read:

Dear Charles Kingsford Smith

May you live for those who love you; for the work

God has assigned you; and the good you can do.

Nellie Stewart
¹⁵

From the moment he received it, Chilla treasured the photo to such an extent that his mother had it framed for him. Thereafter, Chilla, about whom it was said would have misplaced his head if he hadn’t had it screwed on, always knew
precisely
where his photo of Nellie was—and that was, always within arm’s reach.

Nearly there now…Garros and his mechanic had succeeded in working out a rough system to fire their weaponry through the propeller of their plane. The obvious key was to ensure that the one in thirty bullets that would hit the propeller would, instead of shattering it, be deflected harmlessly away. To accomplish this, they modified a previous system developed by Raymond Saulnier—the same aircraft designer who in 1909 had helped Louis Blériot design and build his
Blériot XI
—and positioned the Hotchkiss machine gun close to the stem of the propeller. Then onto that stem they attached strong, angled steel.

By 1 April 1915, Garros was finally ready to test his system. While cruising over the town of Bruges, in Belgium, at a height of 4500 feet, he spied four German Albatros planes, 1000 feet higher than him on his starboard quarter. Quickly, he nosed his plane upwards so it was heading straight at the Germans and tightened the pressure of his finger on a piece of wire he had attached to the trigger. What was certain at this point, he knew, was that very soon one plane was going to be tumbling to earth, and he could only hope it wasn’t his own, with a shredded propeller.

Steady…steady…steady…
now
!

Just 100 feet away from the nearest German plane, an Albatros BII, Garros fired off four bursts of twenty-five 8-millimetre brass bullets, and was satisfied to see them peppering all along the fuselage of the German plane. From below, German and Allied troops watched what was happening with morbid fascination. It was strange, but they could
swear
they saw flashes of fire coming from the
nose
of the French plane!