WAR

flying across the Channel; Pegoud looping the loop. Among the pioneers there
was none who was not devoted to flying itself. The war brought the first disinterested
professionals.
In the first year or so the romantics were killed off. Next came the adventurers.
Unless these could become professionals they too went down. At the Front
a new kind of aviator began to appear, a man whose primary interest was doing
a job—winning the war—and who just happened to be making his contribution
by flying. Such a one was the humorless youth that was Albert Ball. Such a one
also was Manfred, Baron von Richthofen. These were the tough ones. They were
killed as easily as any man, for they were only human, but they accomplished
more, could carry on longer, before the strain betrayed them into a fatal error.
With a few exceptions none had much imagination. Flying, in war or peace, is
a deadly serious job, and the man who lets his mind wander usually doesn't last
long. In the squadron mess, places were not left empty at the table, nothing was
sacred. The civilian luxuries of grief and a funeral for a close friend were rarely
indulged in. Hairbreadth escapes were dismissed, forgotten. They had no meaning
once the danger was past. Future danger was not worth considering since it, like
peace, did not exist. An inflexible self-discipline had to be imposed lest normal
feelings become fatal weaknesses.
Albert Ball was considered a loner in the air and on the ground. He preferred
the solo roving patrol to team flying and had many acquaintances but few friends.
He may have avoided making friends for fear of losing them. It wouldn't be the
first time that a soldier chose to protect himself by isolation.
In October he returned to England where he was assigned to a training
school, a job he accepted reluctantly and found boring.
In February 1917 he received a posting to a combat squadron, No. 56,
newly formed at London Colney. He was promoted to Flight Commander and
went to France with the squadron in April. No. 56 Squadron flew its first patrol
on April 23, in the course of which Ball scored the first
victory for the squadron.
In the two weeks before his death Ball scored 13 victories, an average of almost
one a day.
On May 7, the squadron sent up an 11 -machine patrol late in the day, with
Ball leading his own flight. The patrol leader spotted six Albatros about 3000
feet below. He promptly led his men down to attack, and von Richthofen's
Jasta 11 came down on top of them. Another German patrol stumbled upon the
fight and waded in. Then No. 8 Squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service joined
in. A frantic and disordered fight spread out among the cold and towering masses
of cloud. During the fight,
one of Ball's squadron mates followed him into a cloud
and came out the other side alone. That's all there was to it, as if the cloud had
swallowed him up.
Only five of the machines from No. 56 Squadron straggled back to the
aerodrome at Vert Galand that evening and none of the pilots knew what had
happened to Albert Ball. He had simply vanished. The only thing known for certain
was that he was gone for good at a time when the RFC needed him badly.
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