WAR

that struck the propeller. It was estimated that fewer than ten per cent of the
bullets would strike the propeller. If it is accepted that the most useful direction
of fire in a chase context is straight ahead, then it will be seen that the major
problem of an accessible gun firing through the propeller had been solved.
A new weapon, the fighter, had been forged. Until it was wielded with killing
intent, however, the sky was relatively peaceful. A few aviators carried weapons
with them when they flew, but they were the exception.
In the German air service
Leutnant Wilhelm Siegert, later Inspector of Flying Troops, carried a carbine
with a gramophone horn nailed to the stock— "so that in the event of meeting
an enemy I might at least dismay and terrify him with its illusory calibre."
air-fighting as a tactical practice was still not foreseen. Or not so much not
foreseen as not given more than the briefest consideration. Until the war was
going into its fourth month everyone had thought it would be over in three and
the air would be superfluous because the battles and the war would be won
on the ground.
There was work to be done, of course, but the military staffs did not expect
that the aeroplane would ever replace the cavalryman's horse as a means of
getting observers out and back. The aeroplane was not considered a weapon in
itself any more than the horse was.
The casual armament that was carried in aeroplanes was more for defense
in the event of a forced-landing behind the lines than for offensive action in the
air. The observers, being usually officers, had their own side arms such as
automatic or machine pistols which they carried with them while flying, and
the enlisted men were regularly issued carbines. With improvised mountings
like that in the Voisin of Frantz and Quenault even machine guns might be taken
along. But it was common for crews to fly with no armament at all.
The French were of two minds about the war. Some thought it grand sport,
but most were serious about it. After all, the war was being fought in home
country. The British, many of them, regarded it as a grotesque and colossal joke.
Britain was as usual safely insulated by the Channel. It's a pretty big difference.
The Germans were impelled by duty, Vaterland, Lebensraum and other large ideas.
All of the airmen had this in common: they flew because it interested them,
all
were volunteers, and they craved excitement. They were young.
Flying was exciting and different, with or without a war, and many pilots
and observers felt a comradeship with enemy airmen. In late 1914 and early 1915
it was still a lark to take along a rifle and have a sporting shot at any opposite
numbers one might come across. No one expected to get hurt, no one seriously
expected to shoot anyone down. When, on occasion, it chanced that unarmed
crews should meet, they could fire colored signal flares at each other.
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