WAR

mann and Boelcke had both been awarded the Pour le Merite after eight and
Manfred confidently expected to receive the Order himself; he was chagrined to
learn that the General Staff had, after much deliberation, decided to establish
sweeping reforms in the awarding of decorations. What was called the "tempo" of
the air fighting was picking up in such a way that any number of men might qualify
for the Pour le Merite in a short time; so to avoid embarrassment the required
number of victories for fighter pilots was set officially at 16.
one of the dynamic figures of the Royal Flying Corps was Major Lanoe George
Hawker who was born on December 31, 1890, the son of Lieutenant H. C.
Hawker of the Royal Navy. As a boy, Lanoe was much interested in things
mechanical and electrical, he had an active, inquiring mind and considerable ingenuity.
He became fascinated by aeroplanes almost as soon as
aeroplanes made their
appearance in the world. A visit to a movie theatre where a film of a Wright
Flyer was shown, and a visit to an air meet at Bournemouth in the summer of
1910 were the sparks that lighted his young imagination. The flyer's way was
his way and he built and flew kites and model aeroplanes with the same intense
concentration that was later to win for him the Victoria Cross as the first of the
immortal company of Britain's fighter pilots.
Hawker entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1910 and while
this was a most significant step professionally, it was not of any greater significance
than the fact in
1910 he also joined the Royal Aero Club. He began taking
private lessons with the hope of acquiring a pilot's license so that he might, join
the air service, but even the enthusiastic and ingenious Lanoe found enough
complications in his path to delay his winning his "ticket" until March 1913.
By that time he had graduated from the Woolwich Academy, and in October
1913 he was promoted to Lieutenant. He applied for the RFC and was ordered
to report to the Central Flying School at Upavon on the day that "some fool
thing in the Balkans" inaugurated the new Dark Ages.
No. 6 Squadron RFC was formed on January 31, 1914, at Farnborough, its
scrambled equipment consisting of such pterodactyls as the B.E.2a, B.E.2b, Farman
Longhorn, Bleriot XI, B.E.8, R.E.5, and Martinsyde Scout to name a few.
Squadrons at that time were not so much unities as conglomerations.
Lieutenant L. G. Hawker was posted to No. 6 Squadron on October 5,
1914, and on October 7 the squadron flew across the Channel to Bruges. The
first days of active service for the squadron were a catch-as-catch-can operation,
for there was no transport, no ground crew, no supplies, no anything. Not even
a field—the squadron flew from the race track at Bruges. A few days later it
moved to the race track at Ostend. After a week or so of popping around from
place to place the squadron settled down at Poperinghe, but was on the move
again shortly with a transfer to St-Omer.
The irrepressible Hawker always took his revolver along on his reconnaissance
flights and pegged a shot at any German machine he chanced to meet.
79