OTTBYM Mission 1 – Vagabond Denies the Enemy – Oct 5th 1916
It was 1800 hours when I arrived in the mess doorway and it was pandemonium inside.
Jack Cowan and Joe Ryan were having a cap wearing contest and for each extra hat they could get on their heads the forfeit was 2 fingers of a clear liquid and it wasn’t water they were drinking. Jack was winning but Joe complained that as Jack usually wore 2 hats he should be penalised, some bright spark had referred to the fact that jockeys carried extra weight as a handicap so Jack was holding a bar stool in his left hand as his handicap.
Sheer madness but it was great to be back home in the Mess.
Even Uncle had a big smile on his face and a G and T in his hand. By the colour of his cheeks which were a very rosy red it wasn’t the first one he’d had today.
“Well young Vagabond what are you doing here, we weren’t expecting you for 3 weeks and I don’t think the M.O. will let you fly in that wheel chair, it won’t fit in the cockpit”. So I had to explain that I’d escaped from the hospital, I’d been thinking of digging a tunnel but found a much easier way out, besides that, my broken legs were well on the mend but not really up to digging a tunnel. I didn’t like to explain that I was frightened of what Matron would do to me if I damaged her floor digging through it to escape.
“So” I said breezily, “Nurse Schultz kindly offered me a lift in one of the hospital ambulances. She’s very interested in planes and was itching to see some of ours close up”, Uncle frowned slightly at that news but cheered up when he saw my conveyance outside. He likes horses.
“Nurse Schultz is friendly with a chap in the Veterinary Corps and sometimes they used the same ambulances so it was a simple matter to wheel my chair into the back of one of them and here we are”.
“Anyway” I asked “what’s all the celebrating for, have we got some new planes or shot down a dozen Germans or won the Champaign Sweepstake”?
Just then Biff and Berry came over, you may remember Berry the Cad, the pilot who had stolen my childhood sweet heart The Honourable Bunty Hamster-Crust, well he had a silly grin on his face and a tumbler full of the potato based alcohol C Flight are so keen on.
“Ah ha Vagabond” he said “just wait till I tell Bunty my news, I’m officially an Ace Pilot now you know, an Acsh Pliot”. “Shot down lots of them today, lots and lots and lots”, his eyes rolled up and he fell face down on the floor with a loud thump and remained as still as a pole axed ox.
“Never could take his drink” muttered Uncle “but I see you’ve not lost your dexterity” as he looked at Berry’s glass, now in my hand. “Well he won’t need this now” I said and drank it down in one draught.
“Tell me what happened then” and Biff started his tale. The text is under the pictures.
“Since you’ve been in hospital enjoying yourself, there’s lots been happening here” he began, “the Germans are on the back foot and we keep bowling googlies at them”. “We’ve managed to build up air superiority over the Elll’s with our new planes and they are not getting the reports back from their Observation planes because we keep knocking them out of the sky”.
I noticed Nurse Schultz listening with close attention as Biff continued, “they’ve resorted to putting up more observation balloons and our mission today was to shoot one of these down and stop their shenanigans”. “On top of that we have a new French plane on trial, a Spad Vll, fast as they come but not as manoeuvrable as I would like”. “The big problem is that we’re still short of scout pilots with you and Jerome in hospital and because young Bob’s training he’s technically still on our books we’re down to Taki, myself and Berry”, he glanced down at Berry who still lay where he had fallen.
Taki has a cold and is forbidden to fly for a couple of days so I let Berry loose in the new Spad, Uncle was dead against it, you know how many planes Berry has broken but I dare not let him fly the Nieuport because that’s the only one we have incendiary ammo for so he would have to attack the balloon. I doubt he could have missed it, avoid flying into it I mean, so it had to be the Spad. By the way, have you heard about these rockets our Boffins are developing, that will really have the German pilots howling when we deploy them.
We were in line abreast approaching the balloon, I had Berry out on my starboard side and Cowan and Ryan in the old FEE on my port side, I’d told them to keep any Hun planes off my back and I would attack the balloon with the incendiaries. That’s when I saw a couple of the new Albatrii guarding the great big grey thing and thought I might have the easy task. You know they’ve started mounting twin Spandaus on them, I must have gone pale because he continued, yes 2 guns, they’re fast and built like a brick sh*t house, pardon my expression Nurse but almost as un-manoeuvrable as the Spad.
Berry had already pulled ahead of us, presumably he had the throttle fully open, you know what he’s like, anyway the Albatrii swing out and then made a pincer move on us and I went straight for the balloon.
Berry swung right as the Albi turned in and they traded shots, bless me but when the Albatros lit up like a candle it did my heart good to see it.
As I said, I went straight at the balloon and could see I’d hit one of the crew, not a happy feeling to know I’d shot him with an incendiary but that’s the way it goes. I was very close when I’d opened fire because in spite of our orders I’d only been allocated 6 drums of incendiaries so was trying to conserve them a little.
Over on my port side I could see that Cowan and Ryan were having a rough time of it with their Hun and the old FEE had caught fire. They had a pretty bad day today he grimaced and then cheered up when Cowan roared with laughter at keeping the 10th hat on his head and drinking more of the Poteen.
Ryan was firing continually into the Albatros and ignoring the blaze, Jack was weaving all over the sky trying to put the damn thing out but to no avail.
Then Ryan moved to the other Lewis and blazed away with the 2nd one. I looked puzzled. What do you mean the 2nd one, there’s only one Lewis on the FEE. Biff smiled, I told you there’s lot’s happened while you’ve been away. We had some chaps over from the Squadron on the next field and we got drinking and talking as you do and one of them, Strange, that was his name, not his nature told us about the new gun mount they had developed.
It sits between the driver and the passenger and in theory either can use it. In practice we’ve found that the pilot is usually too busy and so the passenger has use of 2 guns. Nurse Schultz interrupted Biff and asked how the gunner could reach such a gun. With a big grin he explained that the Observer had to stand up in the plane, sometimes on the cockpit combing to fire it to the rear but that we had caught a few of the Hun napping as they thought they were safe behind a FEE. Well not anymore. She just nodded sagely.
I misjudged my approach to the balloon said Bif slightly shamefaced. I’d intended flying underneath it and using the Lewis to fire upwards into it’s belly but forgot to dive in time.
So it was a bit of a last minute effort and by then I was coming out the far side.
Anyway I saw Berry and the Hun had both Immeled and were pouring lead into each other again but then Berry’s gun jammed and I started getting a bit worried, it was going to be very lonely on my own fighting 2 Hun and a balloon.
I suspect because the Hun was on fire either he panicked or was distracted but he flew straight into Berry’s Spad, They’re both solidly built planes but I think the Spad came out on top. Berry maintains he flew into the Albi on purpose, some story about if Vagabond can ram a plane and get a kill anyone can, but I think as he was trying to clear a gun jam at that point he just wasn’t looking ahead, you know how he flies.
The other Albi is just about to Immel to get back into the fight with Cowan and Ryan.
The action around the balloon was hotting up, the Albi Pilot that Berry had been scrapping with had flown wide, probably trying to put out the fire that was eating up his plane, Berry on the far side of the balloon had turned his attention to the one scrapping with the FEE but a little too late.
Ryan had been able to get off a long shot at the balloon to no avail but when they mixed it with the 2 gun Albi the FEE took a lot of damage.
and went down behind enemy lines.
Berry was now in pursuit of the Albi and the speed of the Spad quickly brought him into range.
He opened fire.
The Albi pilot froze and continued to fly away from him and he poured more lead into it.
With the inevitable result that it went down and that was a “KILL to BERRY”.
The other Albi was still along way from the action and still on fire, this was eating his plane bit by bit.
Biff said “I was chipping away at the balloon but I think the incendiaries were pretty dud in the first drum so I was pleased when it ran dry and I could change to a new one”.
This proved more effective and on my first burst with it the balloon caught fire. Well you know once that happens it’s curtains for the crew and I could see the unwounded chap pushing the wounded one out of the basket. He didn’t want to go and put up quite a fight, I was relieved when I saw he’d still been well enough to open his parachute and then the other chap followed suit.
I ignored them and concentrated on the gasbag, the fire seemed to be doing more damage than my bullets, I can’t wait until we get the approval on the rockets, balloon busting will be so much safer then.
Over in the distance I saw the last Albi crash, the fire had done its damage and “BERRY has another KILL”.
I’d started a 2nd fire on the balloon and most of the damage was caused by the fire rather than the bullets but the great big thing eventually blew up.
Of course that always happens when you least expect it and both Berry and I were in the blast zone, the lucky B took no damage from the explosion and I was fortunate in just getting a scrap of burning fabric on my top wing, close enough for me to put it out without any problem.
The Butchers Bill
Lt Montague Anstruther-Browne – RTB – 1 Kill (Balloon)
F/Sgt Wilfred Berry – RTB – 2 Kills (Muller and Franke)
AM1 Jack Cowan – SD(FLM) – No Kills
C&W = Rolled 7 -2FLM = 5 Injured Skip 1D3 – Rolled 2 Skip 1 Mission
E&E = Rolled 8 -1FLM -1WIC -1BEL = 5 In Hiding Skip 1D2 – Rolled 1 skip 1 Mission
2/Lt Joseph Ryan – SD(FLM) – No Kills
C&W = Rolled 11 -2FLM = 9 Alls well when you land near a shell hole.
E&E = Rolled 9 -1FLM -1BEL = 7 landed almost home skip 1 Mission.
But if Cowan and Ryan went down over the other side how come they are here playing silly games? I asked. Well said Biff, you remember I said we had the Hun on the back foot, well the jammy pair landed or should I say crashed near to a shell hole. The 5th Northumberland’s were in the process of pushing the Germans back from their front line, that’s what all this balloon malarkey was about. Well the Hun was in such a rush to get away from the 5th that that they missed Cowan and Ryan who were safe in their hole. Safe that is until some miner from Newcastle wanted to shoot them, thinking they were the enemy, and you can see his point but fortunately for them his CO recognised Jacks top hat and stopped him.
“Apparently” Biff continued “Jack won the MM helping the 5th stop a German attack back in the early part of 16”. “Yes I know” I replied, “I was with him in no mans land at the time, he saved my life then”.
“So we gained some ground” I said, “the Brass will be pleased”. “No not really” Biff replied, “they pushed us back to our starting line but at least Cowan and Ryan were able to get away with the 5th and they made it back here shortly after I did”.
Ltn Heinrich Müller (Blue) – SD – FT – 1 kill FEE
C&W – Rolled 4 -1SD = 3 Injured Skip 1D6 rolled 1 skip 1 mission
Ltn Albert Franke (Red) – SD(FLM) – FT – No Kills
C&W – Rolled 11 – 2 FLM = 9 Alls well when you’re a lucky B.
“What do you think of the 2 gunned planes” I asked Biff before I left – “a bit of a worry” was his laconic answer. “I think the chaps who we have met in the all CDL coloured ones, are new to the front and so inexperienced pilots, when we see the gaudily painted ones then we’ll have problems”.
Just then Cowan dropped the bar stool and Ryan claimed the victory because Jack was no longer handicapped and he knocked all the caps Jack was wearing to the floor. “Take no notice of them it’s only childish nonsense” I said to Nurse Schultz, “we’d better be going before Matron notices our absence”.
“What about the planes” she almost simpered; you promised I could see them, especially the new fast one”.
“Another time, when my legs are better I’ll take you up in one” I replied.
Thanks Barry that was a great opening game and unusually I believe I came out ahead. The balloon took some putting down though, in spite of the incendiaries. I remember the opening game of the DYM where we had 2 balloons to kill and they both exploded quite easily with normal bullets, this just burned away slowly, it’s all in the chit draw I suppose.
I’m not quite sure when the Strange mount was adopted for the FEE but think it was late 16 so hope that doesn’t worry anyone too much and if there’s a definitive answer I’d like to know. Same with the Spad, I hadn’t intended using one so early but I have a pair of the grey ones and they’ve never been on the table so I hope you forgive that. Berry certainly seems more at home in it that I would have thought.
Only 2 more weeks in hospital and I’ll be up in the air again.
Pip Pip
Flying Officer Vagabond
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Rep on the way, right arm over the wicket and flighted to decieve 
Originally Posted by mikeemagnus
Great to see you haven't lost your sense of Humour John whilst visiting those depressing Castles. 
He'll never know now. 
by our French allies. 
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