here is a story dedicated to the boys who fought the war on the ground, the holders of the famous “croix de chair,” who were commonly known as swivel chair artists, or “waffle seaters.” i was engaged in this duty myself at times and i know what it means. it is the most exacting and yet least appreciated task of the war. we used to call these staff officers “waffle seaters” for the reason that they sat so long on cane bottomed chairs that the seats of their trousers were beginning to take on the impression of a waffle.
there were troubles in the air and troubles on the ground. one of the reasons that made it extremely difficult to get a proper understanding between the units on the ground and the air service was that the ground units had never had an opportunity to work with the air service and they, therefore, could not understand the possibilities and the limitations of aviation. neither the airman nor the ground soldier could be brought to realize that many of the troubles encountered were common to both. this lack of understanding and co?peration gradually 100was eliminated as the units became more experienced in working with each other.
however, for a long time the airman could not possibly comprehend how the same faults that bothered the flyer could also bother those on the ground. the contrary is also true—many on the ground thought the airman would not be bothered by the same elements that would hinder ground work.
an incident illustrating this occurred between a couple of air officers, a colonel who was in charge of american balloons at the front, and a lieutenant, a balloon observer. this superior officer was a full-blooded german, born in berlin. he spoke a german-american language that was mostly german. his name was lieutenant colonel john paegelow. paegelow was a regular, and a regular fellow. we all liked him very much for he was very jovial and good natured. anyway, his loyalty was unquestionable for he was about the worst hun-hater among us. however, he had the prussian idea of discipline and he took it out on the balloonatics whenever he felt they needed it. at chateau-thierry the balloons were under orders to remain in ascension day and night, and the personnel of the balloon companies had become noticeably fatigued from this prolonged vigilance; the balloon observers, especially, were worn out and naturally cross and irritable. it was a rainy night and paegelow was standing on the ground holding the telephone in communication with the balloon observer two thousand feet above. this observer had been up for fourteen consecutive hours and was about 101all in, and the rain had made it a desolate and disagreeable night, adding considerable more woe to the occasion.
“colonel,” the young observer telephoned, in a very disgusted voice.
“vat?” alertly answered paegelow, thinking the lad had spied something.
“it’s pitch dark up here, i can’t see a damn thing and it’s raining to beat hell up here,” spoke the observer.
“iss dot up dare all de trouble you got?” said paegelow, indicating his overruling of the demurrer.
“well, what are you going to do about it?” demanded the exasperated lieutenant.
paegelow hesitated a second, then replied, “vell, vill you shut up and go on and vork. it iss pitch dark down here, und i can’t see a damn ting down here either, und it iss raining to beat ’ell down here too.”
when we started to work with new infantry and artillery units some were pleased and others did not want to have anything to do with us. it was at chateau-thierry that such lack of liaison became a serious matter and at the same time was the basis for several amusing incidents. the line units were prone to blame the air service for everything that went wrong. the reason was that they considered an airplane so experimental and uncertain in itself that that fact alone would preclude any argument as to the proper placing of blame for every failure.
one of the hardest things we had to contend with was impressing upon the line units the fact that the 102corps observation and the corps air service commander had absolutely nothing to do with the pursuit and attack planes; that all these came directly under the french army commander.
several times i answered the telephone to receive the scathing denunciation that “the hun was over shooting up some of our posts of command and that none of our d—d airplanes had been seen in the air all day.” whereupon we tried to explain that we did not control the pursuit planes; that it should have been reported to the army headquarters and that we, of course, would report it immediately. the ground units considered this rather poor tactics and a very unsatisfactory answer, for to their minds all planes were offensive fighters. had the line units realized the actual number of planes we had on the front and the area they were patrolling they might have realized why our planes were not seen oftener. we did not have them to be seen.
one of the greatest difficulties we had was in teaching the doughboy to recognize the american insignia. our publications were responsible for this, for every magazine published in the united states pictured the american airplane with a big star painted on its wings, while the insignia actually adopted was a cocarde—three circles of red, white and blue, within one another, the center circle being white, the british center circle being red, and the french center circle being blue. as a matter of fact, the star in the air, at a reasonably long distance, looks exactly like the german maltese cross. in fact, a french airman 103once remarked that if the american had gone into combat with that much advertised star and the germans failed to get him, a friendly airman, misjudging the star for a cross, certainly would have given a real battle.
our doughboys actually thought that the american insignia was a huge star, for all the magazines had firmly implanted that on their minds. they didn’t care about the insignia of any other nation outside of the american and german. to them one was a star and the other a cross, anything else was either friendly or enemy; and they would take a chance on it being enemy and fire at it.
one day before the chateau-thierry drive i was flying low along the lines and from my map i was quite sure which was our own territory, and which was that occupied by the germans. i was well in the edge of our own territory when i heard machine guns firing at me from the ground. my first thought was that the germans had advanced, so i directed the pilot to dive down to investigate. as we dived the machine gunners became convinced that we were going to fire upon them, so they turned loose upon us. as we flew on back, other gun crews having seen those machine guns firing at us, began firing too and although the pilot kept banking the plane up so that they might see our american cocarde, they kept on firing. about a half a kilometer back of the lines we began circling for altitude, and i kept hearing a few shots from a gun. then, in a few seconds i saw a bullet go through the fuselage. looking down on 104the edge of an old trench i saw about three lads with rifles firing at us, and they were good, old yankee doughboys; i was sure of it.
i felt like turning loose a burst of about fifty rounds, aiming close to this group in order to give them a real scare, then i realized that there might be other troops around who might be grazed by a stray bullet, so i marked the place very definitely on my map, flew back to the airdrome and landed.
this was a serious matter, so i immediately made a trip up to the front to find out about it. i trudged around the trenches for an hour before any plane came in sight, then one of our own airplanes came along, flying very low. suddenly i heard a rifle firing close by. i immediately ran in the direction of the shooting and i discovered a half-grown kid surrounded by a couple of his companions, coolly taking pot shots at this american airplane. in a rage i jumped on him with all fours.
“don’t you know that’s an american plane?” i demanded in a manner neither affable nor pleasant. to my great surprise he responded that he knew it was an american plane.
“well,” i continued, speaking even more severely, “what do you mean by firing on an american plane?”
this doughboy casually continued chewing his tobacco and looking at the ground for some reason, apparently not from lack of composure, for he would take an occasional spit at an old, rusty helmet about six feet up the trench. the presence of an officer 105bothered him about as much as the presence of a king affects a bolshevik.
“well,” i again asked, “where do you get that noise of firing at a friendly plane?”
this was just the opening he wanted, for he threw out his chest in all his independent dignity and said, “there ain’t no friendly planes around here. i ain’t seen any, no how. them american planes ain’t got no business being back this far from the lines and if them aviators ain’t got nerve enough to go over there and scrap them boche on their own ground, we’ll force ’em over with our guns and put a little backbone in ’em.”
then the lad gave me a full explanation as to why they had fired upon these american planes and he claimed the american flyers always ran from the boche; the boche came over and shot up the doughboys and he had never seen an american plane going over and shooting up the boche. then i asked him if he knew the functions of the airplanes. i wanted him to know that some planes had to stay behind the lines at times.
“yep,” he said, “they’re all fighters, all of ’em, or supposed to be, but they don’t fight. they stay back here; they’re scared to go over.”
then i asked him if he had ever heard of an observation plane and if an observation plane shot a signal of six rockets to him what he would do. he replied that he did not know anything about observation planes and didn’t want to know anything about them, but that several times large planes had flown 106back there and had fired fire rockets at the doughboys.
“how many rockets did they fire?” i asked.
“oh,” he said, “lots of ’em. sometimes three and six at one time.” i knew six rockets was the official signal from an airplane to the infantry, and that they were supposed to put out white pieces of cloth, their panels, to tell the airplane exactly where they were.
“well, what did you do when the airplane fired six rockets at you?” i questioned in a more tolerating tone of voice.
“what did i do?” he answered as if surprised at such a silly question. “what do you think i’d a done? why, i fired right back at ’em. there ain’t nobody goin’ to fire at me and get off with it without me firing back.”
the other buddies backed him up absolutely and i spent a half hour explaining to them the real facts about the airplane game. they finally came to my way of thinking on every point except the courage of the american airman. they could not be dissuaded; they were convinced that most american flyers were cowards and “yellow.”
i, of course, reported this firing on friendly airplanes to headquarters and an order was issued so as to acquaint the infantry with the allied insignia. however, it was not until late in the argonne offensive that this misapprehension of the doughboy was entirely cleared away. time and time again when i would ask infantrymen, even officers, if they knew the american airplane insignia, they would say it 107was a “star,” but that they had never seen any american planes on the front. perhaps it is for this reason that there are many doughboys who to-day declare they never saw an american airplane over the front. they undoubtedly saw many american planes, but they never saw any with the much-advertised star in the cocarde.
we had a great lot of trouble with wireless equipment in our artillery adjustments. when anything went wrong it was always blamed on the radio attached to the airplanes and we, of course, always attributed the fault to the artillery station on the ground because our wireless sets were always tested from the air to our own squadron station before starting on any mission. if the radio was not working, we always came down and fixed it. but this continual, unsatisfactory co?peration on radio communication was a serious affair all the way through and it was a bone of contention between the air service and the artillery in many instances. finally radio officers were appointed to inspect the equipment on the airplane and the equipment on the ground and to determine where the fault lay. this helped some, but the trouble was never actually overcome. if the trouble was with the airmen, it was perhaps due to failure to throw in their switch. an experience i had, led me to believe that the trouble was more with the personnel than the material. in each artillery regiment in trench warfare, there was one battery designated to fire upon a sudden call from the airplane. this battery was known as the fugitive 108target battery and the wireless crew was supposed to be constantly on duty from daybreak until nightfall so that when an airplane called, the designated battery could be immediately notified and the adjustment of artillery fire undertaken at once.
one day i decided to make a thorough reconnaissance of the front and to call the fugitive target battery to a certain regiment to make a rapid adjustment. i crossed the line, found my target, which was a small convoy on the road within a forest. i was well within range of the fugitive target battery, so i immediately began to call the wireless station of the battery. i called it for fully twenty-five minutes but i could get no response. they did not put out any panel at all. i happened to know the location of the wireless station in the next regiment, which was also supposed to be looking out for fugitive target calls, so i called them and they immediately displayed their panel that they understood me. i was then certain that my wireless was o. k., so i flew back to my first battery and began to call them again. after another fifteen minutes i still received no response whatsoever. as the target had long since disappeared and being without the range of the alert battery of the next regiment, i flew home.
after making my report i called up the colonel of the regiment in which the battery was located. he, of course, being a very busy man, was not especially anxious to talk to a lieutenant, so he transferred me to his wireless officer. i told the wireless officer that i had called them for forty minutes and had gotten 109absolutely no response and that i was sure that my wireless was all right. he, in a very nice way, responded that he was quite sure that my wireless was not all right, because he was certain that the battalion concerned had their wireless in very good shape. we got into quite an argument in which i told him that i called the designated battery of the next regiment and that they had answered and that i called my home station both on leaving and returning and that they answered, but the captain repeated that he didn’t give a continental how many answered, he still knew his wireless stations were all right and he didn’t want any argument over the telephone about it. whereupon i mentally cussed the whole army, but merely said, “yes, sir,” and hung up.
i immediately dispatched another plane to call the same battery and to keep on calling them until they answered. then i got into the car and drove up to the battalion concerned. i paid my respects to the major commanding the battalion and told him the trouble—that we had called and had received no response. he was sort of peeved at the whole world so he said he was getting disgustingly tired of these airplanes hollering about the artillery’s wireless; that his wireless was all right and it was the inefficient airplanes; that his wireless men were on duty and had been from daybreak until night. i told him i would like to go over, if i might, and look over his wireless station. he became very indignant and said, “lieutenant, that is quite an unnecessary request. i 110know the efficient condition of my units and i know my wireless is listening now and i know that they have been listening in all day.”
i was beginning to become accustomed to these rebuffs by this time so i smoothed it over the best i could and finally he agreed to take the time to walk over to the wireless station with me. the plane i had dispatched ahead was circling above and i knew he was calling. we went to the wireless station, which was a sort of improvised one down in a dug-out. the place was deserted and there was not a person in sight. the major was sore, but apologetic. he remembered that battery c was supposed to furnish the detail and that they were supposed to be on the job permanently. so we went over and found the captain of battery c and the battalion signal officer, a second lieutenant, who were busily engaged in a poker game. the major, in a terrible voice, demanded, “where in ’ell are those radio operators?” the poor lieutenant meekly gave the only answer he could think of. “why, major,” he said, “they are right over there at the station; they have been there all day.”
the major calmly asked, “lieutenant, have you inspected the radio unit to-day?”
whereupon the lieutenant solemnly said, “no, sir, i have not inspected it, but i am positive that the operators are right on the job,” and he described definitely the place from which we had just come.
we asked him the name of his radio operators. they were all privates. with the captain and the 111radio officer we went over to the radio station. it was still deserted. the major began to tell the lieutenant in language that will not permit of repetition just what he thought of him. the lieutenant was speechless, and out of sympathy for him i made the suggestion that there was an airplane above which was probably calling them now and that it might be a good idea if we could get some one there at the station to listen in. the radio officer grasped the opportunity, jumped down and put the clickers to his ears, and the first thing he said was, “q-p-r, q-p-r—that’s our call!” i felt like a million dollars, for this time the artillery was forced to concede that it was not the fault of the airplane. with the assistance of the major and the captain we manipulated the panels while the wireless officer took the calls and the lad in the airplane did the adjustment. then we went back to find out where the radio operators were; that is, the three privates.
the captain dispatched an orderly to find the first sergeant. in about five minutes the sergeant was located and made his appearance. he was an old non-commissioned officer and was seasoned by experience in many climes and in dealing with many classes of men. he was rather heavy, and had not shaved for several days, which fact, in addition to his heavy, disheveled mustache, gave him the appearance of a hardboiled bulldog.
“sergeant,” began the captain, “do you know where the radio operators are?”
“yes, sir,” grumbled the top soak, affirmatively 112nodding his head with self-satisfaction that he quite well knew where they were.
“well,” went on the captain, “i want to see them at once. if you will show me their quarters it will save time.”
“they ain’t in their quarters,” came the reply. “they’re in the kitchen.”
we went to the kitchen and found the three expert radio operators—two were scrubbing big, black pans and the third was peeling spuds.
for moral effect, the captain called the top sergeant off to one side. the rest of us had to laugh.
“why have you got these men in the kitchen?” hotly demanded the captain.
“well, sir,” replied the sergeant, closing in his jaws firmly in determination, “there ain’t no more reason why the rest of the battery should do k. p. and excuse the wireless men. i heard one of ’em say yesterday that he ain’t never done no k. p. since he’d been in this man’s army, and that kind er talk is bad for the morale of the battery, so i just stuck ’em all on fer a few days to show the fellers they ain’t no favors played in this battery.”
“yes, but what about the radio?” asked the captain. “you should have left one of them on the job.”
“oh, well, captain,” came back the “top” sergeant, “it ain’t goin’ to make no difference; these airplanes don’t call the station more than once every two or three days and we ain’t got enough men to 113waste on sitting around awaiting for ’em to call and they don’t do nothing for us when they do call.”
thus i found one of the main reasons for this early lack of results. these old timers did not take the air service seriously. they had no faith in its present capabilities nor its future development. to them an army was composed of infantry, cavalry and artillery. every other arm or service was experimental. i am glad to say, however, that later this battery, in fact the entire regiment of artillery, became very proficient in the work with the air service and the results were, indeed, satisfactory to all.
in the actual advance at chateau-thierry the ground liaison—that is, the communication by telephone, wireless telegraph and ground telegraph between the line units and the air service—became poorer and poorer as the troops advanced until it was really in a deplorable state. the area over which troops passed was all shell torn and it was impossible to move our flying fields farther up because we could not cease operations in order to make the move since we had no reserve air units, and worse, we had no fields prepared and the germans had destroyed theirs in the retreat.
as the days advanced conditions became more terrible. the entire corps headquarters had only one telephone wire and one ground telegraph line to the corps advance headquarters and from there only one out to the various divisional posts of command and in front of those posts of command almost 114everything was done by runners. our little force at the corps air service headquarters was all worked down. after the first few days the drive ceased to be exciting and it became purely drudgery and habit. we were all irritable and cross. we were overworked and loss of sleep was showing very much in our dispositions. this particular day things were getting pretty bad up the line. the german artillery was making a strong defense and all of our command posts were getting their full share of german artillery fire. at noon our radio operator told me that some one had been trying all morning to put through a message to us, but that we had been unable to receive it. either the transmitting set at the line was not working or our receiving set was not. at any rate, something was urgently wrong somewhere at the front or they would not have been so persistent. about nine-thirty they started trying to call us and they kept on until eleven-thirty, but the operator could not get anything definite out of the sound. in addition, at about a quarter of twelve they succeeded in getting a telephone call through, but we could not hear. we tried to relay it, but that did not work. we worked an hour on that—until a quarter of one. then they managed to get a priority call through on the ground telegraph, which telegram was dated at the post of command at one-thirty in the afternoon and was delivered to me at one-forty. the telegram read as follows:
115“to chief of air service. first army corps.
german artillery firing on my post of command. stop it!
general.”
of course, we all had a real laugh at the situation; that is, mathis and i, for we were the only ones there, brereton being away on business and harwood being up at the front on liaison. of course, such a request was obviously impossible. an airplane can spot certain batteries when firing, but when there are fifteen hundred different guns firing continuously on fifteen hundred different objectives one can imagine what possibility an airplane would have of picking out the particular battery that was firing on this particular post of command. at the same time, as it was signed in code by a general, it was imperative that something be done because that unit had not been any too friendly toward the air service, and, of course, the wishes of a general must always have immediate attention.
i knew there was no answer that i could send back over the wire that would quiet the situation, so we simply acknowledged the receipt of the message. at the same time i knew there was no use to send a special airplane for this request because we already maintained a plane over the front every hour of the day, the one duty of which was to report by wireless the location of any enemy batteries seen firing. i was mighty busy on a multitude of other things, but still the general must be answered, so i finally decided 116the best thing to do was to go up to the post of command and explain the entire situation, telling why it could not be done. after an hour and a half rough riding we finally approached the post of command concerned. i left the car about a quarter of a mile away so as to not attract the attention of the german airplanes to the presence of a command post. all the way up i had been considering just what i would say, because, being a lieutenant, i wouldn’t have much chance with a general, and yet i felt that since i had to do it i ought to have something worth saying. i had decided upon my whole speech—i would simply say that the mission was not only impossible but such a request was preposterous—an airplane was a great thing, but it had a limit of activity. at the same time i was in great fear of being laughed at and being balled out, because in a great many cases a lieutenant speaking with a general, with the slight difference in rank, is at a disadvantage. i knew i had to make some sort of a stab so, though i was determined on my speech, i really felt very much like a bashful school boy. as to procedure i had it all fixed up that i would go in, click my heels together, salute smartly and explain to the general that i was the operations officer for the corps air service, whereupon i thought he would certainly have some deference for me on account of the important position i was holding with such low rank. my greatest hope was that he would be reasonable and would take my statement regarding the situation as final and authoritative, without further 117argument. i concluded that the best way would be to impress him with the knowledge i had on the particular subject and not give him a chance to come back. to do this i must be absolutely firm and convincing in what i had to say, but at the same time, way down deep in my heart i felt it was a hopeless task, for these “higher ups” are inclined to consider nothing but results—and since we could not give him the results he wanted, he would conclude that the air service had failed, and as the line units had done on several other similar occasions, they would merely remark, “the same old story,” shrug their shoulders and pass it up. i, of course, expected to find the general down in his dug-out, being heavily shelled, but i was determined to show him that i was a real hero by walking right through the shell-fire and calmly explaining to him why we couldn’t help him. this last decision really required nerve on my part, for if there is any one thing i cannot stand, it is shell-fire on the ground. it did not worry me so much in the air, for there seemed to be such a good chance to dodge, but on the ground—well, i had been caught in it several times and, in each instance, i made the necessary distance to safety in considerable less than record time on the fastest tracks.
i picked up a stray doughboy to guide me to the post of command. to my absolute surprise i found that everything was apparently quiet. however, the surroundings bore the unmistakable evidence that the region had undergone a very heavy and prolonged 118bombardment. i could not understand this; in fact, i was certain that we had come to the wrong post of command.
“orderly,” i said to a lad standing at the door, “is this the p. c. of general blank?” using the proper code name.
“that’s right, sir,” he smartly answered.
“when did the bombardment stop?” i demanded.
“about two o’clock, sir,” he replied.
“may i see the general?” i asked.
“what is the name, sir?”
“just tell the general or chief of staff that lieutenant haslett of the air service would like to see either of them at their convenience. there is nothing urgent.”
the orderly stepped inside and almost immediately a lieutenant came out.
“i’m the general’s aide,” he said, extending his hand. “the general will see you at once. come right in.”
the door opened and i was ready with my speech. out rushed the general and his chief of staff and the rest of his staff around him—none of them less in rank than a lieutenant colonel. of course, i stood at attention, stiff as an iceberg, but they thawed me out by a cordial “are you haslett, the operations officer of the air service?”
i had never before in my life spoken to such a high ranking general and in a quivering, quick voice which indicated that i expected to be crucified at the next moment i said, “yes, sir.” the general advanced, 119put out his hand and said, “lieutenant, i want to congratulate you. that is the first time we have ever had efficient service and co?peration from your airplane crowd. all morning while we tried to get you by wireless and we knew we had not succeeded, for you did not answer—they were firing upon us terribly; and then we tried to get you on the telephone, but i think the bursting shells around us was one of the reasons you could not hear; but when we got that telegram through at one-thirty and you acknowledged receiving it at a quarter of two—it was simply fine. we saw an airplane circle overhead promptly at two o’clock and that artillery stopped firing at exactly five minutes after two. now that’s what i call splendid work, and i am going to tell the corps commander about it.”
for the moment i was completely nonplussed. there was nothing for me to say. i had a vision of a young hero with a distinguished service cross and twenty-six and a half croix de guerre—i might not have been the ace of aces, but i certainly was the deuce of deuces. after a moment’s hesitation i knew it was the time to act, so i shrugged my shoulders, casually lighted a cigarette and nonchalantly informed the general that i came to see that the airplane had satisfactorily completed its mission and to assure myself that he was satisfied and to tell him that any time he had any trouble we wanted him to feel that the air service was behind him, day and night; that if they only got the word to us, we would do our best.
120believe me, every one of the staff, from the lieutenant colonels up, shook my hand and individually thanked me for the efficient work we had done in stopping that artillery fire. this was the real case of having fortune thrust upon one. perhaps i should have insisted upon explaining that we had nothing to do with stopping that artillery fire, but somehow i could not. it was a dream which was better undisturbed, for the german heavy artillery had certainly stopped of its own volition, not ours.
forever afterwards that general and his entire staff were strong boosters for the air service, and when any one had anything to say against the air service, if there was a member of that staff around an argument was certain; and the general, i am told, still tells of how the wonderful american air service stopped the german heavy artillery on fifteen minutes’ notice at chateau-thierry.
