The Third Battle of Ypres.
The Ypres Times.
209
THE ENEMY IN THE AIR.
By V. W. ANDREWS.
Those who fought in the Ypres Salient in 1914 and 1915 and then, after an absence
of two years, passed once again through the Menin Gate, found many changes. Some
things, unfortunately, had not changed there still remained the clinging mud, the evil-
smelling beeks," the desolate countryside, and an ever active enemy upon the rim of
the same flooded saucer. But the great mechanical inferiority which had handicapped
us so heavily during those earlier battles existed no longer when the Third Battle opened.
It was this marked increase in machines, guns, planes and tanks, which distinguished the
third struggle around the walls of Ypres, and which produced a new and strange atmosphere
for those veterans who returned to the Salient between July and November, 1917. But
it was not this vast assembly of machines which carried the British line to Poelcappelle
and Passchendaele, for the guns reduced the sodden earth to a trembling quagmire wherein
men floundered and drowned and tanks sank impotently and irrevocably, whilst the
elements conspired against the forces of the air. It was the indomitable pluck and
pertinacity of the attackers, the spirit of Ypres which had not been dimmed since the
first great struggle, which forced on the line, day by day, ever nearer to the heights
beyond the city.
In the actual fighting line there was little to distinguish the Ypres front in 1917 from
the Somme front of 1916 there was the same bitter struggle for every yard gained, the
same intense artillery fire and consequent mangled terrain over which to struggle. But
once the weary troops were a few miles from the line of battle of the Somme, they were
at peace. In the Salient in 1917 there was no place and no time which could be deemed
peaceful, for it was during the Third Battle that the enemy commenced serious bombing
raids with heavy aeroplanes.
To the man on the ground it appeared that we had the mastery of the air and that
the temporary supremacy of the enemy in the Spring of 1917 had been successfully dealt
with. Occasionally, however, there were episodes which brought home to everyone the
importance of this mastery of the upper air and which gave a taste of what life would
have been like in the Salient had the enemy maintained his supremacy.
Many will recall with a momentary shudder the daylight raids of the Circus." This
name was originally given to the squadron of fighting 'planes captained by Baron von
Richthof en, but it was not with this particular circus that we were concerned, but
with a squadron of heavy, twin-engined, bombing 'planes. We called them Gothas."
By day, our sausage Was harassed by enemy destroyers which, swooping suddenly
from the clouds, sought to destroy the eye of Ypres with a spray of incendiary bullets.
Daily we expected to see the tongue of flame leap from the fabric, the meteor of flaming
silk, the charred fragments and the two swaying figures moving slowly earthwards.
But the balloon bore a charmed life and the baffled enemy continued to hum Eastwards
surrounded by blossoming shrapnel.
The sausage" had an even more alarming, though less dangrous, enemy, in the
form of an enormous anti-aircraft gun which hurled large calibre shrapnel at the swaying
envelope. The time-fuse of this monstrous shell was contained in the large nosecap and
was operated by clockwork. The men of Ypres called it Clockwork Charlie and had
a greater respect for it than did those for whom it was intended. When Clockwork
Charlie" arrived out of space with its growling whump there was a scamper for
cover ere the great splinters of metal came humming earthwards.
But all this activity on the part of the enemy, unpleasant though it was, failed in
its primary purpose of materially handicapping the organisation of our advance. It
