The Great War

Barely a decade had passed since the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight at Kittyhawk , North Carolina when war broke out in Europe following the July 1914 assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo . Despite the skepticism of conventional military thinking, flimsy wood frame canvas-covered aircraft were first used in an observation role over the front lines in Europe . Given the novelty of the aeroplane and notions of chivalry, flyers of opposing sides initially waved to one another. That practice came to a halt when some enterprising aviator thought to bring a pistol aloft and began taking potshots at enemy pilots. But the airborne gunfire died down when experience showed how hard it was to hit a small moving aircraft while firing with a pistol from another.

The machine gun was eventually married to the aeroplane, but in the interim sling shots, steel darts called flechettes, ramming, and even bricks were employed in efforts to bring down enemy aircraft. Then in April 1915 French flier Roland Garros, firing a Hotchkiss .303 caliber machine gun through the propeller of his Morane-Saulnier 2 single-seater, was the first documented aviator to bring down an enemy plane in this fashion. The certain destruction of the aeroplanes’ wooden propellers had prevented the use of machine guns in anything but defensive roles, until Garros hit upon the idea of fixing steel plates to the sections of the propeller likely to be hit, to deflect the bullets. Firing through the propeller in this way was still dangerous to the pilot, who could be hit by one of his own richochet shots, but it was also deadly to enemy aircraft. Garros’ first victory on April 1, 1915 was over a German Aviatik, and he made four more kills within 17 days.

The German High Command initially discounted reports of their aeroplanes being brought down by machine gun fire from enemy planes, until the engine of Garros’ fighter died and forced him down behind German lines. Both Garros and his aeroplane were captured intact. Anthony Fokker, a Dutchman but the premier aircraft designer for the fledgling German Air Force, was sent for to examine Garros’ machine and build a copy of the magical weapon that could fire through propellers. Fokker saw what Garros had done and decided it was a type of Russian Roulette for pilots. He instead designed an interruptor gear that synchronized the firing of the machine gun with the rotation of the propeller, literally firing in the interval between the passing propeller blades. German fighters became extremely deadly overnight, and Allied fighters soon followed the development.

World War I saw the aeroplane take its place alongside the submarine, the machine gun, and the tank as weapons that foretold the new destructiveness of warfare in the 20th Century. While the many civil benefits of the aeroplane would become obvious in later years, the period 1914 to 1918 saw dogfights, strafing of troops and other ground targets, aerial bombing by both aircraft and zeppelins, and new dangers to civilians far from the front lines — all ushered in by the arrival of “the flying machine.”

Aircraft