The Battle of Arras

[David Davis]

I did not fully realise it until after we'd finished flying, but it was the centenary of the start of the Battle of Arras yesterday. Appropriately enough, I had flown the BE2e.

At the start of the battle the Canadian Army captured the heights of the strategically important Vimy Ridge. Having finished flying we retired to the club hut for a beer. We drank to the memory of the event.

[Kevin 216]

April 1917 became known to the RFC as 'Bloody April'. By the end of the month 316 aviators were either killed or missing. This number appears insignificant compared to the slaughter on the ground. However these losses amounted to 35% of the total RFC aircrew engaged on the Western Front. Hugh Trenchard was to complain that he was fighting the battle with the same aircraft as he had fought in 1916, and that the RFC was hopelessly outclassed. Fortunately new aircraft types were on the horizon and would turn the advantage back to the RFC.

[zz]

For The RFC, 'Bloody April' 1917 equalled only by ' Black September' 1918. A good book on the subject, 'Bloody April... Black September', by Grub Street publishers 1995.

[David Davis]

Quite so, huge losses in the air over the Arras battlefield including a namesake who was killed on 29th April by The Red Baron, Baron Manfred von Richthofne, while flying a BE2e.However, there was an important difference between April 1917 and September 1918. In April 1917 it the RFC was equipped with far worse aircraft than the German airforce. Take the BE2e for example. It was a development of a 1914 design. It was too stable to outfly the opposition, too slow to run away and too badly armed to defend itself. Having the observer in the front seat just made things worse. The Belgian airforce fitted a more powerful Hispano Suiza engine to their BE2s and reversed the crew positions resulting in a much more defensible aircraft. Fortunately for the RFC better aircraft were soon to become available, as Kevin has stated above.

By September 1918 it began to be obvious that the Germans were going to lose the war. Their army had been going backwards since the end of July. While most German fighter units were equipped with the superlative Fokker DVII, they were greatly out-numbered by Allied fighter aircraft. As a result, the combats which took place, in which the Germans were frequently successful, occurred far behind the fighting lines. The Allied artillery observation aircraft were able to direct artillery fire onto the hapless ground troops largely without interruption.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]