THIS month we’re celebrating the Christmas Season with The Coffin Crew! Yes, Arch Whitehouse’s hell-raising Handley Page bomber crew! Piloting the bus is the mad Englishman, Lieutenant Graham Townsend, with the equally mad Canadian Lieutenant Phil Armitage serving as reserve pilot and bombing officer with Private Andy McGregor, still wearing his Black Watch kilts, rounding out the front end crew in the forward gun turret. And don’t forget the silent fighting Irishman Sergeant Michael Ryan, usually dragging on his short clay pipe while working over the toggle board dropping the bombs with Alfred Tate and crazy Australian Andy Marks or Horsey Horlick manning the rear gun turret.

Hawker, Ball, Rhys-Davids, McCudden, Mannock—and now Mackenzie—lost. The news of Mackenzie’s disastrous loss spred quickly—youthful Major Mackenzie, the colorful British ace of Scottish ancestry, had captured the imagination of every soldier in the British trenches. They dubbed him “The Mad Major” because of his amazingly daring exploits in “ground strafing” German trenches. Lost.

Enter the Coffin Crew! Somehow The Coffin Crew turns their disastrous landing behind enemy lines to their benefit when Andy McGregor’s curiosity is peaked as the Crew try to head back across the lines unmolested.

From the pages of the January 1938 number of the British Air Stories, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s final Coffin Crew tale—”Traitor’s Tune!”

It was a Strange Clue that First Linked a Lonely Graveyard behind the Enemy’s Lines with the Mysterious Disappearance of Britain’s Greatest Air Fighters, and Led that Crazy Band of Night Bombers, the Coffin Crew, upon the Most Desperate Adventure of their Madcap Fighting Career!

• Download “Traitor’s Tune” (January 1938, Air Stories)

THIS month we’re celebrating the Christmas Season with The Coffin Crew! Yes, Arch Whitehouse’s hell-raising Handley Page bomber crew! Piloting the bus is the mad Englishman, Lieutenant Graham Townsend, with the equally mad Canadian Lieutenant Phil Armitage serving as reserve pilot and bombing officer with Private Andy McGregor, still wearing his Black Watch kilts, rounding out the front end crew in the forward gun turret. And don’t forget the silent fighting Irishman Sergeant Michael Ryan, usually dragging on his short clay pipe while working over the toggle board dropping the bombs with Alfred Tate and crazy Australian Andy Marks or Horsey Horlick manning the rear gun turret.

When it was all over, the members of the Coffin Crew realized that Corporal Andy McGregor had had good reason for his actions, and of the three things that happened any one might have provided the clue to his strange behavior. First, there was a letter postmarked Monymusk which Lieutenant Townsend remembered was a small town near Aberdeen. Secondly, Andy had shown unusual interest in an American regiment that was heading for the front line and the special interest Andy had taken in the arrival of a new officer, an American Air Corps captain. But the Coffin Crew did not remember these trifling events when Andy went “barmy”!

From the pages of the March 1937 number of the British Air Stories, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew in “Tartan Flight!”

Into the Very Shadow of Death Flew the Coffin Crew, the Craziest Band of Warriors in the Independent Air Force, to Discover the Secret of that Sinister Mound of the Dead, Hill 60, and its Strange Effect upon Corporal Andy McGregor, Aerial Gunner!

• Download “Tartan Flight” (March 1937, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by Friday for one last mad cap romp through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!

THIS month we’re celebrating the Christmas Season with The Coffin Crew! Yes, Arch Whitehouse’s hell-raising Handley Page bomber crew! Piloting the bus is the mad Englishman, Lieutenant Graham Townsend, with the equally mad Canadian Lieutenant Phil Armitage serving as reserve pilot and bombing officer with Private Andy McGregor, still wearing his Black Watch kilts, rounding out the front end crew in the forward gun turret. And don’t forget the silent fighting Irishman Sergeant Michael Ryan, usually dragging on his short clay pipe while working over the toggle board dropping the bombs with Alfred Tate and crazy Australian Andy Marks or Horsey Horlick manning the rear gun turret.

To Sergeant Ryan there was one square mile of enemy territory that must remain inviolate—yet Fate made it the objective of the most daring raid of that crazy band of bombers, the Coffin Crew! From the pages of the July 1936 issue of the British Air Stories magazine, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s “Bomber’s Luck!”

A Raid, whatever its Objective, was All Part of the Game to that Crazy Band of Bombers, the Coffin Crew of the Independent Air Force—until Fate Decreed that the Hand of Sergeant Ryan should be the One to Loose Death and Destruction upon the One Square Mile of Enemy Territory that, to Him, Must Ever Remain Inviolate!

• Download “Bomber’s Luck” (July 1936, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by next week for another mad cap romp, or two, through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!

THIS month we’re celebrating the Christmas Season with The Coffin Crew! Yes, Arch Whitehouse’s hell-raising Handley Page bomber crew! Piloting the bus is the mad Englishman, Lieutenant Graham Townsend, with the equally mad Canadian Lieutenant Phil Armitage serving as reserve pilot and bombing officer with Private Andy McGregor, still wearing his Black Watch kilts, rounding out the front end crew in the forward gun turret. And don’t forget the silent fighting Irishman Sergeant Michael Ryan, usually dragging on his short clay pipe while working over the toggle board dropping the bombs with Alfred Tate and crazy Australian Andy Marks or Horsey Horlick manning the rear gun turret.

The Crew were through! Armitage had been reassigned to a Camel unit that was to counter whatever it was that was downing troopships in the channel and leaving no one alive on board. But when even Armitage goes missing—that’s all the Crew can take. Thankfully Armitage is not dead, he’s merely put his foot in the middle of the whole diabolical mystery! From the pages of the August 1935 number of the British Air Stories, Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew and the “Black Camels!”

A Black Plague stalked the Channel turning Troopships into Transports of the Dead. And, in France, five Black Camels were Detailed for a Secret Mission that was Destined to give that Crazy Band of Warriors, the Coffin Crew, the Adventure of their Lives!

• Download “Black Camels” (August 1935, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by next week for another mad cap romp through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!

WE’RE celebrating Christmas with The Coffin Crew this year. So why not get to know the author a little better? And what better time than his birthday! Arthur George Joseph “Arch” Whitehouse was born on this day, December 11th, in 1895 in England. To Celebrate the genius behind The Coffin Crew, here’s a great feature on Whitehouse from the Sunday magazine for the Hackensack, New Jersey Record.

Arch Whitehouse: An Early Bird Looks Back

The Record Magazine, Hackensack, New Jersey • 17 April 1965, p38-39

MONTVALE’S MAGNOLIA AVENUE is a rural, winding road, and the modest yellow house at No.63 looks like many other suburban homes.

So it’s not surprising that when Arch Whitehouse, the owner, steps into the brisk air for an afternoon constitutional that his neighbors may look up and say:

“Well, there goes that nice Mr. Whitehouse out for his afternoon walk. Retired gentleman, I guess. It’s nice that he can still get around so well.

When the mailman leaves a 2-foot pile of books on the Whitehouse doorstep, a neighbor may shake his head and silently question, “I wonder if he reads all those books?”

Possibly a few people in Montvale know the answer to the Whitehouse mystery, but the man himself is quite certain that the majority of those who have made note of his presence are content with the thought that he’s no more than a retired businessman.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Though now in his 70th year, Arch Whitehouse is busier than many men half his age. In the past 10 years he has written 25 books. Before that, he authored more than a thousand short stories and articles.

A flier with the British Royal Flying Corps in World War I, Whitehouse ranks today as probably the leading aviation writer in the world. He is regarded as THE expert on World War I flying.

But his writing has run the gamut of the military field.

He went on a North Atlantic cruise aboard the atomic submarine Skipjack while writing “Subs and Submariners”.

He made two trips to the Mediterranean with the Sixth Fleet, and made 11 catapult takeoffs from, and arrester-gear landings on aircraft carriers to write “Squadrons of the Sea”.

He inspected every type of tank that has ever been built, and rode in many of the modern tank tests to write “TANK — History of Armored Warfare”.

He flew on practically every type plane available in the U.S. Air Force, including 2-seater jet fighters, to tell the story of the Tactical Air Command. He also went to McMurdo Sound, Antartica, to cover T.A.C. cargo operations at the South Pole.

He went to Puerto Rico with the Navy and Marines to write his recent “Amphibious Operations”.

Some years Whitehouse averages 60,000 miles of flying to get material for his books.

In addition to his technical books, short stories, and articles, Whitehouse has written juvenile and motion-picture scripts. Two of his stories — “Spitfire Squadron” and “‘H’ For Arry” were sold to the movies. He has illustrated some of his own volumes, also.

Among Whitehouse’s recent books — he contracts for several at a time — is “The Fledgling,” an autobiography.

Whitehouse was born in England in 1895. He was brought to the United States when he was 9 years old. He attended grade schools in Newark and Livingston. He was taken out of school, however, and worked in a Newark bookshop, a shoe factory, and in the Edison Laboratory before the outbreak of World War I.

In 1914, he worked his way to England on a cattleboat and enlisted in the British army. After a spell in the infantry, be requested and received a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps, and served as an aerial gunner with No. 22 squadron from March 1917 to Jan. 18, 1918. He then became the pilot of a Sopwith Camel with the home-defense squadron until the Armistice.

During his days as a gunner, he flew more than 1,300 hours over enemy lines. He destroyed 16 enemy planes and six kite balloons, but since he was not the pilot he received no personal credit. His kills were chalked up to his squadron.

During those clays. Whitehouse swapped bullets with many of the German aces, including the best of them all, Baron von Richthofen. The Red Knight, as von Richthofen was to become known, claimed 80 victories. One of these, No.42 to be exact, is disputed by Whitehouse.

In his “Years of the Sky Kings”, Whitehouse writes:

“Let us consider victory No.42, scored on April 13, 1917. In his report, von Richthofen stated that this flight took place at 12:45 P.M. betwen Monchy and Feuchy. The plane, a Vickers 2-seater, was downed behind British lines. In this report, we have at least one example of a Richthofen victory that was no victory at all.

“I was the gunner aboard that 2-seater. It was a F.E.2b, not a Vickers, but the Germans often made this mistake since both planes were almost identical. We were not shot down by Baron von Richthofen.”

Whitehouse went on to explain that his plane, piloted by Captain Bush, was returning from a photography patrol, when attacked by German planes over German lines. The propeller of the British plane was eventually shot away by antiaircraft fire. As the plane dove for a crash landing behind British lines, Whitehouse noted that they were pursued by two German planes, one of them red, and piloted, as he was learn later, by the Baron.

After returning to the United States in October, 1919, Whitehouse found the competition for work rather stiff. He tried his hand at selling rat poison, magazine advertising space, and automobiles. He spent some time in an insurance office.

In 1920 he married Ruth Terhune of Rutherford. Today they have a son and two grandchildren.

In 1922, he applied for a job as sports cartoonist on a Passaic newspaper. He was hired, though he had no prior experience. A year later, he moved to the Elizabeth Daily Journal as sports editor.

When Charles Lindbergh made his solo flight to Paris in 1927, Whitehouse wrote a column about it. A friend who read it suggested he try writing for one of the aviation pulp magazines. He submitted a story, and received a check for $100. The editor was impressed by the authenticity of the story, and hired Whitehouse to check the facts in other stories being submitted.

At the same time, he found a waiting market for his own fiction, and eventually quit the newspaper job to devote his full time to this work.

The start of World War II signaled a new phase in Whitehouse’s career. He became an accredited war correspondent, and served in the North Atlantic and Great Britain. He was also in on the Normandy invasion.

He returned to the States in 1945, and spent 2 years as a film writer before tearing up a 7-year contract, and returning East.

His first book, a juvenile, “The Real Book of Airplanes”, appeared in 1955. He has written juveniles also on General Pershing, Billy Mitchell, and wartime courier pigeons, and has agreed to do a long series of books fictionalizing the exploits of the Lafayette Escadrille.

Five volumes of his aviation short stories have appeared so far. Other recent or forthcoming books are “Adventures in Military Intelligence”, “The Early Birds—Wonders and History of Early Flight”, “Frank Luke—The Arizona Balloon Buster”, and a novel, “Squadron 44”.

Commenting on the continued popularity of World War I books, Arch credits much of it to nostalgia. “You’ll find a similar nostalgia catching up with the veterans of World War II,” he said. “For a few years they just want to forget it all. Then one day there seems to be that urge to recapture the past.”

And when they do, you can be sure Arch Whitehouse will be around to help them.

• Download “Arch Whitehouse: An Early Bird Looks Back” (17 April 1965, The Record Magazine, Hackensack, NJ)

Be sure to drop by Friday for another mad cap romp through hell skies with Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew!

THIS month we’re celebrating the Christmas Season with The Coffin Crew! Yes, Arch Whitehouse’s hell-raising Handley Page bomber crew! Piloting the bus is the mad Englishman, Lieutenant Graham Townsend, with the equally mad Canadian Lieutenant Phil Armitage serving as reserve pilot and bombing officer with Private Andy McGregor, still wearing his Black Watch kilts, rounding out the front end crew in the forward gun turret. And don’t forget the silent fighting Irishman Sergeant Michael Ryan, usually dragging on his short clay pipe while working over the toggle board dropping the bombs with Alfred Tate and crazy Australian Andy Marks or Horsey Horlick manning the rear gun turret.

For more than a week old No.11 had been welcoming her new neighbours with T.N.T. and fulminite. For seven days they had been dealing out nightly headaches to Baron Harald von Wusthoff and his Gotha Griffons. Fed up with the nightly barrage and inability to get his Gothas in the air, the Baron engineers the capture of the Crew’s pilot and leader Graham Townsend and subsequent use as a hostage to keep the Coffin Crew at bay.

To the Coffin Crew:
      This should stop you from bombing our field any more. Your pilot will be held as hostage to ensure that fact. He will be staked out on the ground everytime your ’planes come across—so drop your bombs at your own risk, gentlemen. Perhaps now we can contend in the air on terms that are more equal.
                                          (Signed) The Golhas 33rd,
                                          Von Wusthoff, Commanding.

From the pages of the June 1935 number of the British Air Stories, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew in “Hostage of the Gothas!”

When Treachery robbed the Coffin Crew of their Dare-devil Leader, that Crazy Band of Bombers carried their Hate through the Valley of Death into the very Lair of the Gotha Griffons. And in the Air, a Handley clashed with a Gotha in a Duel for which the Forfeit was a Flaming Death!

• Download “Hostage of the Gothas” (June 1935, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by next week for another mad cap romp through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!

TODAY we bring you an article about the Independent Air Force for a little background on the squadron The Coffin Crew were a part of!

SQUADRONS OF DEATH

The Epic Story of the Independent Air Force, the Most Amazing and Mysterious Organization of the World War in the Air
by A.H. Pritchard (Air Stories, December 1935)

A FEW months ago a story appeared in this magazine with the title of “Suicide Squadron.” Doubtless there were some readers who scoffed at this apparent exaggeration, refusing to believe that any form of aerial combat, even in time of war, could be so fraught with peril as to justify such a title. Yet truth is ever stranger than fiction, for here is the true story of the real “Suicide Squadrons” of the war. It is the story of a force that was composed entirely of such squadrons—the Independent Air Force.

Never before has the story of its epic deeds been presented in a magazine; its greatest deeds of heroism and daring are virtually unknown and, hitherto, unrecorded. Stories of the R.F.C., R.N.A.S., L’Aviation Militaire, and the Imperial German Air Force have appeared in their thousands, but seldom a line about the Independent Air Force. Nor do any of its pilots or observers appear on any list of British “aces,” yet dozens of German ’planes went down before the fury of their guns. Brief notices in the official despatches about a certain raid that “was successfully carried out” were all that the public ever learnt about the greatest fighting force in the Flanders skies.

Every man of them was a hero—they had to be, for a coward or a cautious man would not have lasted a day in their ranks. Their offensive policy always kept them flying over the enemy side of the lines. They fought their way to a target and then fought their way home, always against great odds. Many went down behind the German lines and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp, for a disabled ’plane meant certain capture. Yet, no matter how high the casualties, eager young men were always clamoring to join the Force. Men from every outpost of the Empire, from every walk of life, could be found in its roster, the most daring and reckless of their respective breeds.

The Birth of the I.A.F.

THE formation of the Independent Air Force was chiefly brought about by the intensive Gotha raids on England during the first six months of 1917. The public morale was slowly but surely being affected, and a demand went up for reprisals. “Give the Hun a taste of his own medicine,” was the cry. “Bomb his towns and his women and children!” So strong was this feeling that the War Office decided that something must be done, and they prepared to carry the war into Germany. However, all the squadrons at the front were far too busy to carry out the proposed raids, and it was decided to organise a separate force—a force that was to fight and raid under the direction of its own officers, not at the beck and call of the Army, as were the R.F.C. squadrons.

Accordingly, on October 11th, 1917, three squadrons were banded together as the Forty-First Wing, and were destined to form the nucleus of the Independent Air Force. These squadrons were No.55, No.100 and No.16 (Naval) Squadrons, and their ’drome was at Ochey. The total number of their machines was fifty-one. Beyond a few feeble raids, nothing much was heard of them until Major-General Sir Hugh Trenchard, Now Marshal of the Royal Air Force the Lord Trenchard Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, affectionately known to his men as “Boom,” arrived at Nancy on May 20th, 1918, to take command of what had then become officially known as the Independent Air Force. He found No.55 Squadron equipped with D.H.4 day-bombers (Rolls-Royce 375 h.p. “Eagle” VII’s) and No.100 with F.E.2b night-bombers (160 h.p. Beardmores), and he immediately applied for additions to his small force. He received No.33 Squadron, flying D.H.9’s (230 h.p. B.H.P’s) and No.216 Squadron, equipped with Handley-Page 0/400’s (two 250 h.p. Rolls-Royces), both stationed at Azelot.

Even then the Force did not really get into action, for delay was caused by the limited range of some of its machines. Only the Handley-Pages had a sufficient range to enable them to bomb the German frontier towns, and make the return journey. The normal duration of the F.E.’s and D.H.’s was only three and a half hours, so that extra petrol tanks had to be fitted to give them a duration of six hours, equivalent to a range of about 450 miles. Fuming at the delay in going into action, the men made the changes in record time, and in June, 1918, the I.A.F. set about its work of destruction, a work that was never to falter until Armistice was signed.

The Greatest Raid of the War

IN ITS first month of action the Independent Air Force carried out one of the greatest raids of the whole war. On the morning of June 28th a scout pilot spotted unusual enemy activity around Fere-en-Tardenois; dumps of ammunition were being made, and heavy transport lorries cluttered up the roads. Back he went to report the concentration, and the Independent Air Force was quickly informed. The ’dromes at Ochey and Azelot became seething ant-heaps of activity. All through the night great bombs were loaded into the gaping bellies of the Handley-Pages and the racks of the D.H.’s and F.E.’s were festooned with the steely beads of death. Working by the light of flares made from petrol-soaked cotton waste, the mechanics and armoury officers toiled on, whilst the pilots and observers tried to snatch a few hours’ sleep—for some the last that they were to take. Two hours before dawn machine-guns crackled harshly as they were tested at the butts.

Then, in the chilly air that comes in the pre-dawn, the four squadrons took-off, with a squadron of S.E.5’s following close behind, and with a roar rattled away towards their objective. The S.E.5’s had been lent by the R.F.C. to keep off enemy scouts until the bombers had laid their eggs.

Coming in over Fere-en-Tardenois at just under one thousand feet, they laid their bombs squarely on the first dump. A great sheet of flame leaped skywards, and debris rained around the bombers. Huge lorries hurtled up as the first great concussion set off the remaining dumps, and things that once had been men flew about the heads of the deafened Britishers. When the smoke had drifted away, all that remained of the woods that had concealed the dumps were a few fire-blasted stumps and smoking ruin.

The raiders, however, were not to escape unscathed. Fokkers, Pfalz, Albatri and “Tripes” gathered round them like flies round a jam-pot. Machine-guns rattled madly, tracer bullets weaved fantastic patterns across the sky, and an F.E.2b was the first to go. Caught in the converging fire of three Fokkers, its wings dropped off like pieces of paper, and the fuselage fell like a stone, burning fiercely. A second later two Pfalz collided and fell burning, leaving a trail of smoke and blazing fragments. Thirteen British bombers went down in the battle that followed, and five S.E.5’s, but the rest fought their way out, leaving behind them the shattered wrecks of twenty-six German machines.

Apart from the damage done, the raid had served another good purpose, for the War Office, at first inclined to be parsimonious, now gave Trenchard all the men and material he required. Workshops sprang up on the ’dromes of the I.A.F., and even their own intelligence service was formed. Spies would cross the lines into Germany and send back information as to new dumps, troop concentrations, schedules of munition trains and new factories, and the lads of the I.A.F. would go over and do the rest.

“Jock” Mackay Leads the Attack

ON the morning of July 31st, word came from one of their agents of the massing of supplies in the big station at Saarbrucken. Nine D.H.9’s of No.99 Squadron were quickly loaded with bombs and set off post-haste for Germany. Ten miles from their objective they were attacked by forty-six enemy scouts. Four D.H.’s went down, but the remaining five fought their way through and dropped their bombs dead on the station yards. A running fight all the way home awaited the survivors, and three more went down before they could reach the safety of No.55 Squadron’s field at Ochey. No sooner had the two battered machines landed than nine more D.H.4’s, this time of No.55 Squadron, took off for Saarbrucken. Under the leadership of Captain D.R. (“Jock”) Mackay, one of the best bomber pilots of the war, they found the stations and factories unprepared for this second raid, and exacted a terrible toll as revenge for the fourteen gallant men who had died in the first raid. After taking part in over a hundred raids, the gallant Mackay met his death through a direct hit from “Archie” on the day before the Armistice was signed.

The German towns that were coming in for the heaviest bombing raised a furious protest at the tactics of the I.A.F. pilots, and the Imperial High Command allotted twelve new squadrons to protect the towns along the Rhine. Thus did the I.A.F. make its might felt, after only one short month of action. The German bombers, too, tried to get even with them. The F.E.2b’s of No.100 Squadron had specialized in raiding Saarburg, Metz and Conflans, and had played havoc with the factories there. The first German raid on their field wounded a mechanic and wrecked an empty hangar. Five nights later they tried again, and had the satisfaction of seeing a number of fires light up, machines burst into flames, and a hangar collapse. Early the next morning two high-flying Rumplers came over and photographed the damage. The prints, which can still be seen at the German War Museum, showed burnt-out hangars and wrecked machines, whilst the sleeping quarters were a shambles.

And the men of No.100 Squadron laughed loud and long.

For the fires had been caused by petrol-soaked rags ignited by a timing device, the hangar was an old one, and the wrecked machines were old, crashed ’planes and tree trunks. After that first raid, Major Tempest, the C.O., had had the Squadron moved to the opposite side of Ochey Woods, and all hands turned out to sit in the trees and watch the display of fireworks provided nightly by the German Air Force. The Germans never could make out how it was that the Squadron continued to carry out its two raids a night.

Fighting Against Odds

MEANWHILE, the enemy air resistance was becoming stronger. Reinforced by the twelve new squadrons, they attacked every group of British machines that ventured near the Rhine towns. Undeterred, the bombers carried on, but their casualties became terribly heavy. Take the case of one raid by six D.H.4’s of No.55 Squadron.

On the morning of August 27th, they set out to bomb the docks at Offenburg, and when over the town were attacked by a formation of eight Pfalz scouts. Such odds were familiar to them, and, unperturbed, they carried on with the raid and turned for home. Then came disaster. Another formation of thirty Pfalz, Albatri and Fokkers came down on them, and after a running fight lasting over an hour, only one D.H. managed to limp home. True, three German ‘planes had gone down in flames, but the score was on the wrong side of the ledger. Still, no squadron could fight against the odds they were meeting and get away scot-free every time.

On the 10th of the month the same squadron had been attacked by thirty enemy scouts whilst returning from a raid on Frankfort. Flying a tight formation, they held the attackers off, and even when the enemy was reinforced by another forty machines they never broke formation. Against seventy enemy scouts not a British machine went down, and only one observer was killed. Four German ’planes were sent flaming to earth.

Two days later twelve machines took-off for another raid on Frankfort, as usual, without any escort of single-seaters. They carried out the raid unhindered, but on the return journey the inevitable enemy scouts appeared. Thirty-five Huns opposed them, and after a running fight that lasted an hour and twenty minutes, ten German machines had been destroyed, while the twelve bombers escaped with nothing worse than bullet-riddled machines.

The Handley-Pages of No.216 Squadron had also been giving a good account of themselves. On August 21st, in a raid that lasted over six hours, two H.P.’s had dropped over a ton of bombs on Cologne station, and had destroyed three enemy ’planes on the way home.

Besides the enemy aircraft, the British fliers had another great enemy to face, and one that the German pilots were never troubled with. Every English ’plane that crossed the German lines had the wind to contend with on its return journey. Always blowing out of Germany, many pilots owed their forced landings and subsequent capture to them. Even the I.A.F. had losses due to this wind.

One case, in example, was the fate of seven Handley-Pages of No. 216 Squadron. On the night of September 16th they set off to raid Mannheim. They bombed the chemical works and aircraft factories, fought off a dozen enemy scouts, and then started for home. When still many miles from the British lines one of their number went down, due to a shortage of petrol, and one after another the rest of the raiders followed suit. An extra strong wind had upset all their calculations, and seven 0/400’s were presented to the enemy by a trick of the wind.

The objectives chosen by the I.A.F. bombers were in some cases over one hundred and seventy miles away, and some idea of what the men had to put up with can be obtained when one remembers that even if the outward journey was fairly safe, the raiders had still to run the gauntlet of every available enemy squadron over that one hundred and seventy miles of the journey back. In the wind and blinding rainstorms of September and October they carried on, and their proud boast was that no raid was ever cancelled on account of inclement weather.

The Coming of the Giants

BY NOW the Independent Air Force was no longer an experiment. It was a tried fighting force, and the War Office knew it. All the men and machines that Trenchard required were now given to him freely, and many American officers, who had been chafing at the inaction while waiting for their own country to obtain ’planes, were transferred to the I.A.F.

New machines were needed to carry the raids still further into Germany, and great pressure was brought to bear on the aircraft works at home. The De Havilland people were trying out a new type of ’plane with the factory number of D.H.17. The machine was totally enclosed, and well streamlined, but except for the first experimental model, it never went into production. The same firm also had the twin-engined D.H.10 and D.H.10a., but neither machine fully satisfied Trenchard. The Handley-Page and Vickers factories, however, were building real dreadnoughts of the sky. The Vickers machine was the famous Vickers Vimy, and was powered with two 350-h.p. Rolls-Royce engines, and had a wing span of sixty-eight feet. But it was the machine being made by the Handley-Page works that really appealed to Trenchard. This was the V/1500 and in general appearance it was similar to the O/400. It was powered, however, with four 360-h.p. Rolls-Royce “ Eagle ” engines that could send the monster along at 103 miles an hour, with its full bomb load of 2,700 pounds. It had a non-stop range of one thousand three hundred and fifty miles, and could soar up to ten thousand feet in twenty minutes. Small wonder that “Boom” expected great things from it.

Meanwhile, the men at the front were carrying on in air that bristled with enemy fighters, whose instructions were to stop them at all costs.

On September 25th, No.110 Squadron went out to bomb Frankfort. They had been with the I.A.F. only a short time, and it was to be their first long-distance raid. Over Frankfort they were met by a terrific “Archie” fire and shells by the dozen burst all round them. Luckily, none was hit, and after dropping a ton and a half of bombs on the railway and goods yard, they turned for home. Summoned by the black bursts of the anti-aircraft shells, the enemy scouts came down, thirsting for blood. Four bombers went down, two Observers were killed, two pilots and one observer wounded. Only two German machines had been observed to fall, one in flames and one “out of control.”

The German scout pilots were now fighting with redoubled fury. The I.A.F. bombers were doing great execution among the troops quartered at Metz and Luxembourg, and had effectively shattered their morale. Twice, towards the middle of October, the troops in these towns had threatened to mutiny. A whisper went round that an armistice was coming and that the enemy pilots had determined to give a good account of themselves before the end came.

Blind Bombing

Sometimes, though, the I.A.F. outguessed the Germans and eluded the enemy scouts.

On the night of October 21st-22nd, a great raid was planned on the barracks and railway yards at Kaiserslautern, and Nos.97 and 100 Squadrons were given the job. It was a night of wind, rain and fog, with visibility almost nil, but the squadrons refused to cancel the attack. Taking-off down a lane of flares, they climbed above the fog blanket and set a course for Kaiserslautern. The journey became a nightmare as the weather got steadily worse. Blinded by the rain, and unable to catch a glimpse of the ground below, the fliers fought against the elements until their instruments showed them to be in the vicinity of their objective. Going down through the fog they could just faintly discern the lights of the town. Down screamed the bombs, and several large fires were observed to spring up, but, due to the mist obscuring the target, no definite report of the damage could be made.

Groping their way homeward, nearly every machine made a forced landing. One machine cracked up against a tree when attempting to land in a “pocket handkerchief” field, but, apart from the observer breaking his little finger, both occupants escaped scot-free. This was the only casualty, for every machine got back safely. Not an enemy scout had been seen during the whole time that they had been out, for the enemy protection squadrons had not dared to take-off in the fog. Some idea of the accuracy of the navigation may be obtained from the German official report of this raid, which stated that two hits had been made on the barracks, and the railway track had been badly damaged by a direct hit from a 650-pound bomb.

Berlin to be Bombed

BACK in England the work of forming still more I.A.F. squadrons was going forward apace, and on November 2nd these squadrons embarked for France—complete with the new and deadly giant bombers. Then came the news that set every flying man agog with excitement, and caused the blood to course the quicker through their veins—Berlin was to be bombed on November 18th by three full squadrons of Handley-Page V/i500’s and the total force was to consist of nearly one hundred machines!

For a week skilled mechanics toiled with loving care over the engines of the giants, and by the 10th the great machines were ready to go. That night came the greatest blow the Independent Air Force had ever suffered; orders were given for all preparations to be cancelled. On November 11th the wings of the Black Eagle folded in the dust, and the long story of bloodshed was over. Who knows—but perhaps advance news of the proposed raid had done much to persuade the Germans to beg for an armistice. To a country already bled white by four years of bitter strife, a raid on its capital might well have been feared as a means of setting ablaze the smouldering fires of revolt.

The morning of the 11th was the first to which the Independent Air Force did not awaken to the thunder of guns. No more for them the rattle of machine-guns, the tight feeling inside as the enemy hove into view, the hoarse “woof-woof” of “Archie,” the banshee wail of falling bombs, or the shrill scream of wires. All that was over, the world was at peace, and who can blame them if they felt thwarted of their last, and, what would have been, their most glorious fight. The day of the Independent Air Force was over.

In the few months of its existence the force had carried out over seven hundred raids, had dropped 160 tons of bombs by day and 390 tons by night, and had done damage to the extent of millions of pounds. Two hundred of these raids had been on enemy aerodromes, and much of the Imperial Air Force’s effectiveness had been quenched. In their battles with the enemy scouts they had lost one hundred and eleven machines, but one hundred and fifty-seven German machines had been destroyed by their guns, and over two hundred driven down out of control. That alone put them on the right side of the final account. Their men had fought the best that the enemy could send against them and beaten them in fair fight over their own ground. Their continual raids on the great gas-plants at Mannheim had been instrumental in saving the lives of countless infantrymen, and their systematic bombing of the enemy supply areas, dumps, and munition works did much to bring about the final downfall of German arms.

Never more than eleven squadrons strong, they had done the job expected of them, and they leave behind a glorious tradition. Born in the War, and fated to die in the War, we should salute—and remember—them.

THIS month we’re going to be celebrating the holidays with Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew! The Coffin Crew has as checkered a history in the pulps as they did in The Great War. The Coffin Crew is, in reality just a renamed Casket Crew. Arch Whitehouse had many series characters—there was flying reporter and U.S. Naval agent Billy “Buzz” Benson; Kerry Keen—ballistics expert by day and masked aerial crime fighter by night known as The Griffon; Coffin Kirk and his simian copilot Tank; Hale Aircraft Corporation Salesman and soldier of fortune Crash Carringer; Secret Service agents Todd Bancroft and Larry Leadbeater; those two old news-hawks Tug Hardwick and Beansie Bishop; and that hell-raising crew of a Handley Page bomber, the Casket Crew! So many, that when it came time to write a series of tales for the new Air Stories magazine in England, he simply wrote more stories of the Casket Crew and just renamed them The Coffin Crew for British readers.

Whitehouse had seven stories in the pages of the British Air Stories magazine—six of them were Coffin Crew adventures. This month we’ll be featuring those six tales as Age of Aces Books brings you “Christmas with the Coffin Crew!”

The Coffin Crew man a Handley Page bomber for one of the squadrons that makes up the Independent Air Force during the First World War. The Independent Air Force was chiefly brought about by the intensive Gotha raids on England during the first six months of 1917. The public demanded reprisals, so three squadrons were banded together with the purpose of giving back to the Germans what they had been doling out to the British.

The Handley Page 0/400 was generally crewed by five people. You had your front gunner, tail gunner, pilot, reserve pilot/bombing officer, and bomber. In the Coffin Crew stories, there is generally a sixth man whose job is to relay the info from the bomb sighter to the bomber so he knows when to pull the toggles and drop the bombs. Characters come and go, but the core members of the Coffin Crew are Lieutenant Graham Townsend, the mad Englishman, is the pilot of the bus with Lieutenant Phil Armitage, equally mad Canadian, the reserve pilot and bombing officer with Private Andy McGregor, still wearing his Black Watch kilts, rounding out the front end crew in the forward gun turret. Silent fighting Irishman Sergeant Michael Ryan, dragging on his short clay pipe, frequently worked the toggle board dropping the bombs and Horsey Horlick manning the rear gun turret.

The Casket Crew started with two stories in Airplane Stories (November 1930 & March 1931) before flying into the pages of Aces for 7 adventures in 1931 and 1932; followed by an additional 7 adventures in the pages of Wings in 1934 and 1935; and wrapping up in the final two issues of War Birds in 1937. These adventures of The Coffin Crew would slot in between the Wings and War Birds issues.

The Coffin Crew starts off with a bang—even being on the cover of the first issue of Air Stories by S. Drigin. In this first story, the Crew is joined by one Meridith Lovelace who makes quite the entrance.

Mr. Meridith Lovelace was ready for the air. And how! His beaming countenance was encased in a fur-lined leather helmet, for which about three hundred Swiss yodellers must have hunted the elusive chamoix for years to get such priceless skins. On top of this rested the finest pair of Triplex glass goggles money could buy. Their lenses were bound in silver bands and the mask-pad was downy with sleek beaver. Beneath the turned-up leather collar of a gaudy flying-coat was wrapped a scarf that would have made Joseph and his Biblical coat go out and take the veil—evidently Meridith’s school colours. The coat in question was a natty garment cut for a musical-comedy aviator, but which must have put a heavy crimp in Mr. Lovelace’s Pay and Mess Book No.54. Beneath that glistened the most polished pair of knee-length, fur-lined flying-boots ever turned out of Bond Street. And then, as if this were not enough for one evening, Mr. Lovelace sported a pair of flying gauntlets, fur-lined, of course, and a long ebony cigarette-holder that glowed at its tip like the gleam of a rapier that is just about to puncture someone’s mess department.

Despite this, the boy knows his stuff and comes through in a pinch and they soon wonder whose war their fighting. From the pages of the May 1935 number of the British Air Stories, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew in “One Man’s War!”

When the exquisite Mr. Meridith Lovelace was appointed to the toggle-board of Handley-Page bomber No. II, there were doleful prophecies of the fate that would befall the Coffin Crew—that happy band of R.F.C. warriors whose exploits were known from end to end of the Allied lines. But Mr. Lovelace had his own ideas about winning the war—and the Coffin Crew soon found themselves embarked on the craziest adventure in all their mad-cap career.

• Download “One Man’s War” (May 1935, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by next week for another mad cap romp through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!