The Brutal History of The First Warplanes

Flying aces, flaming wreckage and deadly dogfights in the skies defined the First World War’s brutal air war. From fragile reconnaissance planes to lethal fighter aircraft, aerial warfare evolved at astonishing speed. Today we hear the stories of legendary aces like the Red Baron, the tactics that transformed air combat, and the brutal reality faced by the young men who fought and died in the world's first aerial war. Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore. We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6 Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Dan Snow's History Hit is a History Hit podcast. History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it healthy optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patients. Will we fix it all overnight? No, but we'll wake up trying again and again, until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at optum.com.

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  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall. That cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table's been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close.

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  Time to kick end of year into high gear.

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  This ad is sponsored by Zocdoc. Hi, it's Danny Pellegrino from Everything Iconic. Have you been putting off that annual doctor's appointment because you don't want to make the call? Or maybe you've been meaning to find a new dentist, but you have no idea where to start? I find that's especially true when you move. It's hard to find your people. I've been there, which is why I use Zocdoc. Now, as a busy podcaster, parent, and someone who's always juggling a million things, I love anything that makes life easier. And Zocdoc lets you search and compare local, in-network doctors with over 250,000 providers across more than 200 specialties. You can read reviews from real patients, find a provider who feels like the right fit, see actual appointment openings, and book instantly. I recently had a last minute health issue pop up and I needed to see someone fast.

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  And instead of calling around or sitting on hold, I found a doctor on Zocdoc and booked an appointment in just a few minutes. It made the whole process so much less stressful. Now, taking care of your health just got easier. Download the Zocdoc app today. That's Zocdoc, Z-O-C-D-O-C, and book that appointment on your to-do list.

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  The aircraft was so primitive that most military leaders barely took them seriously. When the First World War began, aircraft were fragile, flimsy machines built from wood and wire and string and canvas, ridiculed largely by an officer class that insisted on going to war on horseback. Very few people took them seriously. But let me tell you, within four years, the skies above Europe had become a swarming battlefield of reconnaissance planes, fighter aircraft, bombers, zeppelins, all sorts of things locked in dogfights thousands of feet above the trenches. In this episode, folks, we are going to look at the absolutely extraordinary story of

• 3:32Speaker 00

  aerial warfare in the Great War. Casualty rates were catastrophic. Many pilots survived only a couple of weeks. And some of the greatest aces, even they ultimately died by breaking the rules that they'd taught others to follow. This is the story of how the Great War turned the skies into a battlefield. I'm very lucky to be joined there by a good friend of the podcast, the author, historian, and the journalist Joshua Levine. Enjoy.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Joshua Levine, great to see you, man.

• 4:09Speaker 05

  It's lovely to be here, Dan.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  This is a story that I just, it's so fascinating because it happens at such a remarkable time. Aviation World War I. How old is heavier-than-air flight? I mean, we're talking, talking...

• 4:19Speaker 05

  End of 1903.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, 10, 11 years.

• 4:21Speaker 05

  So we're talking, we're talking 10 years. And, and if you think about, I mean, things that happened to me 10 years ago.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 05

  It's a, it's a, it's a flash of light. So it's extraordinary that the advances that were made in such a quick time. And, you know, starting with this tiny little flight at Kitty Hawk, and then moving forward on all the different continents as well. So everybody wanted to have a piece of it.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  Everyone wanted to be in on it. So, you know, you had Blériot crossing the channel. You can imagine how furious the British were.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  That must have been, what a revolutionary moment. The first person to fly across, heavier-than-air flight is a Frenchman.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  Is a Frenchman. So one of the papers, I think it was the Daily Mail, actually offered a cash prize to the first person to cross the channel. And you can imagine how delighted they were when it was, when it was a Frenchman who did it. And I've got an account from, from an English pilot at the time, who just basically says, oh, he was so lucky. It was because a shower of rain cooled his engine off, otherwise he would never have made it. And he was talking in the 1960s. So, you know, this bitterness, this anger that a Frenchman made it first, because, you know, this was the big discussion, you know, Britain is no longer an island.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 05

  You know, it's like, it's dogger all over again. We, you know, we, and there was this fear that we could so easily now be invaded, now that, you know, people can, the continentals can get straight across. And so the first person to fly in Britain, though, was an American, a man called Samuel Cody, who, and this is what's so great about early flying. I mean, it was a bunch of shysters, really. I'm exaggerating slightly, but adventurers. And so Samuel Cody came over to this country with a Wild West show, pretending to be the cousin of Buffalo Bill, wasn't. And he used to do his act as Wild West acting, shoot an egg off his wife's head. And while he was here, became interested in airships.

• 6:20Speaker 05

  And then from there, he moved on to heavier-than-air flight. And he had a, his own plane called the Cathedral, and because it was so enormous, and it was so festooned with wires and, you know, called a flying birdcage because you could put a canary safely inside it and couldn't get out. And, and that was the first plane that, that flew in, in Britain. And then shortly afterwards, he died in a flying accident.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 05

  So this was the kind of, you know, the seat-of-your-pants stuff that it was.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  And was there snobbery? What, what did the military think of this new invention? Were they quite quick to jump on it? Or was there a lot of conservatism?

• 6:53Speaker 05

  No, because they were the military, so they weren't quick to jump on it, really. I mean, there was a sort of snobbery as well. I mean, I think airships were considered more gentlemanly.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:03Speaker 05

  You know, you, I found these lovely stories about, you know, people when the military took, took those up and sort of going over to their country estate and having tea and then coming back. It was a nice serene way to, as we're looking at now, you know, they're, they're kind of coming back now, the idea of sort of eco-friendly travel. The heavier-than-air aeroplanes were a bit more grubby. You know, you needed mechanics to really, you know, to work at the engines and they weren't really, they weren't people like us. And so I think it took a bit longer for the, for, for the value of them to be appreciated. Also, they didn't know what they were going to do. You know, they were, here they were, they could fly, they could take to the sky very slowly.

• 7:48Speaker 05

  They weren't reliable, the engines were very unreliable. So there was that to begin with. But also, they're great, but what are they going to do?

• 7:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, they get the payload, just about support the weight of a human, but no bombs or anything.

• 7:59Speaker 05

  No. So what, so what could they do? And also bear in mind that the, as we just said, the army is very conservative. So you've got the cavalry, who basically has the monopoly on reconnaissance, so they don't want to give that up. You've got, you know, so, so whatever it does, it's likely to take the role of somebody who's going to guard that role very, very carefully.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  And the Italians, so there's stuff going on in 1911, 1912. The Royal Naval Air Service experimenting, the Royal Flying Corps. There are some aircraft around on the outbreak of World War. And what role were they envisaged? Quite, what, helping to spot over the horizon, sort of useful pair of eyes?

• 8:39Speaker 05

  Yes. I mean, it was going to be reconnaissance.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  Right, okay.

• 8:41Speaker 05

  That was really the only thing. I mean, like you said, the Italians in 1911, they, they dropped the first bomb.

• 8:47Speaker 00

  So almost just what, a hand grenade out the side, right?

• 8:49Speaker 05

  So, so it had been done.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  You know, nobody thought particularly to do it again. But so you had, yes, at the beginning of the war, as you said, you had the Royal Flying Corps, you had the Royal Naval Air Service. And the Royal Naval Air Service, Churchill had a big hand in it, as he seems to have had a big hand in anything.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Well, according to him, according to him.

• 9:08Speaker 05

  Actually, this one is true.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:10Speaker 05

  You know, I did a book on Northern Ireland, and he's all the way, he's right in there as well. You know, he really did. I mean, he was a big champion of flying.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  Okay, interesting.

• 9:18Speaker 05

  And, and, you know, during the, the Second World War, he often referred back to it. You know, he had his plane that, you know, that, that took him all over the place. And he often used to sit up front with the pilot and tell him stories about the Royal Naval Air Service. Anyway, so, so you had these two branches. The, the Flying Corps was much more sort of sticking. They had their own factory that was making aircraft according to its own designation, whereas you had the, the Royal Naval Air Service, which was much more willing to try things and much more willing to envisage a place for bombing, envisage a place for other things that, that aeroplanes could do. Royal Flying Corps, you know, very straight down the middle. If it's anything, it's reconnaissance. So what happened at the beginning of the war?

• 10:02Speaker 05

  You had all of these airplanes, 60-odd planes, which flew over to France right at the very start. So they first of all had to come down from Scotland, and some of them had accidents on the way down from Scotland. Got a great picture of one of them landing on the way. And you have just these bemused locals.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, just landing in fields.

• 10:22Speaker 05

  Landing in a field in front of a haystack. And you've got the pilot, this is such a brilliant picture, you've got the pilot lying against a haystack right next to his plane. So two of the most, you know, inflammable things you'd imagine, just enjoying a leisurely cigarette. All these locals are just staring at whatever this monster is that just appeared. So anyway, they, they all congregate at Dover. They're told to get to a certain height, so that if the engines fail, you know, probably will, they can glide, because they're going to be left to their own devices if they land in the Channel.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, no A C rescue, nothing, yeah.

• 10:55Speaker 05

  No A C rescue, and probably no interest from the French either. And so they just glide down, they make it there, more or less in one piece. Someone was killed on the way from Scotland, but two men, but they make it to there. And then, okay, so what do they do? And, and again, it's a fascinating thing because they're kind of making it up. This is one of the great themes of this. You've got these people doing it, certainly in the early days, but really all the way through, who are not military types at all initially, they're daredevils. And a lot of these are the people who join the Flying Corps. So, you know, one of the men who comes over at this point is, he's a sympathizer with the Irish rebels.

• 11:39Speaker 05

  So he actually, the month before he flies over, he's gone to Germany to pick up arms, to bring back to Ireland.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  And these are the weapons that are used in the 1916 Rising. And then he goes back to join the Royal Flying Corps. These are not usual, your usual people who are serving. So anyway, they get over to, to France, and their first job is reconnaissance. So, and it's still a mobile war, you know, people sometimes forget that. So their job is to spy on the Germans and to see what the Germans are up to. And the first reconnaissance is carried out by these, these two men who get, both of them, completely lost. And you see, you know, their, their logbooks are fascinating, because, you know, they, they both admit it. One of them lands in Cortry, I'm not sure how to pronounce that, I think it's Cortry,

• 12:32Speaker 05

  which actually has a large Irish population because of the linen production, and the linen was, and so he says he was about to be taken prisoner when he was recognized as an Englishman. He was swearing, he was recognized by an Irishman, so then he was taken for lunch with the mayor. And the other one gets hopelessly lost, and he, he, he talks about, I traveled, I flew above a big town which turned out to be Brussels. I mean, you know, it's fantastically hopeless.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 05

  But they get their act together very quickly, and they start to spot important things, although the generals don't realize this. The generals have no faith in them, not interested. So there's this one man, Rabliati, who's one of the early flyers, who goes up, and at the time, what they're doing is they're observing what's happening down below, and they're making a, a sketch of it, you know, on a, on a kneepad. Pretty basic, but, you know, they, they say what they see. So he gets back down, he tells Henderson, who's the head of the Flying Corps at this point, what he's seen. Henderson rushes him to go and see the, the, the, the top brass. So he's put in front of Sir John French, and John says, so, young man, what have you seen?

• 13:42Speaker 05

  And he describes exactly what he's seen, which he knows is correct because he's seen it, but that's not the information that French has. So French just loses interest and starts asking him, so what's it like up there? Can you see a long way? It's very cold. And he said, I was so frustrated, because I was trying to get him back down to earth, but he wouldn't listen. Anyway, turned out to be true, what he was saying. And so bit by bit, and I say bit by bit, over a series of days, they started to be, the airplanes and the pilots and observers started to be taken more seriously. And so you've got a point where, you know, just before the war stabilizes into trenches, where the Flying Corps actually observe what is happening before the Battle of the Marne.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  Remind me, I've, I've forgotten the detail, but arguably decisive, because the Germans obviously tweak their plan, don't they? They come down south of Paris and they, and, and it's that, that sort of gives the Allies that opportunity to counter. So really, arguably, very, very important.

• 14:40Speaker 05

  Very crucially important. And by that time, they're listening. And then, you know, a few days later, you, you can find, I mean, the National Archives, they have these, these observers' reports, and they're totally fascinating, because on the 13th of September, there's one, there's a, an observer called Atkinson, who writes up his report, and twice, he says, trenches being dug in the field. My God, that's the start of it.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:09Speaker 05

  And that, he's spotting it, the very beginning of it. It's slightly cold, you know.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  What will become the, sort of the infamous Western Front.

• 15:16Speaker 05

  You know, everything, everything we, we are now, you know, from that, from that moment. And so, and, and at that point, you know, they are taken seriously. And at that point, French actually, as he's a communicator, is congratulating the Flying Corps. So again, in the same way that flying develops so quickly, being taken seriously develops quickly. But that's only reconnaissance.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  And, and the Germans, aren't they, they're, they're, they're actually working with the artillery, aren't they? They're sort of dropping, they're, they're, I think it's tin foil or something like that. So they're sort of, they're trying to work with their heavy guns, they're actually, guys, the, the enemy are right here. So that's also developing. But initially, when German and British aviators meet in the sky, they start waving each other or do they start taking potshots at each other?

• 15:58Speaker 05

  I mean, we're talking again, very short period of time, at the beginning, you know, there always was, you know, this idea of chivalry in the air is true. You know, I mean, there, there, there were a lot of airmen who felt they had more in common with the airmen on the other side than they did with the, you know, the men on the ground in their own, in their own army. So, so there was a sense of this, and at the beginning, they really did wave. It didn't take them long to realize, God, we should be doing something about the other side doing what they're doing. So they started taking rifles up, they started, you know, they were, you know, lots of these people, you know, they shot on their land. So, you know, they had an idea of, you know, firing with a lead to, you know, to hit a grouse, you know, so, so they started doing that.

• 16:43Speaker 05

  They, one or two might even have, have scored hits. And then one man, Louis Strange, took a machine gun up, and he was told by his squadron commander, don't do that, they're for use on the ground, which is, you know, like turning down the Beatles, it's one of those moments where, you know. And then that's where it started. And, and you, you had these developments being made, this again, being made by the people who knew how these airplanes worked, and the people who knew what they could do. So it wasn't the, the generals, or it wasn't the, you know, the senior officers who were telling them, go out and do this, it was, they were trying it. So, and the same went for, for example, bombing, you know, they're starting off, starting

• 17:25Speaker 05

  off with fluchettes, with darts, dropping darts over the side, which, if you were under one, I can't think of anything worse.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, like a steel dart landing.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Coming through your helmet.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:35Speaker 05

  But having said that, you were unlikely to be under one. So they're, they're then throwing a grenade, and then experimenting with bombs. And again, this one, it's, you know, it's Rabliati again, credible account, he's flying with Louis Strange. And because there's so few of them doing it, their names crop up again and again. It feels like you become friends of these people. And they were flying along, and what, what he decided to do was to make a hole in the bottom of his B aircraft, and sort of line it with tin, and then he would push a bomb through, and that would be his bomb chute, and it would release underneath. But what he hadn't considered was that the air, the, the wind rushing past would sort

• 18:17Speaker 05

  of narrow the tin, and so the bomb got stuck, but with the detonator poking out of the bottom.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:25Speaker 05

  So he climbed over the side, or tried to climb over the side to try and do something, he couldn't do anything, and basically, he passed a note forward to Louis Strange, saying, we're going to die. And strange plane sort of started, anyway.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  A little bit of paper comes flapping over his shoulder, he reads it.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  I had no idea any of this was going on, so that's a message to receive. They decide to go back to the airfield, but they're going to land right at the far end, because they're going to blow up, so they don't want to take anyone with them. Very, you know, nice, in case, in case bits of the plane could be salvaged, they go back to the airfield. And so again, they drop a message, this is how, you know, messages is a whole other story, how messages were sent.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Right, exactly, because no wireless sets in the aircraft at this point.

• 19:06Speaker 05

  Not at this point, no. And so they, he writes out another message, drops it on the airfield, we're going to blow up, so everyone get out of the way. And they land at the far end, and they are waiting for the explosion as they come down. And he says, Louis Strange landed too fast, I bet he did. And he said, we bounced, and we bounced, and he said, the lack of event was just astonishing. And when we were down, we both ran as fast as we could, and then I looked up and I was going to go back to see what was going on, Louis Strange said, you've done enough, you stay where you are. Anyway, what had happened was, they'd landed in some quite long corn, and the corn had

• 19:48Speaker 05

  ripped the detonator out of the bottom of the bomb.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 19:53Speaker 05

  And they'd landed safely. This is the life that they were living. And Louis Strange died in bed, an old man. And I don't know, I mean, you just, you, you, what can you say?

• 20:06Speaker 00

  Josh, that's great. More on World War One Aviation after this. This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail, but suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us, mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

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  Ah, fall. That cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table's been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store reminding you that the year is coming to a close.

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  Time to kick end of year into high gear.

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  This ad is sponsored by Zocdoc. Hi, it's Danny Pellegrino from Everything Iconic. Have you been putting off that annual doctor's appointment because you don't want to make the call? Or maybe you've been meaning to find a new dentist, but you have no idea where to start? I find that's especially true when you move, it's hard to find your people. I've been there, which is why I use Zocdoc. Now, as a busy podcaster, parent and someone who's always juggling a million things, I love anything that makes life easier. And Zocdoc lets you search and compare local in-network doctors with over 250,000 providers across more than 200 specialties. You can read reviews from real patients, find a provider who feels like the right fit, see actual appointment openings and book instantly. I recently had a last minute health issue pop up and I needed to see someone fast.

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• 22:38Speaker 01

  Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it healthy optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patients. Will we fix it all overnight? No, but we'll wake up trying again and again, until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at Optum.com.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  You've covered a bit there, but so you've got the reconnaissance role, which is looking, seeing what the enemy is up to, where their stuff is, what's moving around. Then, then, then you're doing a bit of bombing, so you're trying to actually interfere with things on the ground, right? You're bombing and ground attack, machine gun, people on the ground. And then you need a role for an interceptor, don't you? Because you also have to really an out and out fighter aircraft to try and stop the other side doing that to you.

• 23:36Speaker 05

  Precisely.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  So how quickly do these sort of specializations start to make themselves felt?

• 23:41Speaker 05

  Quite fast. I mean, the first, you know, scouts, they were called rather than fighters. You know, it was early 1915.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:46Speaker 05

  And...

• 23:47Speaker 00

  So they're being told, go up, but your job isn't to do these other things. It is specifically to stop the enemy coming over our lines.

• 23:52Speaker 05

  Protect your planes and prevent their planes doing what they're doing. Their job. And, you know, there were other jobs as well. You know, there was artillery observation, you know, guiding. God, we could go all night. But, but, you know, there was plenty that there. And then cameras, photographs were being taken rather than, you know, sketches. So it was incredibly important to defend your planes and to stop the other side doing the same thing. The more important, you know, the office job of the airplane became, the more crucial it was. So then you had this, this arms race really to, to create the more, the most effective scout fighter that would prevent the other side from, from doing its job.

• 24:33Speaker 05

  And, and you had this constant over the war, sort of toing and froing of which side was more effective, which side had control of the air. Of course, this is nothing new. This carried on, you know, to the, to the present day.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  Right, which we, we've all heard a lot at the moment about drones in Ukraine of being, of being developed, put into the frontline and then are obsolete within X number of weeks.

• 24:56Speaker 05

  Completely.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Similar, so give me a sense of the First World War. If you have a brand new scout interceptor, how many weeks or months might you get out of it before some one comes along?

• 25:06Speaker 05

  Lucky few months.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Really?

• 25:07Speaker 05

  I mean, you know, the, you know, the first, it was a British pusher. Pusher meant that the engine was behind.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:15Speaker 05

  So, you know, they, they were experimenting with these. And of course, the advantage of that was that you could, you could mount a machine gun at the front, just aim.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  Of course, because your engine's behind you.

• 25:25Speaker 05

  Engines behind you.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  Like a big fan pushing, so you're put, okay. And you've got your machine guns unencumbered.

• 25:29Speaker 05

  A big fan. And it also served a slight purpose in that, you know, if you were in a dogfight, someone was chasing you, you know, better the engine fails than you get hit in the back. So anyway, so, so, you know, the first Vickers fighter was the first, you know, really dedicated fighter, British fighter. And, you know, it did very well, didn't really have any, any real opposition. And bear in mind also that the aircraft that are doing the, like I say, the office jobs, the, the day-to-day work, you know, if you're taking photographs, you have to be a very steady aircraft. You don't want something that, you know, jerks all over the place. And, and you've got to fly it straight and level. So you're kind of a sitting target to, to enemy fighters. So you need, you do need a lot of protection.

• 26:14Speaker 05

  And, you know, the B was, and B2 was, was the airplane that, you know, the dog's body that did all this work. It was a brilliant plane, but you didn't want to get into a fight, you know, while flying it. So you had the Vickers fighters, first of all, which were these pushers. And they were pretty good. But then they were outclassed by the German Eindecker, the monoplane. And then, and that was a, was called, it was a tractor. You know, it had the, the, the engine at the front and much better performance. But then you had the problem of how do you fire your machine gun if your engine is at the front, if your propeller's at the front? So up till then, you know, they, they'd found ways of getting around it.

• 26:57Speaker 05

  The machine gun would be sort of mounted to the side.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  Outside the radius of it.

• 27:01Speaker 05

  You know, these were Vickers machine gun. And, and but you couldn't really, you know, you didn't know what you were firing at. And again, if you were firing, you know, at some angle, you know, good luck. So they needed to find a way to fire straight ahead. So, you know, the, the, the first method tried, Roland Garros, was to put steel blades on the, the edge of the propeller. Now, these worked.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  Cracky.

• 27:26Speaker 05

  But...

• 27:27Speaker 00

  So the odd bullet would just hit the propeller and zing off?

• 27:29Speaker 05

  Yes, zing off.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness.

• 27:30Speaker 05

  And you can imagine, do you really want zinging off, you know, a couple of feet in front of you? So one of his aircraft was captured by the Germans and they decided to, you know, we'll recreate it, but they did better than that. They basically developed, I mean, it's a, it's rather, rather, I mean, to this day, it's a mechanical device. And I honestly, I, I, I don't know how it was possibly done. It was, it was Fokker, the, the, the man who launched 1,000 jokes and 1,000 comedy acts. And...

• 28:05Speaker 00

  He's a German aircraft.

• 28:06Speaker 05

  He's not German, he's Dutch.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  He's Dutch.

• 28:08Speaker 05

  And he actually offered it first of all to the, to the Allies.

• 28:11Speaker 00

  Really?

• 28:11Speaker 05

  Who said no. And then, you know, he's making it back out of the war and good for him.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  So Fokker?

• 28:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  The famous, the, the person who ended up making aircraft for the Germans?

• 28:19Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  And he's, but you're making aircraft for the Germans?

• 28:22Speaker 05

  For the highest bidder, or for the only bidder.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:25Speaker 05

  And so what, what he, what he creates actually, which is a game changer, is this mechanical device that allows the gun to fire in between the propeller.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  It's so clever. I just can't, it's amazing.

• 28:38Speaker 05

  I can't, I can't. I mean, it's just, you know, you go to the RAF museum, they've got a sort of mock-up.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  I know, I've seen it, but it's still, how do you do that? 1,000 revs per mi, I mean, it's crazy.

• 28:48Speaker 05

  Isn't it crazy?

• 28:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:49Speaker 05

  Anyway, he did it. And, and so suddenly, and the, the Allies were totally astonished because this plane suddenly was spitting fire at them from the front. And it was like a, it's like magic, like black magic.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  So all, at that point, all of your equivalent aircraft are obsolete from that point. It's a death trap to go flying in.

• 29:06Speaker 05

  And then you've also got pilots, German pilots coming in who actually have tactics. And this was...

• 29:11Speaker 00

  That's a bit unsportsmanlike.

• 29:12Speaker 05

  This was a big deal, you know? So you've got Immelman, you've got Bulka who has dictors, which basically rules for pilots.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, Bulka, so Bulka is a German fighter pilot, basically. And he has these, he comes up with the first sort of air-to-air tactics.

• 29:27Speaker 05

  Air-to-air tactics.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Which people still look at today.

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Absolutely, they do. And Immelman had, had these techniques, these tactics, which were rather brilliant. I mean, you know, the, the old expression, beware the hun in the sun. You know, it's because Immelman would fly and he'd, he'd come out of the sun, of course, he would have, it makes common sense, doesn't it?

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Because you can't look, the other pilot can't look into the sun.

• 29:48Speaker 05

  It's hard enough driving on the M4 West, you know, it's, you know, you can imagine looking up and, and so he would dive out of the sun. And if he didn't make a hit this time, or make a kill this time, he would come back up, so like this, and then he would either half roll, and I can't really do it with my hand, I can't half roll, but then come back down again for another pass. Or he would sort of side slip and then come back down that way. This was totally new. You know, he was in a much more effective aircraft. He was in an aircraft that could fire directly ahead. This is terrifying. This is, this is, you know, it's a game changer. So then the British had to come up with something. And then the DH2, which is one of my favorite, pardon my favorite aircraft.

• 30:33Speaker 05

  It's a, it's a very dinky little thing. Again, it's a pusher, but it's an effective one. It's a lovely little thing. It's just, it's really basically just a little nacelle at the front and then sort of kite strings at the back. I mean, it's just a beautiful thing. I used to make the, the FX model and it didn't take very long because it's just, you know, it's just a few sort of poles and...

• 30:54Speaker 00

  And so these, just on that note, an aircraft could go from design to build to frontline, what, in, in space of weeks?

• 31:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, very, very quickly. I mean, yes, because there wasn't much to them.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 05

  You know, also, another thing about these very early aircraft, of course, it was incredibly dangerous and people were dying mainly in training, actually, but people were dying in enormous numbers. But there was also, they were, they, they were so light. You know, they were built of, of wood and canvas with a bit of dope on front and then odd metal bits here and there. They, they crumpled. So if, if you hit the ground, you did have a chance of surviving because you were kind of...

• 31:35Speaker 00

  Just a crumple, it all concertina'd.

• 31:37Speaker 05

  It was concertina. So, I mean, I'm saying woods and many, many, many people died. I'm not making light of this, but, you know, you did, I, you know, I've got an amazing picture of an aircraft just caught in a tree, like a kite. You know, they, they, they were very, they were very flimsy things in, in the early days. They got heavier. So they, they could be developed quite quickly and built relatively quickly. And, and they would also, you know, they, they would lose their potency quite quickly. So the DH2 took over and then you had the German Albatross taking... So, you know, that one of the classic, no, the classic dogfight of the war was between Richtofen and a, a British pilot called Lano Hawker. Who's

• 32:20Speaker 00

  Richtofen, the famous, the Red Baron.

• 32:22Speaker 05

  The Red Baron, famous from Snoopy onwards, you know. Um, and, and really remarkable, God, I mean, there's a, there's a whole episode on, on him alone because he's a fascinating character. But thi- this, this dogfight, you know how, you know, our idea of the, of, of what dogfights are is really from these early days of the First World War because, you know, even end of the war, they became too fleeting and by the time of the Battle of Britain, you know, you only saw the enemy for a couple of seconds before it disappeared.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Short burst of machine gun or.

• 32:55Speaker 05

  This is the point where the, the aircraft was similar enough that they would chase each other in ever decreasing circles. And this is exactly what this dogfight was. It was, you know, we, we've got Richtofen's diary of it. It's quite, you know, it's, it's very vivid. And he talks about, you know, I, I looked down, I waved to him. I could see he was a plucky fellow. I'm admitting this is translated, so somebody has translated it in very much language of the time, but, um, and they, they, they carried on.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Yes, you're trying, one's trying to get behind the other and the chief tactic is throw the rudder across and try and get, get away from.

• 33:33Speaker 05

  Trying, you know, tighter and tighter circles. Um, whereas, you know, Hawker, who's been chased, because he's in the slightly inferior machine, the DH2, whereas Richtofen's in an Albatross, not, um, not the Fokker triplane, he's later famous for, at this point, an Albatross. Um, and eventually, uh, he says, I got behind him, I don't know, thirty feet or something behind him, I could see his head and I fired a burst. And also you couldn't waste ammunition, you didn't have a lot of ammunition. And, you know, as a newcomer, the mistake they often made was to open fire too early. Richtofen was not a newcomer, so he, he waited till he had Lano directly in his sights, shot him, hit the ground, there's now a memorial, uh, on the ground, just where, where he landed.

• 34:16Speaker 05

  And that is in some ways the sort of iconic dogfight of the war. And if you, I don't know, watch Star Wars and those fight, I never, the Thai fighters and the whatever, X-Wings, that's the dogfight you're watching. It's that sort of early First World War dogfight. And, and at that point, the, the Albatross had the upper hand. And by this point, they were, the, the aircraft were getting more sophisticated. So there were more different kinds being developed. So it wasn't just a case of one plane outclassing the last plane. You know, you had various different aircraft now taking to the skies. And you also, what, what you had, because these, you know, the only reason these fighters

• 34:57Speaker 05

  were there at all was because of the real work that the, you know, the, the reconnaissance, artillery observation, the real stuff, that's the only reason they were there. But they did become the, the icons. So you had the cigarette cards.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  The glamour boys, yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 05

  They were the glamour boys. And the British, the Germans quite happy to encourage their glamour boys. British didn't want it, interestingly. The British, um, brass wanted, the emphasis to be placed on the people doing the difficult work, well, not difficult, it's all difficult, but doing the, the daily work. Um, and, and tried to prevent the British, you know, the aces becoming known, but they couldn't obviously. And, you know, people like Albert Ball and McManic and, um, James McCudden. And also, um, William Leif Robinson, the man who shot down the first, uh, Zeppelin. You know, he became a massive star. I mean, a star, probably a star.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  And that's partly because it's exciting, it's new technology, but also you can, un- unlike the, the massive sort of industrial, almost anonymous snake show trench warfare, it's just hundreds, thousands of men using technology to blast you. You, you can put a name and a face to it. This guy shot someone else down, it was dramatic. You can sell that, can't you, to a newspaper?

• 36:10Speaker 05

  Absolutely, that's precisely the point. It was, you know, the, the rest of the war was mechanized to a degree that it was effectively faceless, you know. Not, not completely, but, you know, for the most part, VCs and whatever, but for the most part. Whereas a war in the air were still gladiatorial fights, you know, these were duels, personal duels. And, and so absolutely, these people became heroes. And, you know, we still, I say, we, we don't really remember their names so much, apart from Richtofen. But, you know, to the, the fighter pilots of the Second World War.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 05

  These were the heroes. These were the ones that they grew up with, they knew everything about them.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  And just on that, the, what was life like for them? Did they feel, how did they feel? Because they could see the, and they heard about the horror that their family members and loved ones in the trenches. They were flying, people in the trenches looking up, going, I wish I was up there. But it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, what, what's the, odd atmosphere, isn't it? Because on the one hand, it's freezing cold, very tricky, they're not, obviously pressurized cabins, they're open air, flying in all sorts of conditions, navigation a nightmare, risk of crashing, being shot down. But at the same time, they're not in the trenches. So how did they feel about what they were doing?

• 37:20Speaker 05

  Oh, it's so interesting this, because you're absolutely right. And a lot of them were, had been infantry or, you know.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  They'd been in the trenches.

• 37:27Speaker 05

  They'd been in the trenches. And, and they had been the people looking up, thinking, ooh, I'd like a bit of that. Um, and, uh, and so, you know, they, they, they transferred. But, um, it was a very, very, as you say, a sort of dual life in the sense that you did this incredibly dangerous thing. I mean, they went up several times a day. You know, the, the, just the, the level of, quite apart from the fact you were, you had a very strong chance of dying, you know, it, the, the whole sort of Blackadder idea of the twenty minuters is not completely off the mark. I mean, there were periods, you know, at Battle of Arras, nineteen seventeen, you really

• 38:08Speaker 05

  did, your life expectancy from arriving to, was, was about two weeks. And, and, and part of the problem there was you, you know, by this time, they were sending people who really weren't properly trained. You know, there was such a need for pilots that they were, you know, the squadron, one of squadron commanders said, I had to, um, you know, new people who came in, I had to take them around the lines, you know, let them fly behind the lines for quite a long time, just so that they could get up to speed or they could actually fly sufficiently. So the incredible danger, the incredible stress, enormous stress, you know, where the idea of flying sickness, a lot of people had the, the sort of air equivalent of shell shock, which were dealt with much more leniently.

• 38:51Speaker 05

  But the other side of the coin is they lived much more comfortably.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Exactly, yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 05

  You know, they lived, they were behind the lines. I went to visit an old airfield called Vergelant, um, which was completely, it's a farm, it was a farm then, farm now, completely unchanged from the days when, you know, the DH2s were all parked outside it. Um, and you could see, you know, this bit was the officer's mess, you know, this bit was, was, um, the, the, the, the NCO's mess. And, and, uh, you could see where everything had once been. And you could see, it was comfortable. And of course, it was not only that they lived more comfortably, they had their servants, they, you know, that they could go into town.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  They could have a few drinks at night.

• 39:36Speaker 05

  Every night, you know, they had their favorite restaurants, you know, they were, if they were near Amiens, what a great place to be. And they were able to live quite well outside of the flying. It was a payoff. And, I mean, I've got these amazing stories, also, they were, they were so irreverent and they were able to do things behind the lines that, you know, the people in trenches could only dream of. So, you know, there was one squadron commander who built a, a, a roller skating rink. He just blagged lots of cement and built a roller skating rink. And they played roller rugby and roller everything else and, and a bit early for roller discos. But they, you know, they had a good, you know, and, and his men loved it.

• 40:18Speaker 05

  Another one was a, a West End actor, Robert Lorraine, I think was his name, and a great friend of George Bernard Shaw, who'd written these anti-war plays. And I've got an account from one man who said, I'd read this anti-war play and I thought this, this Shaw to be shot. And anyway, two weeks later Shaw appears on the squadron because he's a great friend of Robert Lorraine and he's introduced, this man, Airman's introduced Shaw, this is a man who thinks you should be shot. And Shaw said, well, you, I think you could have done a lot worse. And so, you know, the, the, they, the men put on one of Shaw's plays, anti-war play, the officers put on another. So they're flying during the day, if they make it through, presumably they're learning their lines at some point, and on the, on the, on the flight home, and, and then they

• 41:02Speaker 05

  put on these plays and Shaw watches them put on his plays and, and apparently laughs all the way through. And this officer says, I'm glad you enjoyed our effort. And he says, if I knew it was going to be like that, I'd never have written it. So anyway, but the, the fact is, these were irreverent, unusual people. And, uh, all sorts of things were possible for them. But also, you know, the, many of them suffered breakdowns. You know, I've got these extraordinary, in the book, these extraordinary accounts, psychiatric accounts of what these people, you know, one man had no memory of this, but went out, had dinner with a friend in London, just about had a memory of that.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  And then went to London Bridge and just basically took off his uniform and threw it in the Thames and was found by a policeman and had no memory of what he'd done. Now, that's obviously an extreme example and there were lots of more. But there was an extraordinary amount of this. And, you know, from McManic, you know, one of the most famous pilots was, was a nervous wreck.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  I bet.

• 42:07Speaker 05

  Um, and, you know, went home, uh, and completely broke down in front of one of his old friends, just couldn't stop sobbing, couldn't stop crying. Um, and then went back to the, to the front where he was a squadron commander and pulled himself together, I suppose you'd say. Um, but became sort of, his humor became darker and darker and darker. And eventually he died breaking, he, he wrote up a set of rules and breaking one of his first rules, which is when you shoot someone down, do not follow them down because you make yourself vulnerable. And he died doing precisely that. And he used to carry a revolver with him because his terror was burning.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  Right, being trapped in the aircraft and burning to death.

• 42:55Speaker 05

  And he had it with him and we don't know whether, whether he used it before he, before he died. And. I don't know, it's, it's, the whole thing is such a story. It's such a...

• 43:07Speaker 00

  Well, Josh, you mentioned the Red Baron earlier. The, as you say, very odd, the only World War Iceman we still hear about, talk about today. Is that because of the branding? Is that, why was he called the Red Baron? Why, why did he take that?

• 43:19Speaker 05

  He, he was famous for a red Fokker triplane.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  Um, that's, you know, the, the, the, the, the image is of flying along and suddenly seeing this red, extraordinary silhouetted triplane appearing behind you.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Three, do we say six wings or three wings?

• 43:35Speaker 05

  I suppose, I would call them planes if you'd be really...

• 43:38Speaker 00

  Planes, okay, so three planes.

• 43:39Speaker 05

  Uh, and, which was actually a copy of a British plane, Sopra triplane.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 43:43Speaker 05

  Um, but, anyway.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  And he painted it red himself?

• 43:46Speaker 05

  They had, you see, the, the, the Germans were a, a, a bit more adventurous with their, with their color schemes than with their, so people had their own color schemes, you know, they would paint faces on the nose cals and, you know, uh, so, you know, we think of the Germans as being very straight, very straight laced, but actually these, these Germans, you know, uh, Richtofen's Flying Circus, you know, that was, that was his group that would move by train from place to place. So wherever they were needed in the line, they could show up.

• 44:18Speaker 00

  And he would lead these young elite airmen into action.

• 44:22Speaker 05

  So, you know, the, the Monty Python's name didn't come out of nowhere. It was Richtofen's Flying Circus that they were named after. And he would lead them to wherever they were, they were needed.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  Extraordinarily dangerous.

• 44:33Speaker 05

  Now, he was a, he was a kind of one-off. He was, uh, in, in his time, he was a one-off. He had a huge reputation amongst the British. And he would, would generally, so he was a hunter in life, you know, that was his passion was hunting. And so whenever he shot down a plane, he would take a, something from it, um, you know, whether it was a serial number or something, and he'd put it, you know, he was in a chateau, living nicely, and he'd put it on the wall, like a hunting trophy.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  Well, so he'd, he'd ask the guys on the ground to recover a piece from this aircraft.

• 45:07Speaker 05

  And he'd have it, and then he'd, he'd put it on, on the wall. And, and I've seen a picture of the, of the bedroom, and the chandelier is a rotary engine. It's so gruesome.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:20Speaker 05

  I mean, you, you know, it's bad enough having a stag in your house, you know, in your, in your dining room, but you wouldn't want animals all over your bedroom, I wouldn't have thought. Anyway, he's got all his kills. Each one represents a, a dead or, you know, prisoner. Um, that's how he lived. He was a hunter. And what he tended to do would be, he, you know, the, the, the fight would be going on a bit lower down. He would sort of wait up above until he saw somebody isolated, and then he would swoop and sort of, you know, come in for the kill. It's as though the others were beaters, you know, and he would, he would, he would, um, he would do the kill. And, and so, you know, he, he, a

• 46:04Speaker 05

  lot of, um, a, a lot of successes. And then his, his death is utterly fascinating because it, it tallies very much with Mannix. Um, he, just an, an average fight, uh, and he came down and he saw a, a, a newcomer, and this was a very new pilot, somebody called May, and he'd been told to, May had been told by his squadron commander, Brown, to just stay out of the action, just watch this one. But like a lot of these people, he couldn't resist, so he, he got into it. Anyway, Richtofen saw him, and down he came. And May then had that experience of seeing the, the triplane ease into position behind him. Now, Richtofen's

• 46:47Speaker 05

  guns were misfiring, so May, you know, had a chance at least. Uh, and he started, he went down to the ground and started to try and zigzag, you know, to sort of put Richtofen off, but Richtofen was too experienced for that, so stayed with him. But what Richtofen then did, which is inexplicable, was to break, I think it was his second rule. So Richtofen had also written down his rules, which he'd put in his will, interestingly, which is a strange will to write, but anyway, do not follow the enemy low over their own territory. And...

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Because all the, all the enemy guys on the front line will have a pop at you with their rifles.

• 47:26Speaker 05

  And their gun, their rifles, their machine guns, there's anti-aircraft, there's, there's everything. And if you're low, you know, so that's what he did. He flew low and he was duly fired at by everyone in the trenches, you know, machine guns, it was Australians, don't they?

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  And he flew on and sort of at some point, you know, he wasn't getting anywhere with May, and at some point thought, no, better, so he, he turned and he came back. And at that point, he was hit from the side. Um, the bullet, I think, went in on his right side, and he wobbled and he turned and he came down, uh, and lived for a few seconds. I mean, you know, the instinct, he landed successfully, the instinct never left him, but within seconds he was, he was dead. The Australians had already arrived and were picking the plane clean.

• 48:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, they swarmed there because they knew it was him, that's what, so, because this red, yes, they, they were pick, stripping it for souvenirs as he was dying.

• 48:25Speaker 05

  And if you look on eBay, you can see where those souvenirs have gone, or claim to, claim to have gone. Anyway, so, so there's this big, you know, why, well, the, the, you know, there's a huge thing, who, who shot him down? And it, I think that, that, that the current theory is it's one of the machine gunners, a man called Popkin. I, I, there may be a new theory out there, I'm not sure, but one of the machine gunners, um, as he turned and came back, shooting from, from that side. Um, I was very lucky, years ago, I, I, I, I flew, someone in a small plane flew me actually over, over that, the ridge, Moreland Court Ridge where it was. And you can see that, you know, there, there's an old brickworks that was there then that's still, it's incredibly moving to see, to fly, you know, the same route and to come back, but without Australians machine gunning

• 49:10Speaker 05

  you. It was extraordinary. Anyway, so, so who killed him? That's a, a big debate. But, but to me, the more interesting thing is why did he do it? You know, why did Mannix break his own rule? Why did, you know, McCudden as well, who was an extraordinary pilot, who could go up to extraordinary heights because of, because you station tubes, I think is a, is a word, but, you know, again, who, who took off and turned back. You, you, you don't do that and, and die doing that. So why did these, the best pilots, the most iconic pilots, everybody looked up to, break their own rules? I find it fascinating. And I suppose one, one explanation could be that they were so venerated by now, um, that

• 49:55Speaker 05

  they thought they were, they were the only ones who didn't have to follow the rules. I don't think that's likely. I think Mannix never lost, you know, he never lost his fear, he never lost his sense of mortality. I think that's probably not likely. I think what, one thing that may be possible is that because they were iconic, they were kept in the line, they were kept in the line, they were kept in the line. You know, they had to keep flying. Um, and it, it seems to me, this may be, you know, pop psychology, but, you know, they, they, they knew they were going to die. And so at least do it at a time and a place of their own choosing. And, I mean, subconsciously, I don't think they deliberately went out to die, but, uh, I, you know, I think, I think that's a possibility. And, you know,

• 50:39Speaker 05

  just talking to, to someone here just before, you know, they, they were, they were saying that their, their father was, um, a, a pilot. And he was saying that the most vulnerable actually were the people who had just arrived and the people who'd been there, you know, who had been successful and been kept there a long time. And so, you know, I suppose the moral is keep your head down. Well, in, in several ways, but, but, you know, if you're an average pilot, you, you, maybe you have the best chance.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, you've got to get them off the front line into, into training depots at the, at the right time. So we're going to get more from Josh Levine after this.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it healthy optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patients. Will we fix it all overnight? No, but we'll wake up trying again and again, until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at Optum.com.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall. That cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table's been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  Time to kick end of year into high gear.

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• 52:22Speaker 02

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• 52:32Speaker 00

  Josh Leung, let's just get to the end of the war because I think it's in the space of, it's funny, First World War's got this reputation as nothing changes, absolute slaughter, absolutely. In fact, it's probably the most innovative and extraordinary four years in military history. Everything's transforming from submarines to infantry weapons, all sorts of things, but aviation particularly. At the start of the war, as you point out, you've got these reconnaissance aircraft, they're like bird cages fluttering about over the front lines. By the end of the war, you've got German aircraft have attacked Britain, trying to knock Britain out of the war, strategic bombing. But take the Battle of Amiens, for example, look, all the different jobs. You've got aircraft dropping supplies to frontline troops for the first time, communicating with them. You've got aircraft with wireless

• 53:17Speaker 00

  sets in them so they can say to the artillery, left a bit, right a bit. So doing all of these different jobs.

• 53:22Speaker 05

  Amazing. And I suppose the biggest development, in a sense, is the fact that they're being used well. You've got a combined arms, you know, set of tactics at this point. So they are doing jobs that are genuinely useful. And, no, I'm not saying they weren't before. I mean, there was always a strong, very strong connection between the Flying Corps and the Army. We haven't even talked about Naval Air Service, who were doing their own, but, so they were a branch of the Army. They weren't an independent service until April 18. So they were working with the Army. But at this point, yes, absolutely, they're aerial

• 54:03Speaker 05

  artillery, really. And they're doing an incredibly important job, an incredibly good job. And they're starting to do one thing they're starting to do, which pilots hated because it was so dangerous. And I recommend everybody read a novel called Winged Victory.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  Unbelievable book.

• 54:20Speaker 05

  Isn't it? And it's by a man, it's really an autobiography, actually, but it's in the guise of a novel. And it's about somebody who spent the later part of the war doing these low-level attacks. And so dangerous, you were prey to anything that was firing from the ground. And he was driven to, he was a complete alcoholic. I mean, he was drinking himself stupid every single night to get through it. And amazing account in the book. But the point is that aeroplanes were now part of a, you know, part of a single system and working very, very effectively. Also, you know, they, contact patrols, that's another

• 55:05Speaker 05

  thing they were doing. So how difficult was it? You know, you could keep in contact on the Western Front with anything that was sort of behind you. And once troops had gone ahead of you, very, very difficult to keep in contact with them. So aeroplanes were the best way to do it. You know, they could fly forward and they could pick up signals from the men to see how far forward they'd got, where they were, what they were likely to be able to do. They could report it right back. So again, all these new roles, and as you say, strategic bombing. I mean, the British, when the war ended, the British were days away from launching a raid on Berlin. So in four years, from darts to a raid on Berlin.

• 55:48Speaker 00

  Yes, from steel darts to striking at the enemy capital.

• 55:52Speaker 05

  Unbelievable.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  Extraordinary. Josh Levine, amazing. Make sure everyone goes and reads your book on this subject, which is?

• 55:59Speaker 05

  Which is Fighter Heroes of World War One.

• 56:02Speaker 00

  And also check out Winged Victory.

• 56:04Speaker 05

  Oh, please, Winged Victory. And Sagittarius Rising.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  And, yeah. In fact, there's lots of very rich literature in this period. Joshua, thank you very much. As always, coming to the podcast, what a star. Thank you.

• 56:13Speaker 05

  Thank you, Dan. It's been a pleasure.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Well, that brings us to end, folks. Thank you very much for listening. The First World War, it just, it began with military leaders, a generation of them, I think, who still thought in the language of the 19th century. They thought about grand cavalry charges, reconnaissance patrols on horseback, massed ranks of infantry attack, some with bands playing and flags flying. But by the time the war ended in 1918, it was a very, very different picture. It's clear that the wars of the 20th century would be won and lost in very different ways. And the air would be a huge, huge element of that. In just four years, aviation evolved from really an experimental branch into a potentially decisive

• 57:00Speaker 00

  military technology. The pilots had become celebrities, air power had become strategic, and the mythology of the flying ace was born, entered modern culture. Behind all that romance, though, behind that excitement, lay the same realities that defined the wider war. Industrialized killing, astonishing levels of human loss. The air war of World War One did not simply change the way war was fought. It changed how the modern world imagined warfare itself. Thanks for listening, folks.

• 57:59Speaker 03

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card.

• 58:01Speaker 02

  Ah, fall. That cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table's been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  Time to kick end of year into high gear.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2% daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more.

• 58:24Speaker 03

  Get a head start on your end of year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it healthy optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patients. Will we fix it all overnight? No. But we'll wake up trying, again and again, until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at optum.com.

• 59:10Speaker 00

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