Dan Snow's History Hit - The Brutal History of The First Warplanes

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

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/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcastSign 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 [e-mail] 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 for more information.

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Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit history hit.com slash subscribe. 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, zeplins, all sorts of things locked in dog fights thousands of feet above the trenches. In this episode, folks, we are going to look at the absolutely extraordinary story of 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 taught others to follow. This is the story of how the Great War turned the skies into a battlefield. I'm very likely to be joined there by a good friend of the podcast, the author, historian, the journalist Joshua Levine.

Enjoy. Joshua Levine, great to see you, man. It's lovely to be here, Dan. This is a story that I just, it's so fast, because it happens at such a remarkable time. Aviation World War I. How old is heavier than Air Flight? I mean, we're talking... End of 1903.

Yeah, 10, 11 years. So we're talking 10 years. And if you think about, I mean, things that happened to me 10 years ago. Yeah. 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.

Yeah. Everyone wanted to be in on it. So, you know, you had Blereo crossing the channel. You can imagine how furious the British were. That must have. What a revolutionary moment. The first person to fly across a travel heavier than their flight is a Frenchman. It's a Frenchman. So one of the papers, I think it was a 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 a Frenchman who did it. And I've got an account 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. Yeah.

You know, it's like it's doggar all over again. You know, we, and there was this fear that we could so easily now be invaded now that, you know, people can, the, the continentals can get straight across. And so the first person to fly in Britain, though, was an American, a man called Samuel Cody, 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, he'd shoot an egg off his wife's head.

And while he was here, became interested in airships. And then from there he moved on to heavy-in-air flight. And he had his own plane called the Cathedral 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 that was the first plane that flew in Britain. And then, shortly afterwards, he died in a flying accident. So this was a kind of, you know, the seat of your pants stuff that it was.

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

You know, I found these lovely stories about, you know, people when the military 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, they're kind of coming back now, the idea of sort of eco-friendly travel. The heavier-than-air airplanes were a bit more grubby. You needed mechanics to really, you know, to work at the engines, and they weren't really, they weren't people like us. So I think it took a bit longer for the value of them to be appreciated. Also, they didn't know what they were going to do.

You know, here they were. they could fly, they could take to the sky very slowly 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? The payload just about support the weight of a human but no bombs or anything. No, so what could they do?

And also bear in mind that 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 whatever it does it's likely to take the role of somebody who's going to guard that role

very very carefully 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 you what helping to spot over the horizon sort of useful pair of eyes Yes. I mean, it was going to be reconnaissance. Right, okay. That was really the only thing. I mean, like you said, the Italians in 1911, they dropped the first bomb. So almost just what hand grenade out of the side. So it had been done.

Yeah. 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. According to him. According to him. Actually, this one is true.

Okay. 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. Okay, interesting. And, you know, during the Second World War, he often referred back to it. You know, he had his plane that, you know, 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 you had these two branches. 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 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 airplanes could do. 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? You had all of these aeroplanes, 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 Yeah, just landing in fields Landing in a field in front of a haystack And you've got the pilot It's 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, inflameable things you'd imagine Just enjoying a leisurely cigarette All these locals are just staring or whatever this monster is that just appeared. So anyway, they all congregate at Dover. They're told to get to a certain height

so if the engines fail, you know, probably will. They can glide because they're going to be left of their own devices if they land in the channel. No SC rescue, nothing. No SC 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 is killed on the way from Scotland, but two men, but they make it to say, and then, okay, so what do they do? 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, we're 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.

So he actually, the month before he flies over, he's gone to Germany to pick up arms to bring back to Ireland. Okay. 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 people who are serving. So anyway, they get over to France and their first job is reconnaissance. 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 two men who get both them completely lost. And you see, you know, their logbooks are fascinating because, you know, they both admit it. One of them lands in Cortri, I'm sure how to pronounce that, I think is Corti,

which actually has a large Irish population because of the linen production. And the linen was... And he says he was about to be taken prisoner when he was recognised 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 talks about... I traveled... I flew above a big town, which turned out to be Brussels. I mean, you know, it's fantastically hopeless. 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, Rabliatti, 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 sketch of it, you know, on an e-pad. Pretty basic, but, you know, they say what they see. So he gets back down. He tells Henderson, who's the head of the flying court at this point, what he's seen. Henderson rushes him to go and see

the top brass. So he's put in front of Sir John French and John says, so, young man, what have you seen? 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? He'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, it turned out to be true what he was saying.

And so bit by bit, and I see bit by bit over a series of days, they started to be in 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 stabilises into trenches, where the Flying Corps actually observe what is happening before the Battle of the Marne. Remind me, I've forgotten the detail, but arguably decisive because the Germans obviously tweaked. their plan, don't they? They come down south of Paris and it's that that sort of gives the allies that opportunity to counter it. So really arguably very, very important. Very crucially important. And by that time they're listening. And then, you know, a few days later, you can find. I mean,

the National Archives they have these observers' reports. And they're totally fascinating. Because on the 13th of September, there's one, there's 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 and that he's spotting it the very beginning of it

it's slightly cold what will become the sort of the infamous western front everything we are now from that moment and so and at that point they are taken seriously and at that point French actually

you see to communicate 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. And the Germans, aren't they? They're actually working with the artillery, aren't they? They're sort of dropping, I think it's tinfall or something like that.

So they're trying to work with their heavy guns. They're actually, guys, the enemy are right here. So that's also developing. But initially, when German and British aviators meet in the sky, they sort of waving each other, or do they start taking pot? 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 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 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 had. doing. So they started taking rifles up. 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 they started doing that. They, one or two might even 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. moments where you're, you know, and then that's where it started. And 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 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 off with flichettes with darts, dropping down. arts over the side, which if you were under one, I can't think of anything worse. Yeah, like a steel dart. Coming through your helmet. But having said that, you were unlikely to be under one. So they're then throwing to a grenade and then experimenting with bombs.

And again, this one, you know, it's Rabliatti 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 he decided to do is 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 shoot. And it would release underneath. But what he hadn't considered was that the air, the wind rushing past, would sort of narrow the tin. And so the bomb got stuck, but with the detonator poking out of the bottom. 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 you passed a note forward to louis strange saying we're going to die and the strange planes sort of starting

a little bit of paper comes flapping over his shoulder had no idea any of this was going on so that's a message they decide to go back to the airfield um 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 bits of the plane could be salvaged, they go back to the airfield. And so again, they drop a message. This is how messages, is a whole other story, how messages were sent.

Right, exactly, because no wireless sets in the aircraft. Not at this point, no. And so he writes out another message, drops it on the airfield, we're going to blow up, so everyone get out 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, Lucifer, and said, you've done enough, you stay where you're... Anyway, what had happened was they'd landed in some quite long corn,

and the corn had ripped the detonator out of the bottom of the bomb. Wow. And they had 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, what can you say? Josh, that's great.

More on World War I Aviation after this. You've covered a bit there. 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 you're doing a bit of bombing. So you're trying to actually interfere with things. on the ground, bombing and ground attack, machine gun people on the ground.

And then you need a role for a 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. So how quickly do these sort of specialisations start to make themselves felt? Quite fast. I mean, the first, you know, scouts, they were called, rather than fighters. You know, it was early 1915. So they're being told, go up, but your job isn't to do these other things,

is specifically to stop the enemy coming over our lines. You protect your planes and prevent their planes doing what they're doing. And there were other jobs as well. There was artillery observation, you know, guiding. God, we could go all night. But, you know, there was plenty of the day. 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 create the most effective scout fighter that would prevent the other side from doing its job. And you had this constant over the war sort of towing and throwing of which side was more effective, which side had control of the air. Of course, this was nothing new that's carried on, you know, to the present day. Right, which we've all heard a lot at the moment about drones in Ukraine of being developed, put onto the front line, and then are obsolete within X number of weeks. 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 long? If you're lucky, lucky a few months.

Really? I mean, you know, the first, there was a British pusher. A pusher meant that the engine was behind. So, you know, they were experimenting with these. Of course, the advantage of that was that you could mount a machine gun at the front, just aim. Of course, because your engine's behind you. It's like a big fan pushing. And you've got your machine guns unencumbered.

A big fan. And it also served a slight purpose. And, you know, if you were in a dog fight, someone was chasing you, you know, better the engine fails than you get hit on the back. So anyway, 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 real opposition. And bear in mind also the aircraft that are doing the, like I say, the office jobs, 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 you've got to fly at straight and level. So you're kind of a sitting target to enemy fighters. So you do need a lot of protection. and the B-E was and B-2 was the aeroplane 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 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 Eindexer, the monoplane.

And then, and that was a tractor. You know, it had the engine at the front. 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 propellers at the front. So up till then, you know, they'd found ways of getting round it. The machine gun would be sort of mounted to the side.

Outside the radius of the... You know, these were Vickers machine gun. 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 first method tried Roland Garros was to put steel blades on the edge of the propeller. Now, these worked. Cracky.

But. So the odd bullet would just hit the propeller and zing off. Yes, zing off. Oh, my goodness. And you can imagine. Do you really want, zinging off 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 rather, rather, I mean, to this day, it's a mechanical device. And I honestly, I don't know how it was possibly done. It was Thacker, the man who launched a thousand jokes and a thousand comedy acts. He's a German aircraft. He's not German, he's Dutch. And he actually offered it, first of all, to the Allies, who said no. And then, you know, he's making it back. out of the war and good for him. So Fokker,

the famous, the person who end up making aircraft for the Germans. Yes. And he's making aircraft for the Germans. For the highest bidder. Right. For the only bidder. And so what he creates actually which is a game changer is this mechanical device

that allows the gun to fire in between the propeller. I just can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I mean it's just you know, you go to the RIF Museum. They've got a sort of mock up. I know. I seen it but it's still how do you do that a thousand

revs per minute I mean it's crazy isn't it crazy yeah anyway he did it and and so suddenly and the alex was totally astonished because this plane suddenly was spitting fire at them from the front and it was like a magic like magic all at that point

all of your equivalent aircraft are obsolete from that point it's a death trap to go flying and then you've also got pilots German pilots coming in who actually have tactics and this was this was a bit unsports this was a big deal You know, so you've got Imelman, you've got a Bulker who has dicta, which basically rules for pilots. Yeah, Bulker is a German fighter pilot, basically, and he has these, he comes up with the first sort of air-to-air tactics.

Air-to-air tactics. Which people still look out today. Absolutely, they do. And Imelman had these techniques, these tactics, which were rather brilliant. I mean, you know, the old expression, beware the hun in the sun, you know, is because Imelman would fly. and he'd come out of the sun, of course he would have made sense. The other pilot can't look into the sun. It's hard enough driving on the M4, West.

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 in 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, 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, probably my favorite aircraft.

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, the cell 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 ethics model and it

didn't take very long because it's just you know, it's just a few sort of poles and And so these are just on that note an aircraft could go from design to build to front line in space of Yeah, very quickly. I mean yes

because there wasn't much to them. You know also there's nothing 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 so light. You know, they were built of wood and canvas with a bit of dope on front

and then odd metal bits here and there. They crumpled. So if you hit the ground, you did have a chance of surviving because you were kind of... Just a crumple, it all concertina. 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've got an amazing picture of an aircraft just caught in a tree like a kite. You know, they, they were very, they were very flimsy things 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 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, in fact, no, the classic dogfight of the war was between Richthoven and a British pilot called Lano Hawker.

Rictoffin, the famous, the Red Baron. The Red Baron, famous from Snoopy onwards, you know, and really a remarkable, God, I mean, there's a whole episode on him alone, because he's a fascinating character. But this dog fight, you know how, you know, our idea of what dog fights are is really from these early days of the First World War, because even at the war, they became too fleeting. And by the time in the Battle of Britain, you know, you only saw the enemy for a couple of seconds

before it disappeared. Short burst of machine gun. This is the point where the aircraft was similar enough that they would chase each other in ever decreasing circles. And that's exactly what this dogfight was. It was, you know, we've got Rick Tovin's diary of it. It's quite, you know, it's very vivid. And he talks about, you know, I look down, I wave to him.

I could see he was a plucky fellow. I admitly, this is translated. So somebody has translated it in very much language of the time. But, and they carried on chasing. One's trying to get behind the other. And the chief tactic is throw the rudder across and try and get away from. Try and, you know, tighter and tighter circles. Whereas, you know, Hawker, who's being chased, because he's in the slightly inferior machine, the DH2, whereas Rick Tovin's in an albatross.

Not the Fokker Triplane he's later famous for this point in an albatross. And eventually, he says, I got behind him, I don't know, 30 feet or something behind him, I could see his head and I fired a burst. And also, he 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. Richthoven was not a newcomer, so he waited until he had Lano directly in the site, shot him, hit the ground. There's now a memorial on the ground, just where he landed. 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 dog fight you're watching. It's that sort of early First World War dog fight. And at that point, the Albatross had the upper hand. And by this point, 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 you had, because these, you know, the only reason these fighters were there at all

was because of the real work that the, you know, the reconnaissance artillery observation, the real stuff. any reason they were there. But they did become the icons. So you had the cigarette cards. The glamour boys. 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 brass wanted, the emphasis to be placed on the people doing the difficult work. I'm not difficult, it's all difficult, but doing the daily work. And try to prevent the British, you know, the aces becoming known. But they couldn't, obviously. And, you know, people like Albert Ball and Mick Manick and

James McCudden. And also William Lee-Robinson, the man who shot down the first Zeppelin. You know, he became a massive star. I mean, a star, probably a star. And that's partly because it's exciting to new technology, but also you can, unlike the massive, sort of industrial, almost anonymous nature of trench

warfare, which is hundreds of thousands of men using technology to and blast you. You can put a name in a face to it. This guy, shot someone else down, it was dramatic. You can sell that, can't you, to a newspaper? Absolutely. That's precisely the point. It was, you know, the rest of the war was mechanised to a degree that it was effectively faceless, you know.

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 so absolutely these people became heroes. And, you know, we still, I say we don't really remember their name so much, apart from Richthoven. But, you know, to the fighter pilots of the Second World War, these were the heroes. These were the ones that they grew up with. They knew everything about them.

And just on that, what was life like for them? Did they feel, how did they feel? Because they could see, and they heard about the horror that they have family members and loved ones in the trenches. They were flying, people in the train is looking up going, I wish I was up there. But it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, what's the thing? It's an odd atmosphere, isn't it? Because on the one, it's freezing cold, very tricky. They're not obviously pressurized cabins.

They're open air. Flying in all sorts of conditions, navigation and nightmare, risk of crashing being shot down. But at the same time, they're not in the trenches. So how do they feel about what they were doing? Oh, it's so interesting this, because you're absolutely right. And a lot of them were, had been infantry. They've been in the trenches. They've been in the trenches.

And they had been the people looking up thinking, ooh, like a bit of that. And so, you know, they transferred. But 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, just the level of quite apart from the fact you had a very strong chance of dying. You know, the whole sort of black adder idea of the 20 Ministers is not completely often. the mark. I mean, there were periods, you know, at Battle of Aris, 1917. You really did. Your life expectancy from arriving to, was about two weeks. 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 the squadron commanders said, I had to, 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, the idea of flying sickness, a lot of people had the sort of air equivalent of shell shock, which were dealt with much more leniently. But the other side of the coin is they lived much more comfortably. Exactly, yeah. You know, they lived, they were behind the lines.

I went to visit an old airfield called Vergelant which was completely a farm. Was a farm then, farm now? Completely unchanged from the days when, you know, the DH2s were all parked outside it. And you could see, you know, this bit was the officer's mess. You know, this bit was the NCO's mess. And 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 could go into town. They could have a few drinks at night. Every night. You know, they had their favorite restaurants. You know, 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 so irreverent. And they were able to do things behind the lines that, you know, the people in the trenches only dream of. So, you know, there was one squadron command.

who built 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 a bit early for roller discos. But they, you know, they had a good, you know, and his men loved it.

Another one was 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 I thought 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, I think you could have done a lot worse. And so, you know, 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 flight home. And then they put on these plays and Shaw watches and put on his plays. 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 fact is, these were irreverent, unusual people. And all sorts of things were possible for them.

But also, you know, 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. And then went to London Bridge and 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 was an extraordinary amount of this. you know from Mick Manick you know one of the most famous pilots was a nervous wreck

and you know went home and completely broke down in front of one of his old friends just couldn't stop sobbing couldn't stop crying and then went back to the front where he was a squadron commander

and pulled himself together I suppose you'd say but became sort of This humour became darker and darker and darker. And eventually he died breaking, 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.

Right, being trapped in the aircraft and burning to death. And he had it with him when we don't know whether he used it before. before he died. And I don't know. The whole thing is such a story. It's such a... Josh, you mentioned the Red Baron earlier. As you say, very odd.

The only World War I used to we still hear about, talk about the day. Is that because of the branding? Why was he called the Red Baron? Why do you take that? He was famous for a red Fokker triplane. Right. That's, you know, the image is of flying along and suddenly seeing this red,

extraordinary silhouetted triplane appearing behind you. Do we say six wings or three wings? I suppose, I would call them planes. Plains, okay, so three planes. Which was actually a copy of a British plane, sop with triplane. But anyway.

And he painted it red himself? They had, you see, the Germans were a bit more adventurous with their colour schemes and with their, so people had their own colour schemes. You know, they would paint faces on. the nose, cowls and, you know, so, you know, we think of the Germans

as being very straight, very straight lace, but actually these Germans, you know, Richthoven's flying circus. You know, 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. And he would lead these young, elite airman interaction. So, you know, Monty Python's name didn't come out of nowhere.

It was Richthoven's flying circus that they were named after. And he would lead them to wherever they were needed. Extraordinarily dangerous. Now, he was a kind of one-off. He was, in his time, he was a one-off. He had a huge reputation amongst the British. And he would generally, so he was a hunter in life.

That was his passion, was hunting. And so whenever he shot down a plane, he would take something from it, 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 he'd ask the guys on the ground to recover a piece from this aircraft and he'd have it and then he'd put it on the wall and I've seen a picture of the bedroom

and the chandelier is a rotary engine it's so gruesome I mean you know it's bad enough having a stag in your house 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 dead or, you know, prisoner.

That's how he lived. He was a hunter. And what he tended to do, 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, he would do the kill. And, and so, you know, he, a lot of, a lot of successes. And then his, his death is utterly fascinating because it tallies very much with Manix. He, just an average fight, and he came down and he saw a, a new, a new, a, and he came down. and he saw a newcomer and this was a very new pilot, somebody called May, and he'd been told

by his squadron commander of 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 got into it. Anyway, Richthoven saw him and Down he came,

and May then had that experience of seeing the triplane ease into position behind him. Now, Richthoven's guns were misfiring, so May, you know, had a chance at least, and he went down to the ground and started to try and zigzag, you know, to sort of put Rick Tovin off, but Rick Tovin was too experienced for that, so stayed with him. But what Richthoeven then did, which is inexplicable, was to break, I think it was his second rule.

So Rick Tovin 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 terrorist. territory. Because all the enemy guys on the front line will have a pop at you with their rifles. Their rifles, their machine guns, there's anti-aircraft, there's everything.

And if you're low, you know, so that's what you did. He flew low and he was duly fired out by everyone in the trenches, you know, machine guns. It was Australians, Delance. And he flew on and

sort of at some point, you know, he wasn't getting anywhere with me and at some point thought, I better call the halt. So he turned and he came back. And at that point he was hit from the side. The bullet went in on his right side. And he wobbled and he turned and he came down 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 dead. The Australians had already arrived and we were picking the plane clean. Yeah, they swarmed there because they knew it was him. That's what's so far because of this road, yes, they were stripping it for souvenirs as he was done. And if you look on eBay, you can see where those souvenirs have gone or a claim to. Yeah.

Anyway, so there's this big, you know, why, well, you know, there's a huting who shot him down. And I think the current theory is it's one of the machine gunners, a man called Popkin. There may be a new theory out there, I'm not sure. But one of the machine gunners, as he turned and came back, shooting from that side. I was very lucky. Years ago, I flew, someone in a small plane flew me actually over that, the ridge, Malincor Ridge, where it was. And you can see that, you know, there's an old brickworks that was there then that still,

it's incredibly moving to see, to fly, you know, the same route and to come back, but without Australians machine gunning you. It was extraordinary. Anyway, so who killed him? That's a big debate. But to me, the more interesting thing is, why did he do it? You know, why did Manick? break his own rule. Why did, you know, McCudden as well, it was an extraordinary pilot who could go up to

extraordinary heights because of station tubes, I think is a word, but, you know, again, who took off and turned back. You don't do that 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 that they thought they were, they were the only one who didn't have to follow the rules. I don't think that's likely. I think Manick 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 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. And it seems to me, this may be pop psychology, but 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, you know, I think that's a possibility.

And, you know, just talking to someone here just before, you know, they were saying that their father was 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 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 several ways but you know if you're an average pilot

you maybe you have the best chance yeah you've got to get them off the front line into training depots at the right time so we're going to get more from Josh Levine after this Josh Loon let's just get to the end of the war because I think it's in the space of, it's funny

because first of all has got this reputation as nothing changes absolute slaughter 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 are fluttering about over the front lines by the end of the war you've got German aircraft have attacked Britain

oh my goodness trying to not not 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 sets in them so they can save the artillery left a bit,

right a bit. So doing all of these different jobs. Amazing. And I suppose the biggest development in a sense is the fact that they're being used well. You've got to combined arms. set of tactics at this point. So they are doing jobs that are genuinely useful. 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 the Naval Air Service who were doing their own, you know, work. But so they were a branch of the Army. You know, 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 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. Unbelievable book. 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, it was a complete alcoholic. I mean, he was drinking himself stupid every single night to get through it. And an amazing account in the book.

But the point is that airplanes were now part of a, you know, part of a single system. and working very, very effectively. Also, you know, contact patrols, that's another thing they were doing. So how difficult was it? 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 airplanes 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. I 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. Yes, from steel darts to striking at the enemy capital. Extraordinary. Josh Levine, amazing.

Make sure everyone goes and reads your book on this subject, which, is which is Fighter Heroes of World War I and also check out wing victory and Sagittarius

Rising and yeah in fact there's lots of very rich literature in this period Joshua thank you much as always coming the podcast

what a star thank you thank you it's been pleasure well that brings us to them 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 was 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. to a potentially decisive military technology. The pilots had become celebrities, air power had become strategic, and the mythology of the flying ace was born and 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 One did not simply change the way war was full. it changed how the modern world imagined warfare itself. Thanks for listening, folks. Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up's history and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like How William Conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III.

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