| Bloody April | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theBattle of Arras | |||||||
 Albatros D.III fighters ofJasta 11. The second aircraft from the camera (with the step ladder) was painted red, and was one of several flown byManfred von Richthofen, the most successful ace of the entire war. | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 British Empire |  German Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Hugh Trenchard | Ernst von Hoeppner | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
 Royal Flying Corps |  Luftstreitkräfte | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 245 aircraft 400 aircrew (207 killed)[1] | 66 aircraft | ||||||
Bloody April was the (largely successful) British air support operation during theBattle of Arras inApril 1917, during which particularly heavy casualties were suffered by theRoyal Flying Corps at the hands of the GermanLuftstreitkräfte.[2]
The tactical, technological, and training differences between the two sides ensured the British suffered a casualty rate nearly four times as great as their opponents. The losses were so disastrous that it threatened to undermine the morale of entiresquadrons.[3] The RFC contributed to the success, limited as it finally proved, of the British Army during the five-week series of battles.
In April 1917 theBritish Army began an offensive at Arras, planned in conjunction with the French High Command, who were simultaneously embarking on a massive attack (theNivelle Offensive) about 80 kilometres (50 mi) to the south. The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) supported British operations by offeringclose air support,aerial reconnaissance andstrategic bombing of German targets. The RFC'scommanding officer,Hugh Trenchard believed in the offensive use ofair power and pushed for operations over German-controlled territory. It was expected the large numbers of aircraft assembled over the frontlines in the spring of 1917 would fulfil this purpose. However, the aircraft were, for the most part, inferior to Germanfighter aircraft.
Crucially, British pilot training was not only poorly organised and inconsistent, it had to be drastically abbreviated to keep squadrons suffering heavy casualties up to strength. This was self-perpetuating, as it resulted in most new pilots lacking sufficient practical flight experience before reaching the front.
[T]he worst carnage was amongst the new pilots – many of whom lasted just a day or two.[4][5]
German pilot training was, at that time, more thorough and less hurried than the British programmes. After the heavy losses and failures against the French overVerdun in 1916 and against the British at theSomme, they had reorganised their air forces into theLuftstreitkräfte by October 1916, which now includedJastas, specialist fighter units.[6] These units were led by highly experienced pilots, some of them survivors of theFokker Scourge period.[7] and had been working up with the first mass-produced twin-gunned German fighters, theAlbatros D.I andD.II, comprising a total of nearly 350 aircraft between the two types.
Paradoxically, the one sided nature of the casualty lists during Bloody April was partly a result of German numerical inferiority. The German air forces mostly confined themselves to operating over friendly territory, thus reducing the possibility of losing pilots to capture and increasing the amount of time they could stay in the air and choose when and how to engage in combat.[8]
TheBattle of Arras began on 9 April 1917.The Allies launched a joint ground offensive, with the British attacking nearArras inArtois, northernFrance, while the French offensive was launched onthe Aisne.
In support of the British army, the RFC deployed 25squadrons, totalling 365 aircraft, about one-third of which werefighters (or "scouts" as they were called at the time). There were initially only five GermanJastas (fighter squadrons) in the region, but this rose to eight as the battle progressed (some 80 or so operational fighter aircraft in total).
Since late 1916, the Germans had held the upper hand in the contest forair supremacy on theWestern Front, with the twin-lMG 08 machine gun-armedAlbatros D.II andD.III outclassing the fighters charged with protecting the vulnerableB.E.2c,F.E.2b andSopwith 1½ Strutter two-seater reconnaissance and bomber machines. The Allies' fighter squadrons were equipped with obsolete "pushers" such as theAirco DH.2 andF.E.8 – and other outclassed types such as theNieuport 17 andSopwith Pup. Only theSPAD S.VII andSopwith Triplane could compete on more or less equal terms with the Albatros; but these were few in number and spread along the front. All four of the aforementioned Allied designs depended on just one synchronizedVickers machine gun apiece, given cooling louvers on the cooling jackets for aviation use, for their armament on their airframe. The new generation of Allied fighters were not yet ready for service, althoughNo. 56 Squadron RFC with theS.E.5 was working up to operational status in France, intended to use both the synchronized Vickers gun, and anoverwing-mountLewis machine gun firing above the propeller arc for a twin-gun offensive punch. TheBristol F2A also made its debut withNo. 48 Squadron during April, but lost heavily on its first patrol, with four out of six shot down in an encounter with five Albatros D.IIIs ofJasta 11, led byManfred von Richthofen (popularly known as the Red Baron). The newR.E.8 two-seaters, which were eventually to prove less vulnerable than the B.E.2e, also suffered heavy casualties in their early sorties.
During April 1917, the British lost 245 aircraft, 211 aircrew killed or missing and 108 asprisoners of war. The German Air Services recorded the loss of 66 aircraft during the same period. As a comparison, in the five months of theBattle of the Somme of 1916 the RFC had suffered 576 casualties. Under Richthofen's leadership,Jasta 11 scored 89 victories during April, over a third of the British losses.
In casualties suffered, the month marked the nadir of the RFC's fortunes. However, despite the losses inflicted, the German Air Service failed to stop the RFC carrying out its prime objectives. The RFC continued to support the army throughout the Arras offensive with up-to-date aerial photographs, reconnaissance information, effective contact patrolling during British advances and harassing bombing raids. In particular theartillery spotting aircraft rendered valuable reconnaissance to the British artillery, who were able to maintain their superiority throughout the battle. In spite of their ascendancy in air combat, the German fighter squadrons continued to be used defensively, flying for the most part behind their own lines. Thus theJastas established "air superiority", but certainly not theair supremacy sometimes claimed.
Within a couple of months the new technologically advanced generation of fighter (theSE.5,Sopwith Camel, andSPAD S.XIII) had entered service in numbers and quickly gained ascendancy over the over-workedJastas. As the British fighter squadrons became once more able to adequately protect the slower reconnaissance and artillery observation machines, RFC losses fell and German losses rose.
The RFC learned from their mistakes, instituting new policies on the improvement of training and tactical organisation. By mid-1917 better aircraft designs were reaching the front. By the late summer of 1917 the British achieved a greater measure ofair superiority than they had held for almost a year. The casualties in the air campaigns through the remainder of the war were never so one-sided again. In fact, this was essentially the last time that the Germans possessed real air superiority for the rest of the war – although the degree of allied dominance in the air certainly varied, the final all-out efforts of September 1918 causing even greater Allied losses.