Air power and the battle for Vimy Ridge

By Major Bill March 

Published RCAF News

In this undated photo, a British B.E. 2 flies low over the trenches in France. PHOTO: PMR74-661, DND Archives

April 9, 2016, is the 99th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

"Three more pilots lost today. All good men. Oh how I hate the Huns.
They had done in so many of my best friends. I'll make them pay, I swear." (1)

- William Avery "Billy" Bishop, April 7, 1917

Every year, on April 9th, Canadians commemorate the victory of the Canadian Corps at Vimy Ridge in France. The engagement, part of the larger Battle of Arras (April 9 to May 16, 1917), took place from April 9 to 12, and resulted in the decisive defeat of the German defenders. The first time that all four divisions of the Canadian Corps had fought together, Vimy Ridge has become a potent symbol of Canadian nationalism, albeit at the cost of over 10,000 casualties (3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded).

The savagery of the fighting and the bravery of the combatants on the ground were matched by the war in the air. For the men of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) – and there were many Canadians among them – this was the start of “Bloody April”.

As was (and is) often the case, the air battle began long before the first soldier went over the top. The most potent weapon during the First World War was artillery and it came to rely heavily upon aerial observation and photographs. In the months leading up to the attack on Vimy Ridge, corps squadrons – those air units tasked to provide direct reconnaissance support to a specific army or corps (the Canadian Corps was part of the British First Army) – were in the air whenever the weather permitted, photographing and re-photographing German positions.

Locating enemy artillery batteries was of primary importance so they could be neutralized on the day of the attack. At Vimy Ridge, the bulk of the work fell to the RFC’s 16 Squadron, flying B.E.2s, a two-seater biplane. It is estimated that by early March aerial photographs had been taken of all of the German defensive positions and that 180 of 212 hostile batteries had been located and their coordinates plotted on Allied maps.(2) During the actual battle, corps aircraft would fly in support of the “shoots” meant to destroy or neutralize hostile batteries by providing near-real time corrections and photographing the results (what we now call battle damage assessment).

Needless to say, the Germans strove strenuously to deny the Allies the use of this aerial “high-ground” in much the same way as the RFC and RNAS attempted to “blind” the German Air Service. Scout or fighter aircraft flew both offensive and defensive patrols. Offensive patrols were designed to either destroy or discourage the enemy’s reconnaissance aircraft (and balloons) from doing their job, while defensive patrols were to protect friendly corps machines. The information being brought back was so important for the preparation of the upcoming offensive that each RFC reconnaissance aircraft was often assigned two scouts to act as close escorts. They flew in conjunction with defensive patrols of four to seven aircraft seeking to intercept the Germans before they could molest the corps aircraft.

If a target to be photographed was deemed important enough, the RFC would do whatever it took to get the image – one mission over the span of two days in late March 1917 resulted in the loss of aircraft and 14 airmen killed or missing; the required information was never obtained.(3)

During the lead-up to Vimy Ridge, the RFC was going through a period of massive expansion that led to a shortage of squadrons at the front. To help alleviate this deficiency, four RNAS squadrons, Numbers 1, 8 and 10, operating Sopwith triplanes, and No. 3, equipped with Sopwith Pups, were temporarily placed at the disposal of the RFC. All of these squadrons, especially No. 3, which was commanded by Canadian Redford Henry “Red” Mulock of Winnipeg, Manitoba, acquitted themselves well.

RFC aircraft were, for the most part, outclassed by German fighting machines. Where there was relative technical parity, squadrons equipped with either the Nieuport 17 or Sopwith Pup were capable of meeting the Germans on somewhat equal terms. The outcome of a fight often rested with the skill of the aircrew and survival was dictated by where the fight took place and the prevailing wind.

The continued growth, combined with losses at the front, meant many aircrew operating in the skies above the Canadian Corps had minimal training and were often unfamiliar with the aircraft they were flying. As well, the need to support the troops on the ground meant that they often found themselves over enemy territory so that if their machine was damaged in combat, or suffered from not infrequent mechanical difficulty, they ran the risk of not making it back to friendly lines and becoming prisoners of war.

To a great extent this unfortunate outcome was worsened by the prevailing winds that blew from west to east, making it that much more difficult for a flier in trouble to make it to friendly lines. But although were many inexperienced pilots within the German Air Service, there were also experienced “killers” such as Manfred von Richthofen – the “Red Baron” – who took a deadly toll of the Allied airmen during the Battle of Arras.

The expansion of the RFC, and to a lesser extent the RNAS, increased the demand for personnel. Although there were a number of Canadians serving in both flying services, most had come via direct recruitment in North America or through voluntary secondment from the Canadian Expeditionary Force. In an effort to tap into a perceived pool of eager young Canadians, the RFC established a large training organization in Canada in January 1917. In the months following the Battle of Arras, through the RFC Canada, thousands of Canadians would take to the skies over Europe via the RFCA Canada. But during “Bloody April”, the Allies had to rely on available airmen, regardless of their level of training and experience.

With this in mind it should come as no surprise that in the four days between the start of the RFC’s air campaign on April 4, and the Canadian Corps’ assault on Vimy Ridge on the 9th, that

…seventy-five British aeroplanes fell in action with a loss in personnel of 105 (nineteen killed, thirteen wounded, and seventy-three missing). In addition, there was an abnormally high number of flying accidents in which, in the same period, fifty-six aeroplanes were wrecked and struck off the strength of the squadrons.(4)

Casualties resulting from accidents were not reported as “combat” losses. To put this into a modern context, a Canadian fighter squadron has approximately 12 aircraft on strength which means that in a four-day period the equivalent of almost 11 modern squadrons were lost.

And then the ground battle began…

The officers and men of the Canadian Corps had prepared diligently for the attack. Maps indicating objectives and potential enemy strongpoints had been updated to the very last minute, using the latest aerial photographs obtained at such a high price. Royal Canadian Artillery gunners had practiced with RFC observers to work out procedures and wireless (radio) protocols to engage German batteries and silence them quickly and effectively.

Assaulting bodies of infantry, in addition to their already substantial burden of equipment, carried extra flares and signal panels with which to highlight their positions to friendly aircraft above. This was extremely important. Contact flights, where aircraft were sent to locate the positions of friendly troops, were vital both to provide an accurate picture of what was happening to higher headquarters and to prevent occurrences of “friendly fire”.

But then the “gods of chance” intervened. Although there had been perfect flying weather on April 8, by the time the whistles blew to signal the attack early the following morning, low clouds and a mix of rain and snow showers had restricted aerial activity - on both sides.

Except for brief periods, the lousy weather continued for almost the entire period of the assault on Vimy Ridge. While this made it difficult for 16 Squadron to carry out counter-battery work, it made the need for contact patrols even more important. Flying low over weather-obscured bodies of troops was always dangerous; in the height of battle soldiers on the ground often assumed that low-flying aircraft were hostile and therefore to be shot at. But when aircrew deliberately called attention to themselves with blaring klaxons, they were often met with a fusillade of ground fire rather than a positional flare from friendly troops. The divisional and battalion diaries of the Canadian Corps contain numerous entries noting the presence of, and reports from, these contact flights.

And while the air war may have been relatively quiet at Vimy Ridge, it continued unabated over the Arras battlefield. During this period, Lieutenant Billy Bishop became an Ace while flying a Nieuport 17 with 60 Squadron, RFC (he claimed his fifth victory on April 8, 1917). By the end of the month he would claim total of 17 enemy aircraft destroyed or forced down.

Other Canadian airmen were equally effective, including Lloyd Samuel Breadner of Carleton Place, Ontario, who would become Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Joseph Fall of Cobble Hill, British Columbia, with No. 3 (Naval) Squadron of the RNAS. Both scored triple victories during an engagement on April 11, 1918.

Others paid the ultimate price during ferocious air battles. In Bishop’s squadron alone, Canadians C.S. Hall (address unknown) and J.A. Milot of Joliette, Quebec, were killed on the April 7 and 8 respectively. The trials of 60 Squadron continued as it lost 10 of its complement of 18 aircraft from April 14 to 16 (J. Elliott from Winnipeg, Manitoba, was wounded during this period). By the end of “Bloody April”, the British had lost 285 aircraft and 211 aircrew were killed or missing, with another 108 taken prisoner. The number of Canadian aircrew casualties during this period has never been tabulated. The Germans lost 66 aircraft due to combat or flying accident. Richthofen and his squadron accounted for more than a third (89) of British losses. (5)

From a Canadian air power perspective, the battle for Vimy Ridge could be characterized as the first Canadian “joint” engagement. Encompassing a much larger area than the Vimy Ridge battlefield, the air campaign began long before the initial assault on April 9. Although primarily a land battle, the contributions of the RFC and RNAS were crucial – if not for the ultimate victory than at the very least for reducing the number of casualties to the Canadian Corps.

Aerial reconnaissance enabled advance planning and rehearsal prior to the attack on April 9 and, although limited by weather, made important contributions to the conduct of the engagement – primarily in the realm of command and control. At the same time offensive aerial patrols kept the Germans from enjoying the same advantages. Vimy Ridge is a prime example of the effectiveness of joint operations when air and land power cooperate to achieve a common goal.

As we commemorate Vimy Ridge, it behooves the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces to remember that lesson as well.

Notes

1 Quoted in William Arthur Bishop, Billy Bishop: The Courage of the Early Morning (Markham, Ontario: Thomas Allan Publishers, 2011), 76

2 S.F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War, Volume 1, The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 401.

3 H.A. Jones, The War in the Air, Volume 3, Being the Story of the part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force (London: Imperial War Museum, nd, reprint of original published in 1931), 322-

4 Ibid., 334-5.

5 “The Battle of Arras and ‘Bloody April’ 1917, accessed April 2, 2015, www.wwiaviation.com/Bloody­_April-1917.html.

The Royal Flying Corps, which included many Canadian flyers, carries out aerial reconnaissance and photography of enemy positions leading up to the Battle of Vimy Ridge and provided artillery spotting before and during the battle. Several Canadian airmen were killed in the days before and after the battle. In this undated file photo, CF-100 Canucks fly over the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France. PHOTO: PL-122793, DND Archives

Attempting to Break the Peacekeeping Myth

From the Tower: Peacekeeping

BY HUDSON ON THE HILL

© FrontLine Defence Magazine 2013

Canada is not a peacekeeping country. Surprised?
Parliamentarians who continue to promote the myth that Canada is a peacekeeping country with altruistic motives distort and misunderstand history. Some have claimed that Canada has a tradition of peacekeeping – a claim that is simply a bunch of gargoyle grit.

Original UN peacekeeping missions were based on a model in which opposing belligerent state actors agreed to a truce or ceasefire and then agreed to the deployment of lightly armed UN troops between the opposing forces to build an atmosphere of confidence in which fruitful political negotiations might be conducted. UN peacekeepers were expected to be neutral, impartial and to use force only in self-defence.

There is little peace to keep in today’s conflicts. In many intrastate conflicts, non-state actors show no respect for the peacekeeping role, or for UN peacekeepers. We’re not in peacekeeping territory anymore, Toto.

It must be remembered that Canada does not act entirely altruistically. As Deputy Prime Minister John Manley said in 2001, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States, “Canada is not neutral.” It wasn’t then, it wasn’t neutral in the Cold War, and it’s not neutral now. We act in our best interests. It can be easily argued that Canada’s participation in UN peacekeeping missions during the Cold War was primarily based on nurturing our bi-lateral ties with the United States, our interest in preserving the cohesiveness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the overriding need to prevent conflicts from developing into a nuclear war between the superpowers.

But beyond motives, does Canada really have a tradition of peacekeeping? Tradition, as defined in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, is an “opinion or belief or custom handed down … from ancestors to posterity.” Moreover, “custom” implies a “usual way of behaving or acting.”
So, is Canada’s peacekeeping experience a custom or habit? To find out, try this exercise. Draw a line across the long axis of a piece of paper. Put a dot at the left end and label it “1867-Confederation.” At the other end, place another dot and label it “Today.” Mark off each decade equally along the line.

Now, above the line, within the appropriate decades draw a dotted line for each UN peacekeeping mission that Canada has engaged in, and indicate the number of Canadian troops involved. For example, the first United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF I) in Egypt, including about 1000 Canadian military personnel, will be shown by dotted line extending from 1956 to 1967. UNFICYP, the United Nations Force in Cyprus, which included 500 Canadian soldiers at its height, begins in 1964 and goes all the way to 1995, after which only one Canadian military officer still remains on the UNFICYP staff. We can also include missions in the Balkans (UNPROFOR 1992-1995), with as many as 2500 Canadian military personnel at one point.

There are, of course, many other peacekeeping missions. It is not necessary to capture all detail here to make the point. A generous estimate would be that a little over 100,000 Canadian military personnel have participated in UN peacekeeping missions between 1948 and today, in 65 of Canada’s 146 years (44.5% of Canada’s lifetime), at an overall cost of 114 killed on UN duty.

So, while Canada certainly does have an admirable and expensive history of peacekeeping, is this sufficient to support a claim of ‘tradition’? Was peacekeeping ‘habitual’? Probably not.

Consider that even during the most active periods of UN peacekeeping deployments, less than 5% of the total Canadian Forces were involved. Most of the remaining 95% were engaged in activity and training related to conventional war fighting. Even military units designated for UN peacekeeping duty based their pre-deployment training mainly on recognized war fighting skills, tempered by some specific-to-mission training in the later stages. As well, units returning from peacekeeping duty invariably took up war fighting training again.

Not convinced? Let’s finish the exercise. Below the main timeline, indicate the instances in whichCanada engaged in armed conflict. We might begin with a dotted line representing the Canadian military contribution to the British Nile Expedition in 1884, in which 16 Canadians lost their lives. Then, in the Second Boer War, from 1900 to 1902, Canada lost nearly 300 killed. At its height, the Canadian military contingent numbered about 3,000. The next line indicates the First World War from 1914 to 1918. Approximately 650,000 Canadians served in uniform, suffering more than 68,000 killed. Next show a short line extending from 1918 to 1919, during which time the 4200-strong Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force deployed to Vladivostok in Russia. Fourteen members of this force remain buried in Siberia.

From 1939 to 1945, another line will represent the Canada’s considerable military effort throughout the Second World War, in operational theatres around the globe. In this war, more than one million Canadians served in uniform. About 47,000 were killed in action.

Canada was engaged in combat again, in South Korea, from 1950 to 1953. Nearly 28,000 Canadian military personnel served in that war and 516 were killed.

Now list Canada’s NATO operations Somalia in 1993 and in the Balkans from 1995. Finally, from 2001, show Canadian missions in Afghanistan, where over 30,000 have served, at a cost of 158 Canadians killed in action.

Finally, we must remember that from 1948 to 1991, during the Cold War, Canada was an active member of NATO, the alliance created to defend against a Soviet invasion of Europe. NATO ultimately relied on the US nuclear strike capability, deployed millions of military personnel in garrisons in Western Europe and Turkey, thousands of aircraft on European airfields and thousands of ships on and under the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, all training continuously to prevail in a high intensity world war.

NATO’s peacekeeping record clearly surpasses that of the UN during the same period, a stretch during which there was no Third World War. In fact for the first time in modern European history, over any equivalent period, there has been no interstate war in Europe. Ironically, both World Wars combined are shorter than many UN peacekeeping missions. Seen in this light, NATO, the world’s pre-eminent war fighting organization, has been the world’s best peacekeeper – bar none!

During the Cold War, over 100,000 Canadian military personnel served NATO in Western Europe, the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. This contribution alone, although it coincides with the Cold War time frame of Canadian participation in UN peacekeeping operations, outmatches Canadian peacekeeping activity in numbers and effect. The real Canadian tradition is to fight if we have to.

While many might claim that Canada has a tradition of peacekeeping in the name of international peace and stability, the evidence here shows otherwise. While we have engaged in peacekeeping from time to time, the preponderance of Canadian military activity represents an overwhelming and enduring tradition of war fighting in the pursuit of freedom and liberal democracy. Some Parliamentarians might like to review their understanding of Canadian history and start acknowledging our country’s real tradition of fighting, when we must, for what we believe is right.

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Hudson, on The Hill

Canada and U.S. both won the War of 1812

According to a new perspective at citizenship guides, and trying to decipher who actually won the War of 1812, a new guide says both.

It is an interesting outlook.


Written by TRISTIN HOPPER The National Post

There is a lot of overlap between the guides the U. S. and Canada give new citizens; both tell newcomers the countries are built on native land, people can choose any religion they want and nobody is “above the law.”

But in one glaring difference, they both proudly claim they were victorious in the War of 1812.

“The Americans won the war,” declares a 34-page civics guide issued to prospective citizens by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Canadian guide notes the pre-Confederation British colonies “defeated an American invasion.”

“Believing it would be easy to conquer Canada, the United States launched an invasion in June 1812,” reads Page 17 of Discover Canada.

“The Americans were mistaken.”

On the weekend, Immigration Minister John McCallum hinted the Canadian citizenship guide’s retelling of the War of 1812 would be pared down.

“If you ask an average Canadian what Canada means, maybe they’ll say hockey, maybe they’ll say something else, they’re not likely to say the War of 1812,” he told CBC’s The House on Saturday.

Saying that the guide was threaded through by an “ideological element,” McCallum added, “I’m not antimilitary, but I do think it was a little heavy on the military.”

Altogether, military matters take up about 1,500 words of the guide’s 40,000 words.

American proclamations they triumphed in the War of 1812 is nothing new — they have long fuelled the myth that, before Vietnam, the United States had never lost a war.

Alan Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at the University of Virginia, says both countries are right.

While the Canadian provinces successfully repelled a much larger U.S. invasion force, the United States arguably held its own in the wider conflict, which included naval battles and British actions against the American South.

“The war is much more than just the American invasion of Canada,” said Taylor.

Still, it’s a rare victory where a country gets much of its capital burned down and enters peace negotiations with enemy troops on its soil — as the United States did in 1814.

“The great majority of American academic historians would say it’s a war that went very badly for the United States and they were lucky to get such a favourable peace treaty,” said Taylor, who wrote a 2010 book on the conflict.

Eliot Cohen, a Johns Hopkins University professor, goes even further. In a 2011 book he wrote that “ultimately, Canada and Canadians won the War of 1812.”

McCallum not only took issue with mentions of Canadian military might in the citizenship guide. He also said that the guide was heavy on “so-called barbaric cultural practices.”

He was referring to a passage asserting that “Canada’s openness and generosity” do not extend to “barbaric cultural practices” such as spousal abuse and female genital mutilation.

The Canadian Navy and the Gulf War, 1990-1991

Written by Dr. Richard Gimblett

It has been a full quarter-century since a land war in a far off desert region turned the operational focus of the Canadian Navy on its head, and set the tone for the transformation of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), if not the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as a whole, into the 21st century.

When Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait without warning overnight on August 1, 1990, the general expectation was that Canada eventually would participate in a traditional post-hostilities peacekeeping operation. The rapidly changing international situation, however, allowed for a much different reaction. The Cold War was ending and Canada held a seat on the United Nations Security Council. While the United States launched Operation Desert Shield and assembled a Coalition to prevent a further Iraqi thrust into Saudi Arabia, the UN passed a series of resolutions authorizing a naval embargo. Keen to show support for UN leadership in what was being called a “a new world order,” Prime Minister Brian Mulroney directed the Navy to join the embargo forces. The naval officer standing duty in the National Defence Headquarters Operations Centre (then-Lieutenant-Commander Drew Robertson) had the distinction of selecting the codename for the action – Operation Friction.

The east coast fleet was preparing for the annual fall North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Exercise Teamwork, but the general appreciation was that the aging “steamer” fleet was not up to the threat of Iraqi forces armed with Mirage fighters and Exocet missiles. The mission meant, moreover, that the role of the fleet literally was turned upside down, from traditional open ocean anti-submarine warfare to anti-surface and anti-air warfare in confined tropical waters. It was truly fortunate that new equipment was being stockpiled for the Halifax-class frigates under construction and the Tribal-class destroyer Update and Modernization Program (TRUMP). So, over a busy two-week period, the destroyers HMC Ships Athabaskan and Terra Nova, the supply ship Protecteur, and their five embarked Sea King helicopters, were hastily upgraded with a range of surface warfare and self-defence capabilities.

They sailed from Halifax on August 24 and arrived in the Gulf to commence operations on October 1. Along the way, the mission had continued to evolve. At a meeting of Coalition naval forces, the task group commander, then-Commodore Ken Summers determined that the best placing of the Canadian ships would be, not in the safe rear area of the Arabian Sea outside the Strait of Hormuz, but rather up-threat in the central Gulf, northeast of Bahrain. Adding to the layered defences was the despatch of a wing of CF-18 Hornets to fly combat air patrols with the United States Navy (an eventual 24 aircraft would deploy to Doha, Qatar).

With this expansion of the commitment, Commodore Summers was designated to move ashore and assume command of the first ever deployed Canadian joint headquarters, in Manamah, Bahrain, and Captain D.M. “Dusty” Miller assumed the mantle of at-sea task group commander. For the next two months, with only 10 per cent of the assigned forces, the three Canadian warships carried out more than a quarter of the total Coalition inspections of cargo ships and vessels suspected of trying to run the blockade.

Even as the embargo tightened, Saddam Hussein failed to respond to the mounting pressure. When the US unleashed Operation Desert Storm on January 17, 1991, the role of the naval task group changed yet again. Captain Miller was made “UNREP Sierra” and delegated tactical control of the Coalition Logistics Force (CLF), making him the only non-USN officer assigned a warfare commander responsibility in the conflict, a task easily managed fromAthabaskan fitted as his command ship. While again less than 10 per cent of the CLF, the three Canadian ships distinguished themselves in unique fashions: when the cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59) struck a mine off Kuwait,Athabaskan being fitted with mine avoidance sonar was the logical choice to escort her to safety; Terra Novaundertook more escort missions than any other Coalition warship through the Strait of Hormuz (which had been nicknamed “Silkworm Alley” in reference to shipping losses during the recently-concluded Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88); and Protecteur was among the busiest of the operational support ships, conducting 70 replenishments of vessels from 10 different nations.

The ground assault was launched on February 24, and 100 hours later – on the 28th – Iraqi forces had been expelled from Kuwait. With the disengagement of naval forces, the task group sailed from Dubai on March 12 and arrived in Halifax on April 7.

The embargo against Iraq remained in effect. HMCS Huron had been identified to replace Athabaskan, and was deployed in the Gulf from April 23 to June 27, 1991. During this time, it was the first Coalition warship to enter Kuwait harbour, supporting the re-opening of the Canadian embassy there, and hosting the Maritime Commanders Conference on June 7. Huron returned to its home port of Esquimalt on August 2, having been the first HMC Ship to circumnavigate the globe since the Korean War and ending a full year of Canadian naval association with the Gulf.

Of course, that was not the end of Canadian naval participation in Gulf operations. As any sailor who has served in the Royal Canadian Navy over the past quarter century can attest, the region has become “a home away from home” for the RCN.

Dr. Richard Gimblett is the Command Historian of the RCN. He served as Combat Officer of HMCS Protecteur during the Gulf War, and later co-authored (with Jean Morin) the official history: Operation Friction: The Canadian Forces in the Persian Gulf, 1990-1991 (Dundurn, 1997).

Remembering History - Remembering Canadian Naval participation in the Gulf War