Welcome back Banjoman!!

Albert Earl Godfrey

31 Jan 1917 @ 09h00 Attack on Phalempin aerodrome

Sitting at briefing, Albert heard the CO announce the mornings effort would be an attack on Phalempin aerodrome as this had been determined a vital effort by the red tabs. Albert could not help but wonder why then, they were sending N17’s and N16’s in on the attack with nothing more than LePrieur rockets.
What on earth were they thinking of! It seemed to him, a fruitless effort full of potential loss for the squadron, somewhat akin to provoking an elephant with a dart! What seemed to make it worse is that only “B” flight composed of 5 pilots, was all that was being put forward for the effort. The fact that Albert’s N16 was getting long in the tooth for the front line service was quite evident and the associated risks for such a mission was not lost on him.

Albert shook himself out of his funk, in time enough to hear the details for the flight.

The wind was 8 kn from the NNW with Medium density cumulus interspersed with clear spots from 3000 ft to 9000 ft.

Caldwell was to lead “B” flight composed of Hill, Fry, Godfrey and Hall.
As usual, the flight formed up just north of the field attaining an altitude of 4800 ft before setting out on the first leg of the mission.
At 09h18 the flight arrived south of Bethune and turned east for the second leg of flight path, descending to 3800 ft. They arrived just north of Lens at 09h23, just shy of 3450 ft. From this point they turned north east towards Phalempin, accompanied by sporadic flak and arrived there at 09h27

The flight began their attack approach, and Albert singled out two hangars to unleash his ordinance on. The aim seemed true and the two hangars were soon enveloped in flame, smoke and dust. No time was wasted in climbing out of the dive to seek relief from the ground fire. Banking slightly Albert noted the damage done to the hangars and the continuing attack by his mates. He continued to climb and observe the skies above, keeping a keen eye out for any Hun scouts and observing his mates fruitless strafing attacks on the ground targets at considerable risk to themselves.

As the flight broke off the attack and reformed, Albert rejoined and they commenced their return flight to base, chastened by Hun flak all the way back to the lines, while Hun scouts were conspicuous by their absence.

Upon arrival back at base and reporting in, Albert overheard the CO on the telephone receiving front line reports from two seat observers, that little damage had been done to Phalempin. “What did they expect” he thought to himself.
As the flight was leaving the R.O., the C.O. stepped out of his office and stated, “Looks like we will be paying a revisit to Phalempin to do the job right”!
Albert looked at Caldwell, and stated, rather too loudly, “Maybe they will give us some appropriate ordinance to make that feasible”. He immediately regretted his impatience as he received a dressing down from the C.O. The fact that the Commander went lightly on him was some consolation in that it was evident he understood the underlying issue himself but was unable to alleviate the problem.

Albert wanted desprately to prove his worth, but doing so with the N16, and in these kinds of missions, made it very hard to cope.

Video cut short this time to save upload time just keep some essentials: