Hey guys! I figured that since I was keeping a journal on my exploits in my new 8 RNAS Career, I'd give you guys an excerpt from my first operational sortie. I tried to write it with the vernacular and vocabulary of an English pilot of the time. Constructive criticism is appreciated. I hope you guys like it! Here it is:



4 November, 1916

We awoke today at 4:30 a.m. It hardly felt as if I had just laid my head upon my pillow before I was awaken by an orderly with a flashlight. We have a half-hour to dress and be ready for briefing at 5:00. It is chilly outside, the sun tinting the sky a barely-tangible white-blue, occasionally being overpowered by the distant flashes of the artillery, which has lasted throughout the night. The sounds are distant, though just loud enough to awaken a new pilot who isn't accustomed to the hellish noise from his slumber.

Into the briefing. The map shows the first flight. A flight will depart promptly at 8:50 for a Line Patrol. It is a seemingly simple task; fly above the trenches between two landmarks at a certain altitude, and down any enemy machines that are seen.

Second Lieutenant Walter Wilson leads this flight, with Second Lieutenant Leon Brown on his starboard wing. Our Executive Officer, Lieutenant Andrew Reynolds, will be flying behind. He wants to observe the flying and leadership skills of the former two pilots. Second Lieutenant Wilson is flying a Nieuport type 17, while Lieutenants Brown and Reynolds will be flying the newer Sopwith "Pup."

The flight departs at 8:51, a mere minute late. Captain Carter chuckles and says that it is merely a product of the lack of experience, and that a minute will not make a difference. The Hun is human as well.

Once the flight is out of sight, we retire to the mess building for breakfast. We try to eat, but nerves get the better of most of us, and the effort is for naught, for we are anxiously awaiting the return of the first patrol, as well as wondering who will be flying the next.

Approximately 9:30 we heard the sound of engines approaching, and we all rushed out to see the results of the patrol. All three machines and pilots returned with no damage to either.

As the pilots exited their machines, they all had an obvious sense of joy. Lieutenant Wilson downed one enemy machine, and Lieutenant Reynolds downed two, all of the single-seat Albatros type. The sortie was quite successful, and Lieutenant Reynolds showed no restraint for his praise. The rest of us can only hope to follow such a good show.

Just before lunch we had our second briefing. I am to fly! I will be taking the Nieuport shared by Flight Sergeant Hall and myself, as our "Pup" has a foul engine. I will be flying in the Number Two position on Lieutenant David Walsh's wing. Lieutenant Reynolds will fly in the Number Three position again, observing the technique and skill of the flight once more. Second Lieutenant Brown will fly his wing, and Sergeant Bruce Butler will fly the trailing Number Five Position.
We take off at 2:54 p.m., six minutes ahead of schedule. Well, at least we are off to a good start! Our objective is an Offensive Patrol. We are to fly across the trenches to the German side and down anything that threatens us, or anything we see fit, for that matter!

We climb away from our aerodrome and I slowly ease my way into my position in the formation. The Nieuport's inherent jittery-ness does not help when added to my ever-building tension, and I have a hard time keeping a steady place. Closer to the lines... I can see the shells impacting the mud. What hell those soldiers must be enduring on each side! Suddenly, Lieutenant Walsh bucks his machine, catching my sleeping senses completely off guard! What's this? A Hun!? No, for Walsh has been given the affirmation from Lieutenant Reynolds to attack an enemy observation balloon. It is a series of moments before I spot it and I find myself feeling rather sheepish. If I can't spot a stationary balloon at this small range, how will I ever spot a Hun that is half its size before I wind up becoming some Prussian's victory before breakfast?

We make our attack. I slide my sensitive, bouncing crate behind Lieutenant Walsh. He fires... and hits! I see bullets ricocheting off the balloon, but most penetrate it. That poor chap who is in the basket! Whomever said that war is glorious has obviously never seen this side of it.

As soon as Lieutenant Walsh is clear I check that my gun is primed, then I open fire. I am scoring hits as well! I pull back on the control column, making absolutely certain that there is no chance to collide with my target. One can only imagine the sheepishness of the report to be made for the poor fellow who makes that mistake.

We fly out some distance, and then turn back for another pass, just as Captain Carter instructed us to do. Too long near the balloon and Archie will make short work of you. Archie! In the heat of the moment, I had become completely oblivious to the very face that we were being shot at! I then became very thankful both that we had followed instructions and that the Archie gunners were rather poor shots, as it would seem.

Now we are lined up with the balloon once more. Lieutenant Walsh fires again and hits. As he pulls away, I open fire once more. All of a sudden, I see a section of the balloon, near the bottom, begin to collapse... and then flames. The balloon is entirely engulfed with them. It falls away to Earth trailing a massive, dark-black pillar of smoke, and suddenly I feel very ill. The observer in the basket. What became of him? Certainly, if he had jumped, he would have plummeted to his death. However, had he remained in the basket, he was sure to be burned alive. The very thought of either scenario makes me ill, and it takes the the realization that the rest of my flight is leaving me to pull me out of it. I climb up to rejoin Lieutenant Walsh, who is now in formation with the rest of the flight, which had remained high above us to provide protection in case the Hun decided to exact revenge for the destruction of one of their precious observation balloons.

I rejoin the flight, and we turn farther East. It is impossible to know our exact heading and location without a compass. What manner of French imbecile would design an aeroplane such as this without a compass? I will be sure to request a "Pup" if I ever attain the fortune of leading a patrol.

Eastward we fly. I can see the city of Cambrai in the distance, in front and off my port quarter. A quick glance to the map gives me a reasonable idea of where we must be.

I stow my map scarcely in time to see Lieutenant Walsh bucking his crate again. Could it be a Hun this time? It is! Two enemy machines are well below us, off our port quarters. Lieutenant Walsh stalks slowly, and I suddenly realize that he is attempting to put the sun at our backs! That clever chap! But we were too late. The German machines spot us and make a sharp turn for home. Not this time! We dive on our prey, and I find myself behind an enemy Albatros machine rather quickly. He twists and turns and dives for the ground, but I am there behind him, matching his every move. I fire once. A miss... I must calm my nerves. Steady... FIRE! He is in a turn to port, and I see my my bullets impact his top wing on the starboard side. I fire again, and the wing comes right off! I instinctively duck as his wing flutters past me, then I glance downward in time to see his spinning machine impact the Earth for the final time. No time to celebrate, however. Where the Devil is that second Hun? I scan the skies and count four machines, and there is a pillar of black smoke rising from the ground some distance away. Please, God, let that be the Hun and not one of ours!

I fly closer to discover that we are all still alive, and I take my position on Lieutenant Walsh's wing. He seems to be lost, however, as he is flying in constant circles. I glance down at the clear tube that serves as the petrol meter in the machine, and come to the conclusion that I must turn for home soon, or face certainty of being a prisoner of the Germans. If they find out that I downed one of their beloved fliers, they would without a doubt shoot me.

I move in next to Lieutenant Reynolds and convey the message that I am low on petrol. He acknowledges and agrees to let me turn for home. I bid my comrades farewell, for now, and turn my machine Westward, away from the distant Cambrai.

Once arriving once more across the trenches, it takes me some time to acquire my bearings and find the landmarks needed to return me home. Damn those French and their technological stupidity!

Finally, I find our aerodrome and make a low pass, checking the wind direction to be certain. Captain Carter has warned me about landing the Nieuport. It is extremely tricky and will ground-loop at the slightest mistake of the pilot.

I set up for a long and slowly-descending approach, taking extra care to be gentle. The wheels touch but oh--- back up we go. Level the wings, keep the nose slightly lowered, and up we go again. Finally, after several bounces, the crate settles, but there's a problem impossible to ignore; the large hangars are looming dangerously close, and I cannot stop in time! To Hell with it! I add throttle and push the starboard pedal forward. The crate swings around, tips over to port, and smashes the bottom wing, not thirty yards in front of the large hangars. I switch off the engine and move the fuel lever to Fully Leaned, then take one last moment to curse the French once more...

I walk into the Operations Hut and immediately explain to Captain Carter of my fuel situation and how Lieutenant Reynolds signaled for me to return home. He nods and asks me how I did.

"I downed a Hun, sir, as well as a balloon." He smiles and pats my shoulder.

"Jolly good show, then. Let us go see where the rest of them are, shall we?" He laughs when I show him the crushed wing of my Nieuport.

"Happens to the best of us, lad. I expect you'll have a few more of those landings before you are used to it."

Some twenty minutes later, we hear the noises of approaching engines. The rest of the flight has made it back!

During the debriefing, it was confirmed that the credit of the balloon go to myself, as well as my Hun. Lieutenant Brown downed the second.

It turned out that nerves got the best of Lieutenant Walsh, and it took some time before he calmed down. The flight then attacked a pair of German trucks, Lieutenant Walsh and Sergeant Butler destroying one each.

The entire squadron had a rather good laugh at the landing incident in my Nieuport, even Flight Sergeant Hall, with whom I share the machine.

"Don't think anything of it. I hate that crate. She's as bad in the air as she is to land, if you ask me. You'd be a bugger to trust anything the French make, anyhow!"

The squadron then had their best laugh yet when I proceeded to tell them how I cursed the French for a thousand eternities for the lack of a compass and for designing and flying such an impossible machine!



If I offend anyone, I do apologize. This was written mainly so that I can go back some years down the line and remember each sortie as it happened, but also to put some life into it. The whole "we took off, I shot down this, we landed, good sortie," over and over and over again just gets boring to me. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Constructive criticism is welcome. Thanks for reading and happy hunting!!

Nice read. Wish I had a bit of your talent.

Thanks, Patrick. I really tried to go into as much detail as I could with this journal. Not only does it help me keep track of events for years down the line when I think to myself, "I remember Rise of Flight... That career with the 8 RNAS was amazing... Oh, that's right, I have a journal of all my sorties!", but it also really helps me express the level of immersion I feel when I play. Even though it's difficult to write (I'm a Louisiana-bred Cajun metalhead who talks in mostly in slang, trying to write this journal in the vocabulary and vernacular of a rather well-spoken Englishman of the time), the basic core of every line (except cursing the French. I really love the French, though I seriously hate landing the #@$% Nieuport! ) is almost exactly what I'm thinking before, during, and after every sortie. I'm really enjoying writing it, and I'm really glad you and anyone else has enjoyed reading it. Cheers and happy hunting!!

Love the writing!

I also write this kind of things in my head...
I find it helps me focusing on my mistakes, opportunities and "lesson learned"...
Well done!

If you want some good laugh about French jokes watch Blackadder!