What a DiD storytelling renaissance! It seems like I've been out of the fray forever and I'm missing the campaign. Every time I have a few days where there will be lot of available flying time my guy gets wounded!

Carrick, your guy is racking them up. Be careful with this one! MFair, Nice photo of the Pfalz on 24 November. Stay safe! DC -- I loved the shot of the Baron overhead. I think I would have crapped myself and been toast meeting that crew.

Maeran -- damn, I missed you. I absolutely loved your cock(ing handle) and bull story. Laughed my head off. Brilliant stuff, mate!

Jerbear -- really great beginning here, and your notes were fascinating. It will be great to have a "Sammy" pilot in the mix. Please keep the installments coming.


Corderoy is working himself up for a return. His feelings reflect mine at the prospect of mastering the Camel as the air war gains in intensity.


Diary of Maj. Geoffrey Corderoy, RFC
Part 42: 21-26 November 1917

26 November 1917 – Etaples

Hollow days. Checkers and light reading, dressing changes, medical interviews, walks, and bad meals – one day following another. Have read Fantomas in translation, and let my diary slip until today. Must try to fill in the lost time. [1]

On Friday the 23rd we received letters at last. A long one from Catherine, detailing some long tale of an insufferable doctor and a tyrannical matron, and the contempt of nurses for VADs. She wants a transfer to France. Then one from the parents. Mummy is concerned about Catherine. Is she perhaps in the family way by the late Scarborough? Why else would a young woman be so forward with a dashing pilot she has met for scarcely an hour. Unseemly. Dad is equally unkind. Your squadron mate’s fiancée, after all. Still cold in the grave.

It’s not as if these ideas haven’t passed through by addled and punctured head of late. I find myself anxiously awaiting mail from Catherine, yet wondering if I am merely amused by her. In truth, I can scarcely recall her face, and feel no great surge of longing. Her letters amuse me. And then, in the cold and dark hours of the night, I question if perhaps I have closed myself off to happiness. She does, after all, seem to be attached to me. Who is she?

Etaples is a miserable place, overrun with soldiers training for the front and military police. There is a major here from the Manchesters, chap named Greening. We walked yesterday to the empty sands at Paris-Plage, where we stripped to our cotton long drawers and dived into the icy waters. It was done on a dare, but wonderfully bracing. Then along came a redcap on a horse and placed us under arrest for being out of uniform. I suggested he bugger off, which he did not find amusing. Greening explained to him just how to do what I’d suggested, and now the fellow became distinctly unfriendly and drew his revolver on us! At this we gave ourselves over as his prisoners and let him march us back in our long underwear to the Provost Marshal’s. We were placed in a cell and were by then dry enough to get dressed. When the sergeant-major in charge came to fetch Greening and me, we were in full officers’ kit. Greening sported an MC and bar, and I a VC, DSO, and MC. We were released in minutes without seeing an officer, and were happy to be able to greet our capturer outside and bid him farewell in the patois of the troops! There is no wondering this place saw such a rebellion two months ago. [2]


Soldiers training at the infamous "Bullring" at Etaples -- a dreary, sandy training area where many of the instructors had not seen combat, but many of their students had.

Thousands of soldiers pass through the many camps here, being fattened for the slaughter. The war is like a prize fight where the combatants, blood-streaked and staggered, pummel one another senseless while the afternoon slips to evening. There is no victory here, just the avoidance of defeat. The Americans are nowhere to be seen, yet the Russians seem ready to pack it in. I fear the worst is to come.

There is news of a victory near Cambrai, with many tanks through the Huns’ third lines. We wait in vain for confirmation of a breakthrough, and every day seen the hospital trains disgorge their butcher’s loads. I am in a very dark place and know that I must die before this all is done. I play with the idea of writing Catherine and telling her to stop writing me, but hate to hurt the girl. Nothing seems to hold to me except the thought of my next patrol on my return to Pops. The ships at harbour unload their cargoes of war goods, the makings of fortunes for men who have never seen the mud and murder, nor smelled the gas and putrefaction.

Today, the headaches have begun to subside. I managed to place a call to RFC HQ, now back at Fienvillers, and got through to Maj. Baring. I asked to be allowed to return to the squadron, if necessary to perform only administrative command duties until cleared to fly. I am doing no good here and the place is doing me no good. He promises to get back to me soon.[3]

Another long walk this afternoon with Greening, who is returning to the front. We have a good heart to heart. “This war thing,” I told him, “is just a process. You can’t beat it, and it does the soul no good to cling to the idea of going home or having a life after it. Perhaps that will happen, but likely not. Not if you’re going to pull your weight here. The thing – the only thing – is to do what you do as well as you can do it.”

I have set myself the goal to beat Bishop’s 45 Huns. If I do that, it will not matter if I am killed. I would like to go back to SEs, but Camels it is. One takes things as they are. It is a process.

Notes:

[1] Fantomas is the arch-criminal villain in a long series of French pulp novels. He is a master of terror, a truly evil disguise artist pursued by the intrepid Inspector Juve. The first novel in a long series, Fantomas was published in 1911. The first English-language version was published in 1915. Maurice Baring recorded that he was reading it in late November 1917, and it is speculated that Corderoy passed his copy along.



[2] In September and October 1917, British and Commonwealth troops training in Etaples had rebelled against repressive conditions and officious military police. On 9 September, a New Zealander had crossed the estuary from Etaples to the fine beach area of Paris-Plage, which was off limits to other ranks.
Cut off by the rising tide, he returned by the bridge, where MPs arrested him as a deserter. Anzac and British troops showed up en masse to protest and matters got out of hand, with MPs killing a Scottish soldier and a French civilian. Mutinous disturbances reoccurred into October, resulting in one execution and dozens of lesser punishments.

[3] Trenchard's HQ had been back in St-Omer, but transferred to Fienvillers (Candas) on 21 November 1917.