High Adventure A Narrative of Air Fighting in France, by James Norman Hall. Part V.

Great Audiobooks

This episode presents an audiobook reading of James Norman Hall's *High Adventure*, focusing on his experiences as a WWI aviation pilot in F

Key takeaways

• James Norman Hall recounts surviving multiple aerial engagements against German Albatross fighters while flying with British and French forces.
• Pilots experience severe psychological strain known as "Cafard" (boredom/depression) during prolonged periods without combat or in winter quarters.

Main topics

• WWI aerial combat
• pilot camaraderie and boredom (Cafard)

Notable quotes

"the grand and glorious feeling is one of the finest compensations for this uncertain life in the air"

Conclusion

The episode offers a vivid, historically grounded glimpse into WWI avi

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:12) CHAPTER IX. LONELY AS A CLOUD. the french attack which has been in preparation for the past month is to begin at dawn to-morrow it has been hard waiting but it must have been a great deal worse for the infantrymen who are billeted in all of the surrounding villages they are moving up to-night to the first lines for these are the shock troops who are to lead the attack they are chiefly regiments of the chasseurs small men in stature but clean hard well-knit splendid types they talk of the attack confidently it is an inspiration to listen to them hundreds of them have visited our aerodrome during the past week mainly i think for a glimpse of whisky and soda our lions who are known to french soldiers from one end of the line to the other whisky is almost full grown and soda about the size of a wildcat they have the freedom of the camp and run about everywhere the guns are thundering at a terrific rate the concussion's shaking our barracks and rattling the dishes on the table in the mess room the gramophone is playing i'm going way back home and have a wonderful time music at the front is sometimes a doubtful blessing we are keyed up some of us rather nervous in anticipation of tomorrow porter is trying to give irving a light from his own cigarette irving who doesn't know the meaning of nerves ask him who in hell is he waving at poor old porter his usefulness as a combat pilot has long passed but he hangs on doing the best he can he should have been sent to the rear months ago the first phase of the battle is over the french have taken eleven thousand prisoners and have driven the enemy from all the hills down to the low ground along the canal for the most part we have been too high above them to see the infantry actions but knowing the plans and the objectives beforehand we have been able to follow quite closely the progress of the battle it opened on a wet morning with the clouds very low we were to have gone on patrol immediately the attack commenced but this was impossible about nine o'clock the rain stopped and rodman and davis were sent out to learn weather conditions over the lines they came back with the report that flying was possible at two hundred meters this was too low an altitude to serve any useful purpose and the commandant gave us orders to stand by about noon the clouds began to break up and both high and low patrols prepared to leave the ground drew dunham and i were on high patrol with lieutenant berry leading our orders were to go up through the clouds using them as cover for making surprise attacks upon enemy relige machines we were also to attack any enemy formation sighted within three kilometers of their old first lines the clouds soon disappeared and so we climbed to forty five hundred meters and lay in wait for combat patrols very sighted one signaled before i had placed it he dived almost full motor i believe for he dropped like a stone we went down on his tail and saw him attack the topmost of the three albatross single-seaters the other two dived at once far into their own lines dunham drew and i took long shots at them but they were far outside effective range the topmost german made a feeble effort to maneuver for position barry made a reinforcement with the utmost nicety of judgment and came out of it about thirty meters behind and above the albatross he fired about twenty shots when the german began falling out of control spinning round and round then diving straight then past the verticals so that we could see the silver under surface of his wings and tail spinning again until we lost sight of him this combat was seen from the ground and barry's victory was confirmed before we returned to the field lieutenant talbot joined us as we were taking our hide again he took command of the patrol and barry went off hunting by himself as he likes best to do there were planes everywhere of both nationalities mounting to four thousand meters within our own lines we crossed over again and at that moment i saw a littord a three passenger Speaker 2 (4:50) machine burst into flames and fall there was no time either to watch or to think of this horrible sight we encountered a patrol of five albatross planes almost on our level talbot dived at once i was behind him and picked a german who was spiraling either upward or downward for a few seconds i was not sure which it was upward he was climbing to offer combat this was disconcerting it always is to a green pilot if your foe is running you may be sure he is at least as badly rattled as you are if he is a single-seater and climbing you may be equally certain that he is not a novice and that he has plenty of sand otherwise he would not accept battle at a disadvantage in the hope of having his inning next i was foolish enough to begin firing while still about three hundred meters distant my opponent ungraciously offered the poorest kind of a target getting out of the range of my sights by some very skillful maneuvering i didn't want him to think that he had an inexperienced pilot to deal with therefore judging my distance very carefully i did a reversment in the lieutenant berry fashion but it was not so well done instead of coming out of it above and behind the german when i pulled up in l'ange du vol i was under him i don't know exactly what happened then but the next moment i was falling in a vero spinning nosedive and heard the well-known cracking sound of machine-gun fire i kept on falling in a barrel thinking this would give the german the poorest possible target a mistake which many new pilots make in a barrel the machine spins pretty nearly on its own axis and although it is turning a skillful pilot above it can keep it fairly well within the line of his sights pulling up in an ange du vol i looked over my shoulder again the german had lost sight of me for a moment in the swiftness of his dive but evidently he saw me just before i pulled out of the rail he was turning up for another shot in exactly the same position in which i had last seen him and he was very close not more than fifty meters distant i believed of course that i was lost and why that german didn't bag me remains a mystery heaven knows i gave him opportunity enough in the end by the merciful intervention of chance our godfather i escaped i have said that the sky had cleared but there was one stand of cloud left not very broad not very long but a refuge oh what a welcome refuge it was right in my path and i tumbled into it literally head over heels i came skidding out but pulled up put on my motor and climbed back at once and i kept turning round and round in it for several minutes if the german had waited he must have seen me raveling it out like a cat tangled in a ball of cotton i thought that he was waiting i even expected him to come nosing into it in search of me in that case there would have been a glorious smash for there wasn't room for two of us i almost hoped that he would try this if i couldn't bag a german with my gun the next best thing was to run into him and so be gathered to my father's while he was being gathered to his Speaker 2 (8:11) there was no crash and taking sudden resolution i dived vertically out of the cloud head over shoulder expecting to see my relentless foe he was nowhere in sight in that wild tumble and while chasing my tail in the cloud i lost my bearings the compass which was mounted on a swinging holder had been tilted upside down it stuck in that position i could not get it loose i had fallen to six hundred meters so that i could not get a large view of the landscape under the continuous bombardment the air was filled with smoke and through it nothing looked familiar i knew the direction of our lines by the position of the sun but i was in a suspicious mood my motor which i had praised to the heavens to the other pilots had let me down at a critical moment the sun might be ready to play some fantastic trick i had to steer by it although i was uneasy till i came within sight of our observation balloons i identified them as french by sailing close to one of them so that i could see the tricolor pennant floating out from the cord on the bag then being safe i put my old spad through every antic we two had ever done together the observers in the balloons must have thought me crazy a pilot running amuck from aerial shell-shock i had discovered a new meaning for that grand and glorious feeling which is so often the subject of briggs cartoons looking at my watch i received the same old start of surprise upon learning how much of wisdom one may accumulate in a half hour of aerial adventure i still had an hour and a half to get through with before i could go home with a clear conscience therefore taking height again i went cautiously gingerly watchfully toward the lines Speaker 3 (9:57) End of chapter 9 Speaker 2 (10:13) CHAPTER X. MAY WE, MON VOY? Speaker 2 (10:34) the grand and glorious feeling is one of the finest compensations for this uncertain life in the air one has it every time he turns from the lines toward home it comes in richer glow if hazardous work has been done after moments of strain uncertainty when the result of a combat sways back and forth and it gushes up like a fountain when after making a forced landing in what appears to be enemy territory you find yourself among friends late this afternoon we started four of us with davids as the leader to make the usual two-hour sortie over the lines no germans were sighted and after an uneventful half-hour davids who was always springing these surprises decided to stalk them in their lairs the clouds were at the right altitude for this and there were gaps in them over which we could hover examining roads railroads villages cantonments the danger of attack was negligible we could easily escape any large hostile patrol by dodging into the clouds but the wind was unfavorable for such a reconnaissance it was blowing into germany we