First joint Allied air operations

The British chronology of the war records under 30 July 1916 “the first air operations carried out jointly by the French and British air services on the French western front”. This means the sector of the front held by the French army, not the area where the British were fighting. Early that morning French aircraft and three machines of the new No. 3 Wing of the Royal Naval Air Service, the British navy’s air arm, took off together from the airfield at Luxeuil-les-Bains, at the foot of the Vosges. They flew across the Rhine to bomb petrol stores in Baden. It was the first combat flight of the wing, which the British had created for joint raids with the French on German industry.

The British at Luxeuil

From the beginning of the war the Admiralty had wanted to attack industrial centres deep in Germany from the air. In the spring of 1916, when Sopwith 1½ Strutter aircraft began to reach the naval air service, a squadron was formed for this task. In May Captain William Elder went to France to prepare for its arrival. It was agreed that the British bombers would operate together with the French from Luxeuil, which was relatively close to the factories of Baden, Württemberg and the Saar basin. The French had their own bomber groups there, commanded by Captain Maurice Happe, one of the pioneers of French bomber aviation. His airmen had been bombing targets across the Rhine since 1915.

According to the British official air history, H. A. Jones’s The War in the Air, the Admiralty expected the wing to have 35 bombers and 20 fighters by 1 July. Then, however, the army’s air arm called for help. Before the Battle of the Somme the Royal Flying Corps was short of as many as twelve squadrons, and the navy had to hand over its Sopwiths to it, as many as 62 machines by mid-September. At the end of August No. 3 Wing had only 22 serviceable aircraft at Luxeuil. It could not afford larger raids until the autumn.

The raid on Müllheim

The first joint expedition was therefore a modest one. Jones lists three naval aircraft from Luxeuil and six French ones. According to studies based on the wing’s records, they took off at about 4.30 a.m. The French sent four Farmans, one Sopwith and one Nieuport. The British sent two Sopwiths in the bomber version, flown by Flight Lieutenant C. B. Dalison and Flight Sub-Lieutenant J. A. Glen, and one Sopwith in the fighter version. Glen and the fighter pilot, Potter, were Canadians, like many British naval airmen.

The target was petrol stores and barracks in a place that British sources spell Mülheim. This is most probably Müllheim in Baden, a small town on the right bank of the Rhine, about 25 kilometres east of Mulhouse. French airmen had already bombed it before, among other times in June 1916. The aircraft dropped a total of 24 50-pound bombs and 12 65-pound bombs. Glen reported that despite the mist he had seen his bombs burst, apparently on the target, and that immediately after crossing the front line, between Mulhouse and Müllheim, he had come under heavy German anti-aircraft fire, but had not been hit. The expedition lost one French aircraft, which came down on the German side of the front. The actual effects of the raid are not known.

The same day on the Somme

The phrase “first joint operations” must be understood narrowly. Airmen of the two countries had already cooperated before, and from 1 July the British and French had been fighting side by side on the Somme, though their air services came under separate commands. On the same day, 30 July, the British XIII Corps attacked Guillemont and the positions south of the village together with the French. Thick fog until about 10 a.m. prevented the airmen of No. 9 Squadron from giving the infantry any help, and the attack ended in failure. In the afternoon over the Fourth Army’s front the British met more German aircraft than at any time since the start of the battle, and the air fighting went on without a break. The Germans fell upon the bombers of No. 27 Squadron, which were attacking the railway junction at Épehy, on the way out and back, shooting down two of the eight. The expedition from Luxeuil, by contrast, was the first raid in which the British and French flew in a single formation against a jointly chosen target in Germany.

The Anglo-French bombers at Luxeuil had to wait until the autumn for a real test. On 12 October 1916, 15 bombers and 6 fighters of the navy and 16 French bombers attacked the Mauser works at Oberndorf am Neckar. According to Jones, German fighters then shot down six French and three British aircraft.