Gunning for the Red Baron (review)

Starting with the difficulties World War I fighter pilots faced in shooting down enemy aircraft, Leon Bennett offers an analysis of the evolution of aircraft gunnery and why some fliers were better able than others to handle the strengths and weaknesses of their machines. The work offers good explanations of technical issues in layman's terms, but its occasional meanderings over the course of nine chapters as well as a limited source base weaken this contribution to our understanding of World War I aviation.

Bennett first charts the fantasy and reality of shooting at aircraft, noting that the notion of the hunt was quickly dispelled once young gunners, including Manfred von Richthofen, discovered how hard it was to actually hit a flying target. Suggestions from commanding officers, such as the use of tracer bullets, proved a failure. Systematic studies by engineers and physicists helped resolve some of the issues (including speed, gravity effect, and the placement of guns), but as Bennett notes, costs were associated with what kind of aircraft a pilot favored. Maneuverability meant reduced speed; and luck and experience also depended on what one's adversary flew and how (perhaps an obvious point nowadays, but one learned in the Great War, as Bennett shows nicely in a selection of air battle episodes). He concludes with a minutious reconstitution of the battle that led to the Red Baron's death.

In his last chapter, Bennett suggests that it was theoretically possible for a pilot to reach 120 victories, but that factors ranging from the theater of engagement to the reluctance of high command to lose pilots breaking the 40-victory mark affected the rate of success. His evidence, however, is soft, even as he applies statistical methods. Herein lies some of the frustration this volume brings to a reader.

There is much of value in this book, starting with Bennett's aeronautical and ballistics knowledge which shines through many of his comments. Yet the structure of his work is confusing and his choice of sources is limited. The first part of the book is akin to a technical report, albeit one cleaned up to clarify an important aspect of World War I aviation in the field. This is further confirmed in the conclusion, which amounts to a clear, though dry, memorandum. By the end of the book, however, weapons mix with pilots' characters, and the propaganda value of aces. Although these all bear a relationship to the application of air weaponry, the selected evidence and methodology (often statistical-based) make it difficult to fit these into a cogent thesis.

The sources may be part of the problem. While Bennett used British archives, there is no evidence he drew on American ones (although he cites the Smithsonian in his list, it does not appear in the footnotes). Yet many of the latter contain translations of German material, an important source that would allow for a more critical use of the World War I-era British reports and pilot memoirs. Less forgivable is the ignorance of secondary sources. Bennett does not write in a vacuum. Some specialized publications (like World War I Aero) would have helped situate the field he discusses. There is no mention anywhere of Michael Paris's Winged Warfare, nor even of John Morrow's The Great War in the Air. Thus, while he does offer a welcome contribution in the form of an engineer's clear-cut analysis (complemented by helpful diagrams), the lack of contextual focus puts one at a loss in evaluating the historiographical value of Bennett's work.