Bloody April

Bloody April was the (largely successful) British air support operation during the Battle of Arras in April 1917, during which particularly heavy casualties were suffered by the Royal Flying Corps at the hands of the German Luftstreitkräfte.^[2]

The tactical, technological, and training differences between the two sides ensured the British suffered a casualty rate nearly four times as great as their opponents. The losses were so disastrous that it threatened to undermine the morale of entire squadrons.^[3] The RFC contributed to the success, limited as it finally proved, of the British Army during the five-week series of battles.

Background

In April 1917 the

.

Crucially, British pilot training was not only poorly organised and inconsistent, it had to be drastically abbreviated to keep squadrons suffering heavy casualties up to strength. This was self-perpetuating, as it resulted in most new pilots lacking sufficient practical flight experience before reaching the front.

[T]he worst carnage was amongst the new pilots – many of whom lasted just a day or two.[4]^[5]

German pilot training was, at that time, more thorough and less hurried than the British programmes. After the heavy losses and failures against the French over

, comprising a total of nearly 350 aircraft between the two types.

Paradoxically, the one sided nature of the casualty lists during Bloody April was partly a result of German numerical inferiority. The German air forces mostly confined themselves to operating over friendly territory, thus reducing the possibility of losing pilots to capture and increasing the amount of time they could stay in the air and choose when and how to engage in combat.[8]

Battle

The

.

In support of the British army, the RFC deployed 25

(fighter squadrons) in the region, but this rose to eight as the battle progressed (some 80 or so operational fighter aircraft in total).

Since late 1916, the Germans had held the upper hand in the contest for

two-seaters, which were eventually to prove less vulnerable than the B.E.2e, also suffered heavy casualties in their early sorties.

During April 1917, the British lost 245 aircraft, 211 aircrew killed or missing and 108 as

Battle of the Somme of 1916

the RFC had suffered 576 casualties. Under Richthofen's leadership, Jasta 11 scored 89 victories during April, over a third of the British losses.

In casualties suffered, the month marked the nadir of the RFC's fortunes. However, despite the losses inflicted, the German Air Service failed to stop the RFC carrying out its prime objectives. The RFC continued to support the army throughout the Arras offensive with up-to-date aerial photographs, reconnaissance information, effective contact patrolling during British advances and harassing bombing raids. In particular the

sometimes claimed.

Aftermath

Within a couple of months the new technologically advanced generation of fighter (the SE.5, Sopwith Camel, and SPAD S.XIII) had entered service in numbers and quickly gained ascendancy over the over-worked Jastas. As the British fighter squadrons became once more able to adequately protect the slower reconnaissance and artillery observation machines, RFC losses fell and German losses rose.

The RFC learned from their mistakes, instituting new policies on the improvement of training and tactical organisation. By mid-1917 better aircraft designs were reaching the front. By the late summer of 1917 the British achieved a greater measure of

than they had held for almost a year. The casualties in the air campaigns through the remainder of the war were never so one-sided again. In fact, this was essentially the last time that the Germans possessed real air superiority for the rest of the war – although the degree of allied dominance in the air certainly varied, the final all-out efforts of September 1918 causing even greater Allied losses.

References

Bibliography