On March 30, in the course of one patrol, Hammersley, the leader, destroyed two Hun scouts, putting one on to the roof of a house in Hem, where it burst into flames; while Copeland, Hegarty, Duncan, and Griffiths all shot down hostile machines, the destruction of which was officially confirmed. Bartlett also shot down one out of control. Both Copeland and Duncan were now piling up good scores.
On April 12 there was yet another move, this time to Boffles, where they stayed until September. For some time past they had been in tents, ready to move at a moment’s notice, and by now all the household goods which a squadron accumulated during the period of stationary warfare had disappeared: the bronze figures and silver basins, brought back as mementoes (on payment) after celebrations in Amiens and elsewhere; the original of Fleming Williams’ picture of a Nieuport scout; the cut-glass reproductions of two of his father’s valuable decanters, presented to the squadron by Lord Dalmeny on his departure for Egypt with General Allenby; the German signboards, shell-cases, and other trophies; all had been left behind or were lost long before the March retreat and the subsequent victorious advance were over. This was a pity, but could not be helped.
The losses of the Air Force during this retreat were very heavy indeed. Usually we used to calculate that the Germans lost twice as many machines as the British, according to the reports issued by our Headquarters. This thought was a comforting one. Under the head of hostile machines destroyed are not included, for the purpose of this calculation, those shown as driven down out of control. It should be remembered that Headquarters required very clear confirmation before officially recognising the destruction of an enemy machine, and that many Huns must have been destroyed which were not counted. If one set fire to a Boche machine in the air there was no difficulty, as the whole sky saw it and confirmation was readily forthcoming; but where this was not done, it was not at all easy to watch the victim glide down from fifteen or sixteen thousand feet, and to mark the spot at which he crashed. It takes a long time to reach the ground from nearly three miles up, and there were always plenty of watchful enemies in the sky waiting to swoop on to the overkeen pilot who forgot everything but his presumably vanquished foe. Once a pilot took his eyes off a machine, it was by no means always easy to pick it up again. The best type was always careful not to claim a doubtful Hun, and, though there were plenty who would like to have done so, the other officers of the flight generally knew pretty well when a doubtful claim was put in, and soon gave the offender a hint that such conduct did the squadron no good. It may, therefore, fairly be assumed that we had destroyed the full number of machines claimed. The German method of calculation was somewhat different, as they counted a two-seater machine as two “victories,” which made their star pilots appear to be more successful than ours.