Strange Captain Strange

Strange Captain Strange

Posted: October 30, 2014

Evan Hadingham: Let me tell you a hair-raising tale about the early days of aviation in World War I. When the first World War broke out in 1914, the first airplanes to enter combat were fragile, underpowered machines. They had open cockpits, pilots carried no parachutes, and the planes were unarmed. So in the first few months of the war, pilots would take up their revolvers or hunting rifles, and take pot shots at one another, but usually they would miss. The obvious solution was a more lethal weapon like the machine gun. But that came with a problem—how do you avoid shooting off your own propeller?

The hero of our story is a 24-year-old British pilot, aptly named Louis Strange, who arrived in France in the early months of the war, determined to have a go at the Germans. And he got around the machine gun problem with an interesting solution. He took the machine gun and mounted it on the top wing of the bi-plane, firing completely over the path of the propeller. So, with his forward-firing machine gun, Strange was armed and ready to take on the Germans.

One day in May 1915, he spotted a German observation plane. He does a long, diving attack on the German plane, firing off an entire drum of ammunition. But he's too far away—he's missed. Frustrated, he reaches up to take off the old drum of ammunition, but he finds that it's jammed on top of the machine gun.

He struggles with it, still can't loosen it. So there's only one thing to do—he unfastens his safety belt, puts the joystick between his knees, stands up in the cockpit, and gets out of the shot…

… and stand up in the cockpit to get a better grip. So as he's tugging to and fro, suddenly the control stick slips out from between his knees, the unstable machine flips right over, and Strange finds himself dangling from the empty ammunition drum with 6,000 feet between him and Mother Earth far below.

Well, we don't know exactly how he did it, but over the next two minutes, he clambered and kicked and thrashed his way back into the cockpit, kicked the control stick, the plane righted itself, and he tumbles back into the cockpit with a sigh of relief.

Despite all the problems Strange had encountered, his solution of mounting a machine gun on the top wing of his bi-plane was one that would see wider use as aerial combat evolved and turned from a gentleman's sport into a deadly game.

For the full story of World War I's aerial arms race, see NOVA's upcoming show: "First Air War."

So Kieran it was like this—Strange was wrestling with that empty ammunition drum. Next thing you know, the plane flips over. He finds himself dangling there.

Kieran McWilliam: Evan, just sit down!

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Produced by

Ari Daniel
Elizabeth Gillis

Production Assistance

Kristen Clark

Original Footage

© WGBH Educational Foundation 2014

MEDIA CREDITS

Starring

Evan Hadingham
Kieran McWilliam

Louis Strange portrait

Imperial War Museums Collections (Public Domain)

Strange's airplane

Imperial War Museums Collections (Public Domain)

Mounted machine gun

Public Domain

Additional video footage

NOVA's First Air War

Music

Hornpipe by Paul Mottram
Tipperary Cheerful arranged by Patrick Hawes

Special Thanks

Irish Village in Brighton, MA

IMAGE

(main image: Model airplane in bar)

© WGBH Educational Foundation 2014