The thing about aerial combat, as opposed to making a U-Boat attack, is that everything happens so fast. I always found it rather like going under anaesthetic for an operation, when the last thought that one takes in is also the first thought as one comes out, the intervening couple of hours having somehow got lost. It was very like that over the Isonzo that morning: a desperate, savage, confused bout of wheeling and shooting which perhaps lasted no more than a minute. Our first concern was to keep formation and support one another as the Italians tried to break us up, seeking to fasten on to an aeroplane and worry it to death, as wolves will detach a stag from the herd and then run it down. A Nieuport flashed past us some way above with a KD—Terszetanyi’s as it turned out—on his tail trying to take aim. I think that I saw Terszetanyi fire a few times, but then I suppose that his gun must have jammed. At any rate, as he wheeled back into view below us I saw that he had broken off the attack and was now kneeling half out of his cockpit, steering with one foot and hammering at the gun fairing with his fist in an effort to pull it off and get at the gun. He did not succeed. Horror-struck, I watched as his aeroplane suddenly slipped sideways into a spin. My last sight of him is still branded into my mind’s eye seventy years later: of his arms and legs flailing wildly as he fell to his death on the Carso rocks three thousand metres below.
There was no time to mourn him, only to try and save ourselves as a Nieuport came at us out of the sun. Blinded by the glare, I swung the gun around and felt it jolt and clatter in my hands as I pressed the thumb triggers. Bullets spacked through the fuselage as he aimed for the black Maltese cross on our side. But we lived; the Nieuport shot past under our tail as I gave him another burst. He came up on the other side and I fired again. He was visible just long enough for me to make out the black-cat emblem on the side of his fuselage. Then it was hidden by a stream of smoke and a sudden bright tail of red and yellow flames. The Nieuport banked away and spun downwards, leaving a curving trail of smoke behind it as the fire licked around the wing roots and spread towards the tail. It dawned upon me belatedly that I had just shot down Major Oreste di Carraciolo, the Black Cat of Italy.
All this happened in an instant, though I see it still with the vivid clarity of a dream. But we had not the leisure to congratulate ourselves on our victory. We could only thank our lucky stars and run for home as best we could. In the end Potocznik and I crossed the lines circling around Romanowicz’s KD like lapwings protecting a fledgeling from hawks: a ludicrous state of affairs in which the escorted ended up escorting back the aeroplane which was supposed to have been escorting them. The Nieuports only left us in peace after we had reached Dornberg and the protection of our own flak batteries.
It was not until then, skimming down towards Caprovizza flying field, that I had time at last for the luxury of thought. The whole of the previous ten minutes or so had been conducted largely by instinct, on spinal cord alone. But now the sun was shining and it was peaceful once more, and apart from that constant throbbing of the air the war might never have existed. Only a smoke-grimed face and bullet holes letting the sunlight shine through the fuselage—and a hot machine-gun barrel burnt blue with excessive firing—served to remind me that the recent events had not been some kind of brief but intense nightmare. I looked down at the camera. Good, it was intact still. We had lost one aeroplane but we had accomplished our mission. Oh yes, and we had also shot down Major di Carraciolo.
I suddenly remembered this with surprise—then with a flooding sense of dismay, as I recalled how I had last seen him, spinning down on fire. War was war, and I had far rather that it had been him than us; but all the same it seemed to me a scurvy thing to repay a chivalrous enemy for his generosity by burning him alive. I hoped that he might already have been dead as the Nieuport began its plunge, perhaps killed by a bullet of mine through the head. But I knew enough of aerial warfare to doubt it. Had he perished with his skin bubbling and sizzling as he struggled to bring the aeroplane down? Or had he managed to release his seat straps and fling himself out, to endure perhaps a minute of stark terror as he plummeted down to burst like a blood bomb on the pitiless rocks? Either way it seemed a wretched end. Death by fire was the secret dread of us all in those days before parachutes. Like most fliers, I carried a pistol; not for defence, but with a view to my own deliverance if I should ever find myself trapped in a burning aeroplane. I hoped that di Carraciolo had been able to use his, if that was what it had come to.
We landed at Caprovizza around midday. The boxes of photographic plates were handed over, we made our verbal reports and I then went straight to my tent to lie down. It never ceased to amaze me how fighting in the air, though it usually lasted only a few seconds, seemed to drain reserves of nervous energy that would normally suffice for several months. As I was taking off my flying overalls Petrescu stuck his head around the tent flap and respectfully reported that there was a telephone call for me in the Kanzlei hut. I got up wearily from my camp-bed. What on earth did they want now? Couldn’t the idiots leave me in peace for an hour at least? When I picked up the receiver from the Adjutant’s desk I found that it was a staff officer from 7th Corps Headquarters at Oppachiasella.
“I say, are you the fellow who shot down that Italian single-seater over Fajtji Hrib about an hour ago?” I answered that so far as I knew I had that melancholy honour. I was expecting to be told where the aeroplane had come down and to be offered some fire-blackened fragment as a souvenir—a trophy for which I must say I had no desire whatever. What came next was a complete surprise. “Well, the pilot’s here with us at Corps Headquarters: chap called Major Carraciolo or something—quite famous, I understand.”
“I’m sorry . . . I just don’t understand. The aeroplane was ablaze when I saw it go down . . .”
“Quite so. I understand that your Major Whatshisname climbed out of his cockpit and stood on the wing, steering the thing by leaning over the edge. Apparently he managed to slide it sideways to blow the flames away from the petrol tank, then brought the thing down in a field next to one of our batteries. Our fellows said they’d never seen flying like it—the Italian ought to be a circus performer.”
“Is he badly hurt?”
“Not in the least: dislocated shoulder and a few bruises and a bit singed, but that’s about it. The Medical Officer’s patching him up at the moment and when he’s finished we’ll send him over to you. I believe that he’s Flik 19F’s prisoner. You can have the aeroplane too, for what it’s worth. We’ve posted a sentry by the wreck to keep the village brats away, but frankly there’s not a lot of it left except ashes.”
Major Oreste di Carraciolo arrived in some state at Caprovizza flying field about an hour later, seated in the back of a large drab-coloured staff car. A sentry with rifle and fixed bayonet sat on each side of him and in the front seat was a staff colonel. The door was opened and he stepped down from the running-board to meet us. He wore a bandage about his head and had his left arm in a sling, but otherwise seemed undamaged except that his eyebrows and moustache and neat pointed beard were a little scorched. He wore the grey-green uniform of the Italian Air Corps and a leather flying coat, unbuttoned in the afternoon heat; also a pair of smart, and evidently very expensive, high lace-up boots.
I have perhaps made the man sound a trifle foppish. It is true that he was trim and not very tall; but his powerful shoulders and hands were clearly those of a sculptor. He stepped up grim-faced and saluted with his good hand, giving us a glare of intense hatred as he did so. I stepped forward and saluted in return, then held out my hand. Any remaining doubts about the Major’s powerful build were immediately dispelled as the bones in my hand were crushed against one another. Trying not to betray my pain I welcomed him to Fliegerfeld Caprovizza in Italian, rearranging the bones of my hand as I did so. He glowered at me, his intense black eyes boring into mine—then broke into a radiant smile.