Bogart Rogers's Hard-Edged View of Air Combat

Here's a little change of pace from yesterday's article on Lord Flashheart.  MH

Lt. Bogart Rogers, 32 Squadron, RAF

The son of Earl and Belle Rogers and a sophomore at Stanford University, Bogart Rogers  (1897-1966)  traveled to Canada to join the Royal Flying Corps in September 1917. After flight training in Canada and Texas, he was commissioned in January 1918 and sent to England for additional training. Posted to 32 Squadron in May 1918, he was credited with six victories, including five over the vaunted Fokker D.VII, while flying the S.E.5a. Rogers was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service.  He left the Royal Air Force in May 1919, returned to the United States, and became a screenwriter, technical advisor, and producer in Hollywood. While collaborating with John Monk Saunders, the script that drew most heavily on his war experience was The Eagle and the Hawk, starring Cary Grant and Fredric March. He was also known for  developing the first photo-finish camera used at American racetracks.

In December 1930,  he wrote an article  summarizing his unsentimental  view of air combat titled "The Startling Truth about War Flyers" for the magazine Popular Aviation.  Here are some of his most telling quotes from that piece:

• The only people who fully understand the war in the air are the fellows who fought it.

• Every time I hear someone speak of the war in the air as a gallant and romantic business, a modern counterpart of the chivalrous strife of old, I break right out laughing. It was a cold, calculating, deadly occupation - sans chivalry, sans sportsmanship, and sans any ethics except that you got the other fellow or he got you. 

• Most fliers, I think were fatalists.  It was the only doctrine that would hold water. If you embraced it, as many did, it was a great source of consolation. You simply decided your destiny was predetermined and inevitable and ceased worrying about what may happen to you.  When your time came it would come—there was nothing you could do to stop it.

• Callousness and a hard-boiled and unsympathetic attitude were the chief salvation of the Air Service.  Outwardly nobody was sympathetic.  They had feelings, of course, but not very obvious ones.  If your best friend was shot down you masked a breaking heart by declaring he was a damn fool who should have had better sense.

• [Pilots preferred] to shoot the enemy in the back when he wasn't looking, or bring odds of ten to one against him.  

Original Source of These Quotes

• [After losing a popular squadron mate] Green had apparently regained his bravado with the rest.  But later in the morning he collapsed—suddenly, unexpectedly and completely.  His nerves snapped with the twang of a broken flying wire and they sent him home for a long rest.

• The rigors of combat did not cease when the planes returned to the hangars. The strain continued on the ground. The fliers lived an abnormal life in which death and disaster were their daily diet. The exhaustion and nervous energy was tremendous.

• Strong drink and lots of it was a boon and salvation to the aviators. Show me a good, stout-hearted, cool, dependable air fighter, and I'll show you, nine times out of ten, a hard drinker... It let them relax, it enabled them to forget and it made them sleep

• [Visiting the Grave of a Fellow Flyer Alvin Callender] The grave was beside a little farmhouse and not marked at all. We put up the cross and then sodded the top and built a little border or brick around the edges. It was a solemn party that came home

Sources: Fighting on Borrowed Wings: The Combat Experiences of Americans Serving with French and British Units During the First World War by Kyle Nellesen, Chapman University;  A Yankee Ace in the RAF: The World War I Letters of Captain Bogart Rogers by John Morrow; theaerodrome.com.