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The Role Played by Airplanes during the World War 1 Era

The popularly held image of World War I is soldiers sheltered in muddy trenches. While

this is fundamentally correct, the war was characterized by technological developments that

extended from engineering, chemistry, optics, and, most significant to this narrative, aerial

technology. The use of airplanes in the war helped improve the effectiveness of the strategies

employed in the war, and they made winning the war, an all-out impossible feat for all the sides

involved. Essentially, airplanes were used for several purposes during the war, including

reconnaissance, tactical ground support, strategic bombing, and for ensuring air superiority. This

narrative is an analysis of all these roles.

Airplanes were a product of new technology. Created by the Wright Brothers, airplanes

were not properly utilized in battle until 1914[ CITATION Mue10 \l 1033 ]. The allied nations that

participated in the war included, France, Russia, Italy, the United States, and Britain. These were

fighting against countries that held central powers including Germany, the Ottoman Empire,

Bulgaria, and Austria- Hungary. For all of these nations air power emerged as a fundamental part

of military or warfare power and was hastened by the happening and eventual development of

World War I[CITATION Fra \l 1033 ]. Throughout the war, the potential of the airplanes and

aviation itself in directing the winner of the war continued to materialize even further. The role

of the airplane, expanded from simple reconnaissance to military applications, and, by the year
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1918, different techniques and equipment were employed to utilize the airplane for aerial

missions that proved significant to both the sides engaged in war[ CITATION Kei17 \l 1033 ].

Reconnaissance

The initial role that airplanes played at the beginning of World War I was that of

reconnaissance. An example of an airplane used for this purpose during the war was the B.E.2

which was used to gather information[ CITATION Kei17 \l 1033 ]. Reconnaissance was mainly

useful since airplanes could traverse enemy territory in the air and collect information about their

location, number, strategic placement, or even the types of weaponry they possessed. As a result,

airplanes were particularly essential in figuring out where the enemy troops, citizens or personnel

were based and what they were doing either in response to war or strategy location, equipment or

techniques.

Airplanes were also primarily used as a platform for sending messages. The primary

airplanes used in war were not fitted with radio sets[ CITATION Mue10 \l 1033 ]. However, the

enemy information collected by the airplanes was of utmost value and required to be transmitted

as fast as possible. The pilots developed a technique to drop weighted bags, within which the

message was placed in a strategic location so that the allied forces could access it and utilize it in

the fastest manner possible[ CITATION Kei17 \l 1033 ]. This strategy was first employed in the

Battle of Marne, on September 9, 1914, and was appropriately titled the Message

streamer[ CITATION Kei17 \l 1033 ]. The role of delivering messages was a particularly important

one that could not have been possible without the existence of airplanes, and aviation in general.

With the progression of the war, the trench systems that characterized the allied and

enemy forces developed and turned even more complex[ CITATION Fra \l 1033 ]. As a result, pilots
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of airplanes were unable to accurately and correctly record enemy information. As it is with

every problem, a solution was developed in the form of reconnaissance cameras and aerial

photography. Introduced in the early days of 1915, airplanes were fitted with these cameras, and

the first ever photographs that maintained this role were taken by hand[ CITATION Kei17 \l 1033 ].

However, as time passed, airplanes were soon fitted with cameras, a step that led to even more

accurate and effective aerial reconnaissance, free from shaky photographs. A good example of

this aerial reconnaissance cameras was the C Type camera that was fitted onto the airplanes and

utilized to take aerial photography of enemy frontlines, their trenches, and their weaponry.

While the capturing of enemy terrain using aerial photography was a particularly

important and fundamental source of information for strategic development in the allied forces,

the actual act of taking the photographs was dangerous[ CITATION Fra \l 1033 ]. This is because

taking photographs using airplanes required that the pilot fly straight atop enemy terrain, and

stay level so that overlapping images could be captured. This is a feat that made the aircraft and

its personnel easy targets for enemy attacks, especially using bombs and gunfire. While the role

of the airplane to improve reconnaissance practices was very beneficial, it increased the risk

suffered by the personnel within the aircraft and led to the loss of lives of allied forces.

Airplanes as an offensive and defensive force.

Airplanes today and in the past have distinctive characteristics that make them ideal as a

power. During the war, airplanes had the power to distinctively bypass enemy terrain and their

armed and naval forces without being impeded by land terrain and armed forces[ CITATION Mue10

\l 1033 ]. Alongside its speed, the airplane therefore had an ability unseen before to traverse wide

areas of land, strike targets in their specific locations and achieve an unparalleled level of success

that would not have been witnessed with warfare on the surface. While the airplane, at the time,
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would have been impeded by atmospheric pressure, weather, and issues of darkness, their

evolution as instruments of both offense and defense ensured that the airplane played a vital role

in the aerial and surface based combat process that characterized the war.

Most airplanes that were used at the beginning of the war were unarmed. However, the

pilots who flew airplanes essentially did carry weapons with them to their reconnaissance

missions including grenades, handguns, or pistols[ CITATION Kei17 \l 1033 ]. Regardless, these

weapons were few and of very limited applicability because the airplane body, and its structure

prevented the installation of weapons and made it dangerous for weapons to be carried, due to

weight purposes, and for weapons to be fired. Despite these issues, the pilots and strategic

planners of the war initiated some attacks that can be defined as crude on the ground. The

airplanes were soon utilized to drop projectile weaponry on the enemy ground on both sides such

as darts and other sharp objects[ CITATION Fra \l 1033 ]. These dangerous projectiles were dropped

in bundles from airplanes in a method that strategically sought a wide range of dispersal on the

enemy front. This indeed formed the beginning of the use of the airplane as an offensive and

defensive force during the war.

The main purpose of this offensive take during the war and against the airplanes was to

derail the reconnaissance missions that airplanes had been sent to achieve. Both sides of the war

sought to protect their own intelligence. As of 1915, airplanes were soon fitted with forward

firing machine guns that fired on the enemy forces through moving propeller blades[ CITATION

Kei17 \l 1033 ]. Among the first models to be fitted with these machine guns was the Fokker

Reinecker aircraft that was used in reconnaissance as well as combat on the ground against

enemy territory. Moreover, the development of the airplane improved further from just housing
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machine guns to strategically dropping grenade bombs on the enemy territories to ensure that

these were effectively wiped out[ CITATION Fra \l 1033 ].

The success of these offensive attacks was fostered by the fact that air power was

especially strategic and caused mass destruction because using airplanes forces could attack deep

into the enemy territory. Enemies facing gunfire from an uplifted geographical situation were in

a very unfortunate position to effectively escape, hide or retaliate with defensive attacks of their

own. Most especially, airplanes were in a position to ensure that the attacks always got through

to the targeted hostile forces without deterrents and hindrances. This is because airplanes ensured

that, strategically, the allied forces had the value of surprise on their side.

The years following the installation of weaponry on aircraft saw the development of even

larger, more complex and even better combat airplanes. In 1916 and 1917, warfare in the aerial

spectrum shifted from the use of lone or single fighter aircraft to the use of several airplanes in

complex and larger formations that played the roles of patrols and attacks[ CITATION Kei17 \l

1033 ]. The aircraft utilized for patrols were used to present a component of surprise by being

positioned above the enemy territory before beginning their attacks. This would develop in the

following years to air to air combat where aircraft engaged in warfare would break up into

individual fights against each other. This presented an almost equal fighting ground for both the

allied forces and the enemy forces to forecast their strengths and shoot down their opponents.

This strategy and development in air warfare shifted the battleground from the surface to the air.

By the time the war was ending, air power had allowed the air force to attack enemy front

lines from distant locations with an aim to destroy the essential members of the enemy at the

their core. Bombs from airplanes were dropped on factories, transport routes, networks of supply
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and even the centers that held the governments[ CITATION Fra \l 1033 ]. A good example of this

occurred when Germany carried out air attacks on London.

The use of airplanes as an offensive and defensive force, led to the deterrence of the

enemy forces, both naval and armed, and ensured that attacks on allied forces were reduced.

Essentially, airplanes gave both sides a freedom of action to hold back and shatter enemy forces.

They made penetrating enemy airspace and flying above armies simple. While it was important,

this freedom of action in air power caused harm. In specific, because air attacks target and affect

areas other than the armed forces of enemies. This is to imply that air attacks affected innocent

citizens and children, and destroyed land and property.

To carry Personnel and supplies

The role of the airplane during the World War I era extended from reconnaissance

purposes and combat missions. The airplanes were used to carry personnel, not only armed

forces, but also other important and integral players in the war, such as doctors and nurses, to the

heart of battle to care for wounded soldiers and other civilians who may have been harmed

during the war and different attacks.

Fundamentally, airplanes were used to carry armed forces from their stationed locations

to the places where war was taking place. This is an especially important role of airplanes

because they helped to, first, bring reinforcements for the soldiers who were fighting in the

battles, including resources such as weaponry, food, and water[ CITATION Kei17 \l 1033 ].

Subsequently, these airplanes were used as methods of extraction of wounded or hurt soldiers, or

other soldiers who may have been overpowered during battle. As such, they ensured that soldiers

were evacuated when the troops were overpowered or were injured.

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Airplanes ensured that medical professionals including doctors and nurses, and medical

resources were supplied to places that could not be accessed using only vehicles. This ensured

that the soldiers who were hurt were in a position to receive medical treatment and had ample

supply of medications and bandages. Other supplies that were ferried using airplanes were food,

water, clothing, and weaponry.

Other roles of the airplane

The development of the airplane led to the creation of jobs. A majority of the military

personnel that participated in the war played the role of harvesting logs for the construction of

airplanes[ CITATION Cro14 \l 1033 ]. Most of the airplanes that were used in the war were made of

wire, wood, and canvas. As a result, strong, very light and flawless lumber was required to

construct airplanes, and, as a result, many people sought employment in the logging business as a

way to satisfy the great demand for airplanes that skyrocketed during the war[ CITATION Cro14 \l

1033 ]. People sought work in mills and building railroads to transport the logs to mills for the

construction of the airplanes.

Most especially, the role that the airplane played in World War I paved the way for the

development of a vision for air power. The use of the airplane in the war helped to define the

roles that the airplane would play in future and, most especially, in the following World War II.

Today, inspired by the use of aircrafts in World War I, aircrafts have been integrated as a vital

instrument in war, with new and better models being developed each day. The airplane in the

first war helped to develop an air power with greater performance and even better tactics.
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Conclusion

Airplanes played a vital role in the World War I. Their distinctive characteristics allowed

them to easily bypass enemy reinforcements, penetrate enemy airspaces, and impede movement

of their naval and armed forces. By using different strategic attacks, airplanes which were not

well exploited at the beginning of the war, became the sole determinant on the winner of the war.

The basic roles that the aircraft played in the World War I were therefore, reconnaissance,

tactical ground support, strategic bombing, and air superiority. In addition, the expanded uses of

the aircraft led to the development of even more clever tactics and capabilities of the aircraft, all

of which were exploited in World War II. It became central to develop an aircraft with even

better performance, firepower, and fighting tactics, all of which are evident within the modern

aircraft in use today.

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Works Cited

Crosman, Kathleen. "The Army in The Woods: Records Recount Work of War I Soldiers in

Harvesting Spruce Trees for Airplanes." Genealogy notes (2014). 3 March 2018.

<https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2014/summer/woods.pdf>.

Frandsen, Bert. "The Birth of American Airpower in World War I: Commemorating the 100th

Anniversary of the US Entry into the Great War." Air & Space Power Journal 31.3

(2017): 60-73. 3 March 2018.

<http://www.airuniversity.af.mil/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/Volume-31_Issue-3/F-

Frandsen.pdf>.

Keitch, Charlie and Josh Blair. "What Impact Did The First World War Have on Aircraft and

Aerial Warfare." (2017). 4 March 2018.

<https://www.iwm.org.uk/learning/resources/what-impact-did-the-first-world-war-have-

on-aircraft-and-aerial-warfare>.

Mueller, Karl. "Air Power." RAND Corporation (2010): 1-22. 3 March 2018.

<https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2010/RAND_RP1412.pdf>.