[Marxism] 'Biggles'

[Graham M.]

Dear N.K.,
                 I thought I'd write to you about Biggles.   I was a bit
surprised to learn that contemporary schoolboys in Australia still read the
'Biggles' books.   The two sons of a friend of mine were reading and
enjoying them back in the early 1990s, and I was intrigued to learn that
they and their friends in the local neighbourhood were very interested in
military aviation, and that their main focus was on World War Two aircraft.
It seems now, more than fifty or sixty years after World War Two, the
military conflicts of that war still dominate the consciousness of the
rising generations.

The author of the original 'Biggles' stories, Captain W.E. Johns, was
himself a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps in World War One.   I think that
the first stories date back to the early 1930s.   In a preface to one of the
three volumes of  World War One 'Biggles' short stories, Johns recounts how
a British fighter pilot, who had succeeded in shooting down a fair number of
enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain in 1940, was asked by a
newspaper reporter to what he attributed his success.   The fighter ace
simply said 'Biggles'.   Johns observes that the story was written up in the
newspaper under the heading: 'Who is Biggles?'   Johns writes: 'I gather
quite a few readers answered his question'.

I read all the classic World War One 'Biggles' stories as a boy, and I
re-read them all a few years ago.   I never did read the later stories - I
couldn't believe in Biggles never growing old.   But I can understand why
that RAF fighter pilot found the 'Biggles' stories useful for air-fighting
tactics.   Johns was writing from experience and knowledge, and his
descriptions of aerial warfare in its infancy during World War One are
obviously of real use from a military-training point of view.   But the
stories are also often quirky and amusing, and are good entertainment, apart
from their instructive value.

Biggles is of course a 'Boys Own'-type hero, and the presentation in the
'Biggles' stories of World War One flying is, while technically accurate and
useful, in some respects one which glamorises aerial warfare, and obscures
the statistics of death in fighting over the Western Front.   As I
understand it, the average life expectancy of a pilot on operational service
in the Royal Flying Corps in Belgium and France, in the last year or two of
the War, was about three weeks.   And that average includes the fairly
lengthy stints of service of the more effective officers.   Many
inexperienced young men in their teens would have been shot down and killed
in a matter of days, or even hours.   Parachutes were not issued to RFC
pilots to the best of my knowledge (not until at least towards the end of
the War).   There is a very powerful anti-war film, made in the 1970s,
entitled 'Aces High', featuring Malcolm McDowell, which deals with the
gruesome and brutal reality of aerial combat over the Western Front during
World War One.

I was myself very interested in military aviation as a boy and, as you know,
I joined the RAF cadets at school in England, with every intention of later
joining the Air Force (I wouldn't have made it, though, if I'd stayed in
England, as the prerequisites for RAF officer training required 'O' Level
Maths and Physics, and I never would have got those).   I constructed
literally hundreds of model aircraft (mainly military, and mostly World War
Two era), the majority of which I left behind when I came to Australia (I
made more after I arrived here).

I believe that I sent you a letter in 1981, when I was living in Sydney,
discussing a film that was on television one evening - a film I'd seen in
England in 1967, shortly before emigrating: 'The Blue Max', with George
Peppard and Ursula Andress.   This one was about a pilot in the German
Flying Corps who strove to win the coveted medal for bravery which gives the
film its title.   That was not really an anti-war film.   When we saw that
film, my friends and I in England were all full of the 'Dulce et Decorum
Est' nonsense that schoolboys are infected with at that age, and I suppose
reading 'Biggles' was another source reinforcing silly, romantic ideas about
warfare.

Biggles is a fairly one- or two-dimensional character.   He seems to be a
sort of indomitable figure who is a highly-effective fighter pilot, and who
leads a charmed life.   But of course he also has all the virtues of the
gallant, chivalrous warrior.   Biggles is not totally devoid of humour
though, and a number of the stories are quite hilarious.   There is only one
story that I know of, 'Affaire de Coeur', in which Biggles manifests any
interest in the opposite sex.   That story stands out, actually.   The
fighter pilot falls in love with someone he assumes to be a Frenchwoman, but
she turns out to be a German spy.   It's almost as though Johns is telling
us that Biggles has let his guard down, and that the fighter pilot almost
pays the highest price as a consequence.

Biggles is involved in numerous aerial engagements (ie. dogfights) but is
shot down behind enemy lines only once, to my knowledge.   However, although
he falls into German hands on that occasion, the Armistice has just been
signed and so he is released.   One hears a lot about the World War One
'aces', like Germany's Manfred von Richtofen - the 'Red Baron' - who shot
down over eighty Allied aircraft, and Werner Voss, another high-scoring
member of Richtofen's 'Circus'.   The British 'aces' included Mick Mannock
(over seventy arcraft shot down) and Albert Ball.   The French aces included
Charles Guynemer and Rene Fonck.   US volunteer pilots flew with the French
airforce, as has been recently rather effectively brought to the screen in
the film 'Flyboys'.   These figures were all legendary to us in the RAF
cadets at my school, as we dreamed of somehow emulating them.

I watched a few years ago the film version of 'Vietnam: the Ten Thousand Day
War' on video (a seven episode series made for television, in the 1980s).
The most compelling, and outraging, part was the last episode, dealing with
the Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong  by US B52s in 1972.   I have a
clear memory of demonstrating against that aggression, outside the US
Consulate in St. George's Tce. in Perth, with hundreds of other people.
The US military dropped the equivalent of three Hiroshima atomic bombs on
Hanoi and Haiphong in the course of a few days.   Nixon, Kissinger and Haig
worked closely together on this campaign of terror - especially the latter,
military, commander, who advocated even heavier and more extended bombing.
And such horror is the reality of aerial warfare in the 20th century, when
one strips away all the romantic bullshit about 'knights of the air', etc.,
in World War One.

Best regards,

Graham Milner