I was quite certain that my assumed reputation of “hardboiled” would be justified by this day’s performance. The mechanics took a just pride in the holes in our plane and patched them over, as was the custom, with miniature Iron Crosses, showing the date of the puncture. The next morning I noticed myself being pointed out by several officers of the squadron and this gave me the rather satisfactory feeling commonly described by the English as “cocky.”
Brereton had nothing whatever to say about the mission but Captain “Deac” Saunders said “Bully,” and called me “Hardboiled,” but my reputation lasted only two days, four hours and twenty minutes, for the Group Commander threw ice-cold water over everything by saying that he considered it very poor work, that it had no military value and that it only encouraged reprisals on the part of the Hun who would soon do the same thing. So, I was temporarily classed as bone-headed, and a “dud” and was in dutch all round. There was one little spark of encouragement in a remark that Brereton made, which got to me through the medium of a friend, and it took away the sting of the Group Commander’s criticism, for to me the only boss I had was Brereton, and what he said was law. The adverse remarks of the Group Commander hurt at the time, I admit, but when Brereton said he did not exactly agree with him that the mission had no military value, and also several months later, when this type of mission had so developed that we had special squadrons in the Saint Mihiel and Argonne offensives that did nothing but this particular type of work, I was happy indeed. Later, all types of planes were ordered to fire at troops on the ground when their assigned missions were completed, and the opportunity presented itself.
Shortly after this mission, Henderson, who was the Operations Officer under Captain Saunders, the Chief Observer, left for the aerial gunnery school in the south of France, with three other observers, to take a month’s course in firing and then return to the Front. This left the much coveted position of Operations Officer open and, of course, everyone was wondering to whom it would fall. It was the biggest job in the squadron next to the Commanding Officer and the Chief Observer, and since the Operations Officer dealt directly with the observers I was mighty anxious to find out who my new boss would be, so that I could make it a point to get along with him.