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Jack Treacy made his first combat patrol on the 20th February, 1918 with Lieut. Otto H. Suess as a gunner/observer. The one and a half hours flight was uneventful although Jack recorded in his log book that they fired 50 rounds into the Hun lines.

Jack pointed out that although termed observer, the second member of the R.E.8 team was a rear gunner; it was the pilot who did the "actual observing and signalling". Your aerial gunner is watching all the time for the enemy, and he lets you know if you are about to be attacked.

Photos were taken with a camera mounted in the rear of the aircraft behind and under the gunner's seat. The camera for oblique and map making plates was automatically driven and it changed the plates itself. All the pilot had to do was to count the time for exposure and overlap on his stop watch and press the button; the camera did the rest itself. The aerial gunner would change the magazines in the camera on signal from the pilot.

The R.E.8 was equipped with a wireless set and the aerial was wound in and out on a reel, and on one occasion, Jack recalls "I was on the way back to our aerodrome at Bertangles when I saw many diggers walking along a road and I thought that I would give them a cheer up and decided to fly down to within 50 feet and wave to them, but I noticed that as we waved they were running out of the way off the road and we suddenly realised that we had forgotten to wind in the aerial and it was swinging along the road just over their heads!.

"The only way to fight with an R.E.8 was to go into a circle when attacked. You tip up on your side and put your engine full on and as soon as the fellow dived you pulled the stick back and made the circle tight. The German can't get inside and your man can stand and shoot.

"Never go into a spin because he can dive down the centre of the spin. You can get into a spiral - you can side-slip if you like - you give yourself opposite rudder and slip down careful that you don't get into a spin."

Jack had a chance to use these tactics when at 5.50 am on the 6th June 1918, whilst on an artillery reconnaissance about two miles east of Dernacourt with Lieut. N. H. Jones as gunner, he was attacked by an Albatros scout. "The Albatros was well streamlined and they could dive very fast, although they only had fabric covered wings." Meeting determined resistance, the enemy withdrew. Jack recorded the expenditure of 5I rounds in this engagement.

"Most of the German types we were engaged against were Albatros and Fokker scouts, the Fokker Triplane and later the D VII. Although I did not fly any captured German aircraft, I was there when Armstrong and Mart captured the Halberstadt ( Clll, on 9 June 1918). It flew up alongside (of Armstrong) and the Germans put up their hands in surrender. Armstrong pointed and they glided over to our aerodrome with the German machine-gunner keeping his hands in the air. They landed just as we were changing the guard and the Germans thought that it was a firing squad. Anyway, through a Russian officer we had at the Squadron, we managed to talk to them and we took them up to the Officers' Mess and gave them a few drinks. The German pilot had exceeded the required height for his reconnaissance as our "Archie" was too hot for him, and it was recorded on the barometers on the wings (of the Halberstadt); so they thought it was a good idea to surrender. Germany was beaten by then anyhow.

"The German airmen were more humane and decent than they were in the second war. There was a tremendous espirit de corps amongst the early type of German airmen and he would give you a good fight for it. They were brave enough and good airmen.

" I had two R.E.8s, one nearly to the end of the war. One day I was over the lines and it gave me a bit of trouble and so, while it was being repaired I was loaned another. While over the lines it began to backfire and cough as if it had water in the petrol tank, then it burst into flames under the bonnet over the carburettor. The carburettor on these machines would be approximately 18 inches high by 10 inches in diameter and it blazed up about the size of a 4 gallon bucket, and was getting larger when I turned off the petrol at the tank and opened up the throttle and the fire went out. I glided down 7,000 feet and landed at Bailleul aerodrome which was situated close to the lines.

"This particular machine was kept in the Squadron instead of being got rid of, and it later (12 April 1918) burned to death Lieut. George Best, the pilot and Lieut. Lewis, his gunner whilst they were on a photographic mission from our Poulainville aerodrome. Lewis was two weeks off home establishment leave and Lieut. Best had recently joined the Squadron. It happened near a village in France called Villers Bocage. It was a sad sight. I was sent down to the Abbeville Hospital to identify the bodies and the only way I could do so was the fact I knew them so well. Lewis was a tall man and Best was short and stocky. They were burned so badly their features were unrecognisable.

"After my accident with it, the machine should have been put into the Squadron workshop and the engine taken out and thoroughly examined. After the fatal fire, it was examined and it was found that the engine had a twisted cam shaft. There was no reason for keeping it in the Squadron as at time as we had a full complement of aircraft.

"After my experience with this particular machine, they sent me down to Auxi-le-Chateau to get a new machine. Next day (9 July 1918) McCudden was taking off in a storm and he hit one of the pine trees at the edge of the aerodrome and was killed". Jack recalls that McCudden was not stunting and attributes his crash to the snow storm. (Note: Major James McCudden, VC, MM, DSO and Bar, MC and Bar was an ace pilot who had been flying since 1916. Only a few months earlier he had been awarded his Victoria Cross in England and was returning to France to take command of 60 Squadron R.A.F. He had stopped only to refuel his SE5 before proceeding to his new Squadron's base.)

Jack's log book records many Line Patrols where he was sent over the lines to spot targets and then convert them into shoots. "We were at 7,000 feet because they were 'Archieing' us. We had been sent over because this battery was causing a lot of trouble and, after we'd spotted the target, about eight rounds from a howitzer fired onto it. When one shell burst in the gun pit, it lifted the gun right out of the pit. We didn't know how many Germans were destroyed but there were fires and cordite burning everywhere. Another time, Wackett was leading a flight and I was one of three with him. There was a German observation balloon near Corbie and we got up close to this balloon when I spotted some dust in the road about two or three thousand yards on the German side and I dived and dropped my bombs on the transport and Wackett tapped out an LL call (LL call means: all available batteries to open fire.) We used Cooper bombs - daisy-cutters we called them. We dropped them on infantry, motor transport and trenches where they were open. You would fly along the trench and let them all go in a line." Jack also did a lot of contact patrol work and would take six bombs with him to drop on likely targets. On other occasions he dropped phosphorus bombs to provide a smoke screen for the infantry, and once containers of ammunition on parachutes designed by Capt. L. J. Wackett. Jack states that they were not always a success as the wind carried them into the German lines.

On 3 May I918 Jack had an unusual experience. He was on a Line Patrol with Lieut. N. H. Jones as gunner in R.E.8 No. 4821, when he saw an L.V.G. two seater shot down by a Camel and crash in the Allied lines. Jack landed beside the downed German aircraft with the intention of removing a few parts. Then he discovered "I couldn't take off as I hadn't enough petrol for the R.E.8; when it was on the ground, had its nose up high and the petrol tank ran back. I didn't know how to get a message back (to the Squadron) as there was no one there but after a while hundreds of diggers came along. I got slapped under open arrest for landing beside the German, for although he'd come down on our side, the landing may have given the position away and when the crowd gathered the German artillery may have opened up. I managed to get a message away by getting Jones to hold the aerial on a piece of rubber and the Squadron sent a plane over which spotted me and they then sent a tender out with petrol. I flew the machine back and had the Spandau machine gun and camera from the L.V.G. as souvenirs. I was released from open arrest the next day when I had explained to the Squadron Commander who gave me a severe reprimand".

Jack did not have an opportunity to fly the Bristol Fighter whilst they were with 3 Squadron. "The Bristol Fighter was a wonderful thing. We were only given Bristols when the Hindenburg Line was to be broken and then they only let us have them for about three or four weeks and then they took them away again; just let us do all the photographic dirty work and then the British took them back. If we had had Bristols in the early days the Huns would have got a lot more than they got. One day coming back from the lines, I did see a number of Bristol Fighters - there must have been 21 of them - and were coming back fairly high when attacked by German fighters and within a few minutes there were German aircraft coming down in flames everywhere. The Bristol Fighters cleaned them up and the rest cleared off for their lives. You never saw anything more efficient than a Bristol Fighter in the air. I think that Captain Brearley and Capt. Wackett flew the Bristols with 3 Squadron". Unfortunately the Squadron was to soldier on with their R.E.8's until the Armistice.

Jack recalled a photographic patrol of the morning of 6 May 1918. "Captain Henry Ralfe was patrolling the sector adjoining me and there was a low mist at about 3,000 feet and thin. I could see Ralfe in his sector doing his work. Then I saw a bunch of Huns above the mist - they wouldn't attack you under the mist for although slow, the R.E.8 was pretty hot stuff and would fight off two or three of them (Germans) sometimes. But they broke through the mist and Ralfe was attacked by five German machines over Morlancourt Ridge. The machine went down in flames and buried itself 15 feet in the soft ground of the Somme, but Lieut. W. A. J. Buckland, the gunner, jumped out rather than burn. It was a bad show not having parachutes in those days, but the idea was we would jump if we had to ... no fear of that. And when you got into a fight your eye was on the telescopic sight and you were moving into position to get the fellow who was out to get you."

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