Military history for the day

From: "War History Online" <newsletter@warhistoryonline.com>

French aviators dropped the arrows or Flechettes which when released on an unsuspecting soldier could piece his body from head to foot. What did a flechette look like? Well, a photograph appeared in The War Illustrated on 23rd January 1915, with a description of one.

"They are pieces of steel rod about six inches long, sharpened at one end like a pencil, and with the four and a half inches or so at the other end machined out so that the whole thing has the section of a cross…which is, of course, very much lighter than the front end, and so acts just as a feather of an arrow."

The steel arrows were packed in boxes of 500 and placed over a hole in the floor of the aircraft. When over the target the flechettes were released in a stream, simply by pulling a string! When they hit the ground, the arrows covered an area of about fifty yards by ten yards.

In 1915, Mr. C. G. Grey the editor of The Aeroplane commented, "A friend of mine was at the military aerodrome at St. Cyr some little time ago, when some of these arrows were being tested, with an unfortunate cow as the enemy, about three arrows struck the cow, and went clean through her into the ground, after which the cow died quite suddenly.'

According to The War Illustrated, the Royal Flying Corps refused to use flechettes against the Germans because, "Our aviators think arrow-dropping dirty work…because the enemy cannot hear the things coming, and because they make such nasty wounds. Also it was not possible to drop them with sufficient accuracy." The paper then conceded, "nevertheless against cavalry or infantry in any thing like close formation they certainly are effective, as the French have proved." 

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