I Became a Tycoon During World War I - Chapter 90

Chapter 90: The Le Prieur Rocket

The flight squadron was exceptionally rudimentary; they didn’t even have a proper operations room. Meetings had to be held in Major Fischer’s office.

The office was small, and the dozen or so pilots crammed into it left no space to spare. Among them was Eric, whose presence filled the room with an unbearable stench of alcohol and sweat, prompting several pilots to frown deeply.

Ironically, Charles, squeezed in among them, was almost unnoticeable despite being their commanding officer.

Charles sat in the “throne” that normally belonged to Major Fischer. As he marked a point on the map, he casually declared, “The ‘Big Bertha’ is located here, eleven kilometers east of Fort Wavre. Our mission is to destroy it!”

His words exploded like a bomb in the office, throwing the room into an uproar. Before long, voices of dissent began to emerge:
“No, Lieutenant! We need orders from General Gillis!”

“Yes, this is war, not a game!”

“We’ll die for sure if we try, and to think we’re being led by a…”

...

The speaker didn’t finish, but everyone understood the implication. They didn’t trust Charles. Even Major Fischer chose to remain silent.

Eric didn’t speak either; he simply watched Charles quietly. He knew Charles’s plan wouldn’t be as simple as it seemed.

Charles understood what was happening.

If it were a routine reconnaissance mission or one whose risks fell within an acceptable range, they would recognize his authority, as Major Fischer himself had once said: “We’ll follow your lead.”

But now, Charles was assigning them the task of bombing the “Big Bertha.” To them, this was a one-way ticket to death. Entrusting such a significant mission—and so many lives—to a child?

It was laughable!

Charles ignored them and continued outlining his plan on the map:

“We’ll definitely encounter German interceptors. They’ll try to ram your planes!”

“Avoid them, distract them, and lure them to this spot...”

Charles circled another point on the map with his pencil, much like marking a key detail in an exercise book.

“There’s an enemy observation balloon here. Destroy it. The flames will draw everyone’s attention, and then...”

Major Fischer couldn’t help but interrupt: “Wait a moment, sir. How are we supposed to destroy the enemy’s observation balloon?”

At this time, destroying observation balloons was nearly impossible, especially from an aircraft. Although observation balloons were large targets, there were no effective weapons against them.

Quietly, someone began to mock:

“He thinks we can just aim a rifle at the balloon and pop it like an ordinary balloon!”

“Maybe we’ll even hear it go ‘pop’!”

Others chuckled softly. Though they didn’t dare openly defy Charles, their words and laughter were filled with disdain.

Eric rolled his eyes and crossed his legs, thinking how foolish these people were. Did they really think the savior of Paris—the man who invented tanks and sidecars to defeat the Germans—would come up with something so simplistic? Charles was about to slap them with the brilliance of his mind.

Fischer glanced at the royal crown medal pinned to Charles’s chest. He couldn’t bring himself to treat someone who had made extraordinary contributions to Belgium with outright disrespect. So, he patiently explained:
“Sir, balloons are not so easy to deal with!”

“They’re made with multiple compartments, much like the watertight chambers of a ship. Bullets from rifles or even machine guns can’t pose a real threat!”

Someone chimed in:
“A bullet might poke a hole, causing some leakage, but the balloon could finish its mission, land, and have the hole patched up in no time!”

“Yes, it would be repaired within hours and sent back into the air!”

Charles, still staring at the map, calmly countered with a single question: “What about a Congreve rocket?”

The room fell silent. Everyone exchanged confused glances, unsure how to respond.

Eric burst out laughing. Without hesitation, he hurled an insult at the Belgian soldiers: “You idiots! All you think about are bullets and shells, completely forgetting about the Congreve rockets. You even just received a batch of them and still didn’t think to use them!”

Fischer looked visibly embarrassed; Eric’s words were directed squarely at him. He had just stored a shipment of rockets in the warehouse, dismissing them as outdated relics unworthy of attention. They should have been obsolete fifty years ago!

Yet, he hadn’t thought of connecting them to attacking balloons.

After some thought, Fischer nodded:
“This might work. I mean, it has a good chance of success!”

“We all know observation balloons are filled with hydrogen. Once a rocket hits them...”

“Good Lord, it would instantly turn into a fireball!”

The more Fischer thought about it, the more he believed this was a stroke of genius, practically guaranteed to succeed.

But someone raised another question:
“How are we supposed to attach the rockets to the planes and fire them?”

“The rockets might not even penetrate the balloon’s tough outer layer. They could just bounce off and fly in another direction!”

...

Charles addressed their concerns one by one:
“Attaching the rockets to the plane is simple. We just need to fix them onto the vertical struts between the wings.”

“Penetrating the balloon’s outer layer isn’t difficult either. We only need to attach blades to the rocket’s tip. That way, it will slice through the surface rather than bouncing off!”

Eric laughed triumphantly again, raising his head and glaring at everyone with disdain. Without any restraint, he mocked: “A bunch of fools! Behold the ingenuity of France!”

The Belgian pilots, though deeply humiliated, were also filled with excitement. After all, this was a mission for Belgium’s cause, and no one would refuse victory.

What’s more, they were going to destroy a balloon while flying—a feat never before accomplished in human history. This battle could very well go down in the annals of history. They would undoubtedly become heroes, remembered for generations!

With that thought, the pilots’ gazes toward Charles changed completely. Their eyes were now filled with astonishment and admiration. They couldn’t believe this boy could come up with such a brilliant solution using equipment most had long dismissed as obsolete and gathering dust in a warehouse.

Charles remained calm and composed at his desk, as though there was nothing remarkable about his idea.

This wasn’t even his innovation. Two years later, a French air force lieutenant named Le Prieur would devise the same method: attaching sharpened blades to the tips of rockets and mounting them on the vertical struts between the wings of biplanes.

Between 1916 and 1918, hundreds of observation balloons were destroyed using this method.

It wasn’t until the advent of incendiary bullets that the Le Prieur rocket—a primitive combat solution—was retired once again.

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