"Flash Reconaissance" AND "flashes"

[lelly]

I am researcing the life and death of an obserrver from 53 Sqn and the diary makes many referrences to both of these. Flash Reconaissance describes the "Duty " for the day, and in the Remarks column there anre comments like "one flash seen", "five flashes seen" is he literally counting the number of shells being fired? It seems a very low number for a two hour flight. Can anyone explain please.

[pw643]

Try this

http://westernfrontassociation.com/thegrea...onnaissance.htm

Paul

[lelly]

Thanks but I couldn't find anything there

[fetubi]

As part of artillery co-operation that a corps unit like 53 Sqn were engaged upon one type of operation was, effectively, anti-artillery spotting - locating the enemy artillery guns that were causing your own corps a problem. This was done by literally spotting the flashes of enemy guns, locating from these where the enemy batteries were, so that fire could be directed onto them. Without seeing the exact words in the report you quote, it sounds like the crew saw five batteries and directed fire onto each.

Regards,

Trevor

[green_acorn]

lelly,

Trevor is spot on in his reply, if they were on a specific "counter-battery" observation mission, they would use morse code to get the message back down to the CB office at Corps or Army HQ. Otherwise I would imagine they recorded the locations for handing over to the Sqn Intelligence Officer who sent them on for collation and later counter-battery fire. Sometimes you don't want to direct counter fire straight away, you want to catch all of the identified gun positions at the start of your supporting fire for assaults, thereby minimising enemy fire on own troops during the attack.

cheers,

Chris

[lelly]

THANK YOU both, by giving similar rplies you confirmed what I thought it might mean, I just had doubts because the numbers of flashes seen were were always very small and I assumed there would be more to see in a two hour flight. Also "Art Obs" was quoted as if it was a different thing in the duties column. I have copies of diaies covering August to Otober 1918 and most Flash Reconn misioins see "No flashes", and "7 Flashes" is the mximum They are flying a RE8 usually at 3,000 to 5,000 feet and often drop two or four bombs of there own and they often record how many rounds of Lewis or vickers they use. Map references are usually quoted in the entry.

Just to clafify their mission types: the Duty column always contains one only of these four things "Reconn" - "Flash Reconn" - "Art Obs" - ""Photo". Confusingly they never mention flashes on the days they are doning Art Obs, that seems to be something to do with shooting and bombing things Quote "Succeccful KOshoot by pilot on DW22 (in action) 32 rounds obsa engine running badly. 2.25bombs on BoulleulVisb fine Hight 3,000 ft" is typical of an Art Obs day deemed successful

[Starlight]

Confusingly they never mention flashes on the days they are doning Art Obs, that seems to be something to do with shooting and bombing

Hi Lelly

The reason flashes weren't mentioned in Artillery Observation reports is because the targets would already have been identified prior to the mission and the role of the aircrew would have been to guide the allied guns on to the targets and monitor/correct their aim until the target was destroyed. They would not be interested in the enemy gun flashes per se - in cases where the target was in fact a gun position and not a supply dump etc - except perhaps those from the anti aircraft guns that they flew over.

Regards

Steve

[fetubi]

Good point Steve. The Flash Recons were recons - they wouldn't have been doing any directing of fire.

Trevor

[green_acorn]

lelly,

As Steve and Trevor have mentioned the Artillery Observation flights would be directed at points predetermined for that "shoot" supply dumps, rail and road heads and intersections, areas of troop concentration and so on. These flights would have been in morse, light or mesage streamer contact with the Arty Command Post managing the "shoot".

Generally with the Flash Spotting flights a pattern of activity had to be built up as a gun may only shoot once in a day for a registration shot. That shot may have been for a battery of guns and would be all that is eeded to confirm whether the correct lay has been calculated. The gun may then move and come back at a later time for a full shoot, possibly supporting an attack or the defence of a position. Therefore if you did spot it during that Flash spotting flight, the intelligence people and commanders didn't want to scare them off by having counter battery fire conducted too early.

The photography flights were exceptionally dangerous as the photo aircraft needed to fly along a predetermined path for a period of time to capture the images specified by the Air Photo Interpreters. I think you will find the big dogfights generally occurred as a result of these missions as both sides increased the number of fighter aircraft accompanying the photo "ship".

The "Reconnaisance" mission were more general in task, "watch for movement and activity in vicinity of Grid Square Ab", given the short duration of the flights and the proximity of the airfields to the supported headquarters even without the use of radio information still got back quite quickly.

cheers,

Chris H

[lelly]

By Jove Chris I think I've got it!

I kind of knew the things you say here in terms of how the air force operated but I could not put the correct tasks to the correct "Duties" . What I did not know enough about was how the artillery worked. FYI I am researcing 110 war dead from the Southend High School for Boys Roll of Honour, and the observer I am trying to understand here was 2Ltn Laurence Raby, shot down on a mission as many RE8's were. So all this good information will be passed on. Thank you and thanks to Trevor and Steve and Paul too.

[Starlight]

Lelly,

I'm assuming you have the details of his last flight, such as the combat he had over Mount Sorrel which led to his death. If you don't I can give you a few more details.

Regards

Steve

[Starlight]

In the Remarks column there anre comments like "one flash seen", "five flashes seen" is he literally counting the number of shells being fired? It seems a very low number for a two hour flight. Can anyone explain please.

Lelly,

To put things into perspective, in a copy of a single day's summary of Second Brigade RFC for the 5th November 1917, aircraft of the 2nd Wing (a total of 121 aeroplanes) carried out of a total of 38 artillery co-operation sorties, 13 Contact Patrols and 1 escort duty. Though the report does not provide a breakdown of the 'artillery co-operation' sorties, a total of 153 flashes were located.

Regards

Steve

[lelly]

Lelly,

I'm assuming you have the details of his last flight, such as the combat he had over Mount Sorrel which led to his death. If you don't I can give you a few more details.

Regards

Steve

I know his plane was D6804 and it went down over enemy lines I did not have the detail about Mount Sorrel, so I wold be interseted in any info you may have to flesh this out. This is what his Captain wrote:

'It is with the deepest regret that I write this letter to tell you your son was killed this morning while flying over the lines. He and his pilot Lieut. Brown were attacked by six enemy scouts, and your son put up an extraordinary fight against far superior numbers. He fired three drums into the attacking machines before he was hit fatally and his pilot seriously wounded. They were forced to land amongst the infantry right away and he was then dead, so that death must have come to him instantly and without pain. His loss to the squadron, both personally and as an observer will be very great. His keenness and cheerfulness under all circumstances were marked, and his trust in his pilot made the two of them an ideal pair. They had together been recommended to go to a special flight of pilots and observers picked from the wing - a few out of a considerable number - so you can gauge how well he was thought of. To me, as senior observer in my flight, he will be very hard to replace, and from a personal point of view I can never hope to get a better fellow in any way.'

Lelly

[Starlight]

Lelly,

At the time that Laurence Raby was killed, Number 53 squadron (one of the corps squadrons in the 2nd Corps Wing as part of II Brigade RFC) had only moved to Abeele aerodrome two weeks previously. From Trevor Henshaw's "The Sky Their Battlefield" 2nd Lt Raby and his pilot Lt G C Brown were on a night patrol - actually 6:30 am but still dark - and were engaged by hostile aircraft just on the allied side of the lines south of Mount Sorrel at Battle Wood. Raby was killed (at only 19 years of age) and his pilot injured, though he managed to land the aircraft. Lt Brown died of his wounds the following day. Interestingly enough Laurence Raby and the same pilot were involved in another incident one week earlier near St Jans Cappel in a different aircraft (only a few kilometres SSE of Abeele) whilst on a counter attack patrol. Their aircraft was damaged and they were forced to land. Neither airman was injured.

Steve

[green_acorn]

Lelly,

If you go to this link it is a book on Artillery in WW1 and will have some great material on how aircraft were used.

"The Infantry cannot do with a gun less": The Place of the Artillery in the British Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918 by Sanders Marble ="http://www.gutenberg-e.org/mas01/frames/fmas05.html"

If someone has a scanned copy of SS135,"The Division in Attack" 1918 it has a very good annex on RAF procedures. If you can't find a copy buzz me and I will scan the copy I have just acquired.

cheers,

Chris