WW1 Cinema Photographer Footage

[clemshark]

Hi All,

In my continued research into Capt HJ Butler i have come across about 20 letters sent from him back to his family in Australia.

There are a couple of interesting things he has to say but i was hoping to get some comments or advice on a couple of them.

The first was in a letter dated the 4th Sept 1918 from Marske. Butler stated that he had been doing a lot of flying lately for a cinema photographer who was making war films. HE said it was in his monoplane - presumably the one that was his personal plane at MArske and one he later brought back to Australia. ( Bristol M1c - C5001)

I have also seen on the web a MAjor Leslie Aizlewood who died at Marske later that month, stunting for some war or instructional films. Could it be possible they wer the same film or would this sort of thing happen regularly. ( twice withing a few weeks at the same place - no 2 school of Aerial fighting, MArske) In a letter soon after Aizlewoods death, Butler told his family of being promoted to the chief fighting instructor - the role Aizlewood had at the time of his accident.

Is there any chance that this type of footage still exists. Where would one try to locate it.

In another letter Butler says he and another chap have been chosen to fly back captured German planes. Did a lot of pilots do this?

LAstly another letter on the 29th Oct 1918 had the following line - " I had 5 of my pupils kill themselves in the last 3 days, one on Saturday and 4 yesterday" - I know that pilot training was a dangerous game, but this sounds a very high figure. Would this have been normal?

Regards,

Les

[mickdavis]

There is IWM footage of the work that was undertaken by the NEAFIS at Redcar, using a cine camera mounted on an Avro 504. I seem to recall that the idea was to use footage as part of the training programme. It included a scene of a 'beating up' of the sheds at Redcar. Footage taken on the ground showed Avros being wheeled out and taking off. In one scene, if I remember correctly, there's an aeroplane shown spinning in - this could have been Aizlewood. I don't recall any M1C footage. I think I last saw it on a commercial video named Where They Fought and Where They Fell. The footage is available from the IWM on CD - the IWM website is searchable; I you typed in Redcar and found it.