2nd Lt Anthony Fielding Clarke 100 sqn RFC

[Errol Martyn]

"officers did not have numbers"

True of those in the RNAS and RFC, but they were alloted (PI - Personal Index) numbers when seniority lists were merged in advance of the formation of the RAF in April 1918.

Errol

[RFC/QWR grand-daughter]

Thank you all, chaps. It's going to be a very hot day, so I'm proffering some virtual refreshment as a token of my appreciation.

CAKES AND ALE!

[fetubi]

There is a superb example of an all-black FE2b night bomber at the RAF Museum, Hendon, London. It was completed and installed there only a couple of years back, and if you can possibly get there to stand beside it you'll be richly rewarded!

There is also a Cross and Cockade International Monograph on the FE2b, with a long chapter on its night bombing role, which I'd recommend as well:

http://www.crossandcockade.com/blog.asp?Display=18

Regards,

Trevor

[RFC/QWR grand-daughter]

Thanks for that, my brother-in-law lives close by so a visit will be in order.

...and referring back to an earlier post, I've bought The Annals of 100 Squadron from abebooks via this forum's link. Really looking forward to its arrival.

[Flyvulcan]

My Great Uncle, Alexander Wald (pilot) was at 100SQN at the same time as your Grandfather. I have 2 original copies of The Annals of 100SQN and it makes interesting reading.

To put a few faces to names that you may read about in Annals and who worked with your Grandfather, I have attached a photo that my GU took of 3 observers and an admin person by the looks of him who are checking out a bomb crater in the airfield in December 1917. The names of the airmen in the photo are (from L to R) McNaughton, Allen, Hilton (my GU flew with him a bit) and Edwardes.

I have other photos but cannot discern your Grandfather in any of them.

Enjoy the research, it's fascinating when it is so personal.

[Flyvulcan]

I've decided to add a short extract from my GU's diary to give you an idea about what they used to get up to. Remember, this was done at night with very few instruments available to them. From February 1918:

8^thMonday Bombed Treves from 4-500 feet, afterwards flew over river through Treves at 1-200 feet, Duncan firing at transport on roads etc. (Duncan was a regular observer for my GU)

Now my GU did pick up the reputation for being a low flier (and according to a 1933 newspaper article about 100SQN picked up the nickname "chimneystacks") and his diary and Annals both list his low flying bombing technique, but this practise was probably common amongst the aircrew.

You have to respect them!

[RFC/QWR grand-daughter]

Thanks for that info. It's astonishing really to think what they were doing at the beginning of aviation....and still teenagers, most of them.

[RFC/QWR grand-daughter]

Swart is sporting the swollen face he described in "Annals of 100 Squadron" as "like a pudding". Apparently, he was attempting to strangle a German without realising another German was behind him. The second German punched him repeatedly in the face,

My copy of 'Annals of 100 Squadron' arrived from abebooks just before I went a way for a long weekend. A mine of information, but I haven't had a chance to really give it the attention it deserves. I did notice that Swart is referred to as Stewart in one flight log, which is confusing.

[sketcher]

Dear Granddaughter. Your grandfather and I were great friends when we taught together from 1966 until his death in the mid 1970s. I was a mere 29 in 66 and am now 75, but I have many happy memories of AFC as he was known. He was a lovely man with a great sense of humour. I have something of his which I think you should have - a book which was sent to him while he was in the POW camp at Holzminden, and which has a paper inside which he had to sign on receipt. It came from the Prisoners Of War Book Scheme in London.

[Guest Dionysos]

Hi

I presume your grandfather was the affectionately known AFC who taught at Mostyn House school on the Wirral? If so, he taught me my very first lesson there in 1959, an art class where he showed us how to lino cut. I've never forgotten the experience nor have I forgotten how to write his signature! :-) In fact it was doodling it yesterday that prompted me to look him up on Google - and here we are. Amazing really. I still remember clearly as an elderly, charming, urbane very gentleman and there he is as a young derring-do pilot/observer - with fondest memories

[greg100]

Hi all,

 

I know this thread has been long dormant, but I've been doing a bit of research on Swart and Fielding Clarke for my forthcoming book on the history of 100 Squadron.  There's a few interesting snippets in the book "Kitchener's Lost Boys" by John Oakes regarding Anthony: -

 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DVA7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA158&lpg=PA158&dq=fielding+clarke+reading&source=bl&ots=kOnQ0t3yuy&sig=lyOvaMpIMbsvqecoOq9zBcy1Wxs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjl9M2Jp8LSAhVDD8AKHXvmAFoQ6AEIKjAD#v=onepage&q=fielding clarke reading&f=false

 

It may be of interest to the OP.

 

All the best,

 

Greg

[Guest]

I got an old photo album from World War I. It shows two English pilots.
A friend said these are Fielding-Clarke was an observer and Swart was a pilot. Can this be ?

Mike from Germany

[hmsk212]

Hi Mike,

 

Yes !  See the links on post number 10

 

Steve

[hmsk212]

From Anthony Fielding-Clarke's  photograph album :-

 

 

 

Steve

[hmsk212]

His Father

 

Captain Fielding Clarke RAMC TF  :-

 

 

Steve

Edited 4 February , 2019 by hmsk212

[hmsk212]

Anthony Fielding-Clarke :-

 

 

Steve

[Guest]

Hi

[hmsk212]

His  POW  "Good Behaviour " Pass for Holzminden

 

Steve

[hmsk212]

On ‎24‎/‎07‎/‎2012 at 13:58, Dolphin said:

2Lt A Fielding-Clarke was the observer in FE2b B439 [a Presentation machine: Malaya No 17] of No 100 Sqn RFC, flown by 2Lt O B Swart, on a night bombing raid on Courcelles on 9 February 1918, when the aeroplane was brought down in enemy territory by engine failure and both airmen were captured. The FE left Ochey aerodrome at 17:51 and had accumulated 20 hours flying time.

I hope this is useful.

Gareth

 

Here is a copy of his somewhat short " Repatriation Report " into the circumstances of his Capture.

 

Steve

[cartoonist]

On 24/07/2012 at 11:07, RFC/QWR grand-daughter said:

I am researching my grandfather. I never knew him, and those who did are now dead. So far I know that due to mechanical failure, he came down and was captured with his comrade. I have seen two pictures of his capture on Flickr. He was an 'observer officer' but I have no idea what this means and google hasn't helped. He was incarcerated in Holzminden, but didn't escape. I don't know what he did in WWII but I know he was away from his family and at the end of the war was involved in de-Nazification. My research is being hampered by the fact that he spent little time in Britain. His brother Oliver was also in the RFC but worked organising the somewhat shambolic RFC stores.

Thank you in advance for any assistance, this site is wonderful.

Hi 

Are you still seeking information regarding the Fielding-Clarke brothers?

 

[RFC/QWR grand-daughter]

I am always hugely grateful for any information.

I knew Oliver, my great-uncle, quite well, but not my grandfather. At the end of WWII he was in Berlin and he divorced my grandmother and married a Trümmerfrau. All I really know about her is that her initials were EB because I have a cigarette case he gave her. Naturally she was just known in the family as Eva Braun! As soon as she was in the UK she bolted, which my grandmother had predicted would happen. The starvation & desperation in cities such as Berlin was so bad that in the same position I might well have taken advantage of a British soldier to just get out of there. When my grandmother went to Berlin at the end of the war in an attempt to dissuade him, hollow-faced women with skeletal babies were begging for bread. She said it was a sight that would haunt her for the rest of her life. She was able to travel pretty freely in comparison to many because she had been translating (fluent French and reasonable German) & had been helping the late Marshal Foch's sisters. I have no idea how that happened other than her (English) father was very well-known in France (he was awarded the Legion d'Honneur for his services to Music) and she was half-French. Also my great-grandmother (who lived until I was in my mid-teens) headed straight to Brittany when Hitler invaded to look after her ageing mother but ended up being put under house arrest by the Germans with Michael Bentine's first wife, Adrienne, in Paris because she got grassed up to the Germans as having a (long-dead) British husband and might be signalling to the British Navy from the coast. 

I believe my grandfather spoke quite good German which is why he was working on de-Nazification. 

I know my great-uncle wrote & translated books from French & Russian (he was also a C of E vicar) but in later life changed his name to Bernard (after St. Bernard). He was married to the daughter of an emigré from Crimea who left during Stalin's time. 

It's always hard finding information about the Fielding Clarkes, mainly because it's a double barrelled name, strictly speaking with no hyphen so although looking through lots of Fieldings it's all the Clarkes that take up the time!  To add to the confusion there was a fairly famous Judge in Hong Kong called Fielding Clarke who isn't a relative at all as far as I can tell. 

[cartoonist]

A number of years ago I ‘recovered’ a large steamer type of case from a skip

It has been sign written for it’s owner, O. Fielding Clarke RFC

I’m assuming this must have belonged to your great uncle 

[RFC/QWR grand-daughter]

Wow! That's a fantastic find. I think after the 1st World War he went to India (after he was ordained). It was the poverty & colonialist mindset of the British that he saw that made him a Marxist, I think, and then he worked in the East End (I know that for sure). He died in Derbyshire. He'd been vicar at Wirksworth for a number of years. 

[hmsk212]

Hi

 

Attached is a photograph from Anthony Fielding Clarkes album, I believe that this is Oliver in his RFC uniform.

Here is one taken in 1928 of him wearing a clerical collar.

Steve

Edited 2 August , 2022 by hmsk212

[hmsk212]

A postcard sent by Anthony to Oliver in 1917