Heath Cemetery, Harbonnieres: Case #2 - RFC Captain and Serjeant

[laughton]

Okay, agreed those are the burial coordinates, but I understood that your statement was that you knew "the trench map co ordinates of the original crash position".

[ANDY MIDDLEHURST]

I guess he went down near the burial sight .and Wolf reported the kill at Lamotte ,which was a short distance away 

[ANDY MIDDLEHURST]

Hi , I have gone thCharles Georges Douglas Napier, late Sergeant in the Army Cyclist Corps, attended No. 2 R.F.C. Officer Cadet Wing during May to July, 1917. Commissioned as Temporary 2nd Lieutenant on 24 August, Napier attended Nos. 4 and 19 Training Schools until November when he was appointed to No. 20 Squadron, and shortly afterwards to No. 48 Squadron. As pilot of a Bristol two-seater fighter, with 2nd Lieut. J. M. J. Moore as his observer, Napier claimed his first victory on 7 February 1918, with his second on 8 March, quickly followed by two more on the 16th March. Another two followed on 27 March, bringing his score to six and the well earned award of the Military Cross.

On the afternoon of 9 May, Napier had a particularly successful offensive patrol in his Bristol fighter C.4750. With a new but experienced observer in the shape of Sergeant W. Beales, recently awarded one of only five D.C.M’s won by the R.A.F. during the war, they dived on a formation of seven Pfalz DIII’s and sent one spinning to earth. Little more than an hour later, Napier spotted three Fokker DrI’s and immediately dived to attack them, successfully shooting one of them down. The remaining two triplanes, however, turned into the attack and as the Bristol was driven down the observer, Beales, managed to put in a whole drum of Buckingham into one of them at close range and it went spiraling down with smoke issuing from it. Napier at this stage decided to make for home and landed safely to claim another three victories.

With a total of nine confirmed kills to his name, Captain Charles Napier was himself shot down in flames over Quiery-Lamotte on 15 May, 1918, in B.1337, during a dogfight with 13 Fokker Triplanes and D5’s belonging to JG I and Jasta 5. Napier and his observer, Sergeant Pat Murphy, were both killed, the Germans confirming their deaths in a message dropped by an aeroplane in our lines on 12 June. The group is sold with some research including copies of the original M.C. recommendation (much longer and more detailed than the published version) and several combat reports.rough a few records , and shows the deaths where reported  by the Germans , see enclosed

[laughton]

This detail has also been posted by Russ on the Aerodrome Forum:

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showpost.php?p=742085&postcount=22

 

I will come back to this later.