BE.2C Crash - Twerton near Bath - 07/08/18 - Serial Please

[Robbo1966]

Good morning everyone, new member here. I have been directed here by a fellow member of the superb Royal Air Force Commands forum, as its suggested that the experts here may be able to help me track down the serial of a BE.2C Biplane that crashed near Twerton, Bath on the 7th March 1918. This is the story of the incident as reported in the local newspaper;

 

“Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette 09 March 1918 (Saturday)

NARROW ESCAPE OF WAR BONDS AIRMAN

An aeroplane which had been flying over Bath distributing War Bonds literature and vouchers was forced to make a descent in the vicinity of Twerton Round Hill shortly before four o’clock on Thursday (7th) afternoon.
The machine was piloted by Lt Cyril Ewins, with who was with a RFC Sergeant, who was dropping out the literature. They had flown from France to Bristol on Wednesday, and had come to Bath in connection with the War Bonds Campaign. Prior to their descent it was noticed that the aeroplane in passing over the city was particularly low, so low, in fact, that those in the machine were easily visible to watchers on ‘terra firma’. The airmen experienced trouble with the petrol, it is stated, and this caused the engine to give out, so that a descent was imperative. Near Twerton Round Hill the aeroplane was observed to rock violently, and then it came down in a meadow in the occupation of Mr Whatley, adjoining what is known as ‘The Hollow’. The next field ‘Black Down, belonging to Mr AE Gunning, of The Home Farm, Twerton, is ploughed, and it appears an attempt was made to clear the hedge between the grass field and the ploughed field. Only the fore part of the machine, however, got over, and the left plane rested on the hedge, while the tail was directed upward on the other side of of it.
One of the four wooden blades of the propeller was knocked off, and the most fragile Parts of the aeroplane were considerably damaged. Lt Ewins escaped injury, but the sergeant sustained a cut lip. This was, by the way, the fourth narrow escape the sergeant has had, but on each occasion when the machine he was in had to come down he has saved himself by sitting well back and holding firmly to the struts.
After their descent the two airmen were motored to a local aeroplane factory, from which information was sent to the central station asking for police officers to be sent out to guard the machine, and subsequently the airmen came to the city for tea. Inspector Denning and PC Milsom went out from the Twerton Police Station to the scene of the accident, and the aeroplane remained under police observation until about 9 pm when a guard arrived from Filton with an aeroplane lorry, on which the badly damage aeroplane was yesterday (Fri 8th) removed to the works.”

 

The pilot was 2nd Lt Cyril Frank Uwins, then a ferry pilot based at No.5 (Bristol) A.A.P. at Filton, but who would later become the chief test pilot of the Bristol Aeroplane Company? 

I have a propeller blade which I believe is from this accident and it would be fantastic to add the serial and therefore possibly a photo of this particular BE.2C to help make the story complete. On the blade is a short explanation and a suggested aeroplane number of “82” and a date of 8th March 1918, but that’s it!

 

Thanks in advance,

Rob.
 

 

 

 

 

[pierssc]

Hello Rob and welcome to the Forum.

 

I think you might have got a quicker response in the "War in the Air" sub-forum as the aviation enthusiasts don't necessarily look in this corner.

 

I hoped this was going to be a relatively easy one to answer but alas....!  It looks as if the crash may not have been bad enough....

 

Normally a good starting point is to visit www.airhistory.org.uk and go through the various records in the RFC section.

 

We have the name of the pilot.  He duly appears in the "people" section - in fact he is the only Uwins - but there is no record there of a 1918 event for him.

 

No problem, let us look for a BE2c (or any other BE2 type, preferably featuring "82" in the number) to which something happens in the right area in March 1918.

 

Serials 1601-3000 reveal that BE2b 2813 crashed at Andover on or before 10th March.  Andover is really too far away from Bath so that isn't it.  Otherwise nothing stood out.

 

Turning to 4001-8000, no likely candidates appear.

 

In A1-A5000, BE2e A1284 with 100HP RAF engine No. 592 AND BE2e No. 1285 with engine 2032 were both recorded on 13.3.1918 as wrecked.  The unit is given as "BAS", which I can't find in the list of abbreviations, but it COULD perhaps refer to something like "Bristol Aeroplane School" (?)  - though I can't find any other reference to such an entity existing at the right time. @nieuport11 may be able to clarify.  The date stated doesn't necessarily mean the date of the event itself, which could have occurred earlier .

 

There are a number of (mainly rebuilt) BE2s in A5001-A9999 but none which I thought had a suitable event in the likely time period.The same applied to B1-B5000 - though I only got about halfway through before losing ithe will!

 

Going back to the 82 serial number, could this relate to a short number after a prefix?

 

A82 was an RE8 wrecked in January 1917.

B82 was an SE5A

C82 was a Camel

D82 was an Avro 504

E82 was an RE8

F82 was a DH9 which was cancelled

H82 was a DH9A

J82 was a Dolphin of which no other records exist

 

Obviously there are other serial number series and lines one could follow - I even searched for "Twerton" in the first three series without success - and you may want to check for yourself, but with the exception of A1284/5 I can't  see anything having a crash in the right sort of area at the right time.

 

The conclusion I am drawn to is that unless it was one or other of A1284/5,  as no one was hurt, and the aircraft may have suffered easily repairable damage (the "considerable damage" newspaper comment doesn't necessarily relate to what they were in fact able to fix without sending the machine away) the crash didn't go into the official records still available to us, so unless you can find a logbook or photo I'm afraid it may remain a mystery.  A detailed look at Uwin's records - he has an Army file in the National Archives under WO 372/20/132004 and an RAF one at AIR 76/519/90 (the second of which which should be downloadable) - might possibly give a lead.

 

Piers

 

 

[mickdavis]

Uwins logbook gives the date as 6 March 1918 and the aeroplane as DH6 9400 (I.e. C9400). Most DH6s shared the BE2 series RAF1a engine.

The passenger appears to have been a Sgt Edward on the e45min flight at 500ft from Bristol to Bath. The remarks column for the flight reads - Dropping war loan pamphlets. engine conked. m/c crashed.

[Robbo1966]

Gentleman, what can I say. Sterling stuff indeed.

 

Piers - many thanks for taking the time to relate so much information, it is appreciated.

 

mickdavis - thank you ole chap, sounds like you’ve cracked it. So a DH6 and not a BE.2C - no wonder we were struggling. And coming from the pilots log book that sounds pretty conclusive. So I’m guessing then that the “no 82” was just a tail code and not something to do with the aircraft serial?!

 

Can I ask how you came about this info from Cyril Uwins logbook?

 

 

Rob

[pierssc]

Happy to have helped even though I didn't get anywhere!  We wouldn't have found it in airhistory even had we been looking for a DH6 as the entry for C9400 is completely bare apart from identifying the aircraft make and model, so I don't feel bad about not finding it or having given up part way through the B's! Just shows the scarcity of info on machines serving at home compared to those abroad.  Amazing that mickdavis had access to the pilot's log book and so could identify it.

 

Edited 17 October , 2019 by pierssc

[mickdavis]

CCI has hundreds of photographic copies of logbooks, including Uwins'. They are an invaluable resource that has enabled me to compile of fairly complete serial listings for training types which don't seem to be of interest to many WWI aviation enthusiasts - my main interest is in what happened at home; training, Home Defence and Marine Operations. Copy of the relevant logbook pages attached.

[pierssc]

1 hour ago, mickdavis said:

CCI has hundreds of photographic copies of logbooks, including Uwins'. They are an invaluable resource that has enabled me to compile of fairly complete serial listings for training types which don't seem to be of interest to many WWI aviation enthusiasts

 

That's very interesting @mickdavis - are these available online to members, on CD, print, or what?

[mickdavis]

they're part of the CCI Archive, for which our Committee is trying to secure a secure host organisation, so that it can be made available to members for study. In the meantime, I'm only too willing to help with individual queries.

[pierssc]

Thank you very much Mick - that sounds as if it should be a fantastic resource.  And presumably they are still collecting them?

[Robbo1966]

Thank you for the extra comments, both of you.

 

mickdavis - I really do appreciate you sharing a copy of the log book page, it is a vital part of the propeller history so I am going to print it off and keep it together.

 

Thank goodness for genuine enthusiasts and the Great War forum.

 

 

Rob

[Tim Hill]

Hi Rob

 

I only just saw this thread today - I too have been looking at this incident as part of research that I am doing into aviation in Bath.

 

You mentioned that you would like an image of the machine - in fact there was one published in the Bath Chronicle on 16th March 1918 (I assume you have access to the Newspaper Archive since your original post quoted the text of the article of the 9th). The image is very heavily retouched but it is taken from the front and it shows the broken propeller very clearly). 

 

If you search the Newspaper Archive using the terms 'War Bonds' and/or 'Henshaw' for March 1918 there are several articles regarding the War Bond drops over Bath during that period. 

 

Kind regards

 

Tim

[Robbo1966]

Hi Tim,

 

Many thanks for the response. No I don’t actually have access to the Newspaper Archive - my post was quoting information found for me by a member of another forum. Do you personally have a copy of it, or is it something I would need to sign up and search the archive for as I would dearly love to add a photo to the log book entry and propeller to make the story complete?!

 

Regards,

 

Rob

Edited 25 November , 2019 by Robbo1966

[Tim Hill]

Hi Rob

 

Sent you a P.M. last evening on this one....

 

Kind regards

 

Tim  

[Ambrose1961]

Rob,

A bit of a curved ball here out of the blue - hope you are OK with it.

Born in 1961 and adopted at 11 days old, in 2010 I found out that my real father was….. a Bernard Ambrose Wheatley born 10.06.10 died 1994.

By all accounts indeed a legendary womaniser!

I know a bit about him and have a few pics - would be great to share info.

I just found you googling his name somewhat absentmindedly figuring with it having been a fair few years since I last had a dig around online it might be worth a look - hence how I saw a post by you on a forum (not this one I don’t think) asking for some info on Bernard.

I have just tried messaging you but it seems I’m only permitted to send 0 messages per day /-: …..

Look forward to hearing back from you hopefully.

Cheers,

Michael

 

[Michelle Young]

You can send a private message once you have made one post. 

[Ambrose1961]

Thank you Michelle.