Most incredible war in the air story you’ve heard

[J T Gray]

I'd say that there's a fair chance that he's your man.

Gareth,

I don't think he can be anyone but - thank you!

And to think he was commanding Debden while my Dad was watching Debden's Hurricanes!

Adrian

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Most of the incredible stories that have impressed me are from the RNAS.

On 21st November 1914 in an attack on the Zeppelin works in Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance, 3 RNAS officers: Squadron-Commander EF Briggs, Flight-Commander JT Babington and Flight-Lieutenant SV Sippe flying single seater aircraft flew 120 miles into German territory. The Germans had been informed of the approach and threw up a barrage of Anti Aircraft and Machine Gun fire, Sqn-Cdr Briggs was wounded and his petrol tank was pierced and had to land to be captured; but the other 2 flew back. They claimed to have destroyed a Zeppelin shed.

As a feat of navigation, that is impressive: thirty years later, the so-called precision bombers of the USAF bombed Switzerland instead of Germany. As a feat of endurance it was incredible: many accounts for the RFC’s arrival with the BEF in August emphasise the great feat of crossing the channel, less than a 10th of the distance the RNAS covered on that raid.

[Guest Gary Davidson]

per ardua per mare per terram --

Sounds like quite a saga for those RNAS pilots, one I’d like to read much more about. Any suggestions for reading matter on this event?

Gary

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Gary

Very little has been written about the RNAS, I took those details from a copy of the War Illustrated. There are pamphlets describing early RNAS operations, at the National Archives, in Air 1/671, Sir Walter Raleigh’s vol of The War in the Air covers the early period and Brad King’s The Royal Naval Air service, 1912-18 is a good overview. See also:

http://www.thehistorynet.com/ahi/blbritain...sea/index1.html

Fred

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Gary

The first raids against Zeppelin sheds targeted Düsseldorf and on Cologne on 22nd September 1914, but cloud cover got in the way for 3 out of 4 pilots.

Further attacks took place on 8th October. The weather again obscured the targets, but Flight Lt RGL Matrix managed to score a direct hit that destroyed Z9 and a dirigible shed at Düsseldorf. His fuel ran out 20 miles short of Antwerp and he returned ‘by a bicycle he got from a peasant and a car he got later’ (I wonder did they return the bicycle and the car? Report of Sqn Cdr SDA Grey, CAB 37/121/127 and Air 1/671). Squadron Commander SDA Grey couldn’t find the sheds at Cologne so bombed the railway station instead. Both he and Matrix flew over their targets at 600 feet! Imagine them navigating, flying and bombing single handed.

Details from a combination of Captain SW Roskill RN Documents Relating to the Naval Air Service and

http://www.thehistorynet.com/ahi/blbritain...sea/index1.html

Fred

[Guest Gary Davidson]

Fred --

Thanks for the reading reference.

Someone outta write a book covering this subject!

Gary

[per ardua per mare per terram]

There is also RD Layman Naval Aviation in the First World War

[PFF]

To March 10 report of Observer falling in and out of plane again in midair-

see the following reference:

Ripley's Believe It or Not 1929

.p.54 The Luckiest Man Alive

[Adrian Roberts]

Flight Lt RGL Matrix managed to score a direct hit that destroyed Z9 and a dirigible shed at Düsseldorf. His fuel ran out 20 miles short of Antwerp and he returned ‘by a bicycle he got from a peasant and a car he got later’ (I wonder did they return the bicycle and the car?

Reggie Marix's car was left for him at the base of 3 Wing RNAS; they had pulled out of Antwerp earlier that day. (Source: Sailor in the Sky, Autobiography of Vice Admiral Richard Bell-Davies VC - a great book if you can get it).

Don't forget also the first ever carrier-borne raid, by six Camels from the aircraft carrier Furious, 18th July 1918. They took off from near Jutland and bombed the Zeppelin sheds at Tondern, destroying the Zeppelins L54 & L60. With no radio and only compass and dead reckoning for navigation, and operating at extreme range, their chances of getting back to the carrier were slim. One pilot (Youlet) disapperared without trace. Three landed in Denmark when running low on fuel. Two others made it back to the Furious - but she was a converted battle-cruiser [a simplified description I won't go into now] and she didn't acquire a full-length flight deck until after the war. At that time she only had a take-off flight deck on the bows, so the Camel pilots had to ditch in the sea and be picked up. [One of these was William Dickson, later Marshal of the Royal Air Force].

The official accounts say six Camels were involved with two returning; Bell-Davies says there were seven with three returning: who do you trust - the official version, or the eye-witness writing decades later?

Apparently one the pilots who landed in Denmark, Williams, was on the verge of refilling his machine with petrol when he was arrested and taken to Copenhagen by an official. Left in an unlocked room, he took the official's bowler hat and coat off the hook, walked into the street, got to the British embassy, was put on a boat to Norway and another to Scotland, and rejoined Furious only 48 hours after she returned to port.

Adrian

[Dolphin]

Gary and Adrian

There's an excellent account of the Tondern Raid at:

http://www.casey.tgis.co.uk/web/dfc/dfc.htm

Cheers

Gareth

[bartbandyrfc]

Paul Hederer wrote

Wish I could remember the details, but I can't....

Story of Brisfit crew who landed their aircraft by crawling out on the wing after they had caught on fire and flying from there.

Perhaps someone can remember the details??

The British airman was a Canadian, 2LT Alan Arnett McLeod of Stonewall Manitoba. For this action, which took place on 21 March 1918, he was awarded the VC. He died later that year of Spanish Flu while recovering from his wounds in Canada.

Read the account and citation here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Arnett_McLeod

Regards,

Jim

[Adrian Roberts]

MacLeod and Hammond were flying an Armstrong Whitworth FK8, serial no. B5773, not a Brisfit.

However, I'd agree that McLeod's story must rank as one of the most heroic of the war. There was an article in Aeroplane Monthly recently on this. Details like the fact that the pain he was in [while still flying] caused him to vomit - you don't get much mention of that kind of thing in war histories, and it shows how far removed the experiences of the fighting man are from most of the rest of us.

Adrian

[Guest JIM EDWARDS]

This came from a WW1 pilot and passed on to me by the late Brian Trubshaw:

The aircraft in use was the Gamecock and on taking off from a very rough field, lost a wheel. Apparently this was a common problem on that type and posed a real hazard on landing. Of course this was before the use of radio, so another Gamecock was sent up with a passenger holding the lost wheel as a way of bringing to the attention of the first pilot that he had lost a wheel. Unfortunately the second Gamecock also lost a wheel so the first pilot saw the other aircraft formating alongside him with a wheel missing and the passenger apparently holding it above his head.

I did'nt enquire what the final outcome was!

[Guest Gary Davidson]

Jim --

That is a hilarious story! I can just see the visual of that. Poor ******* holding up the tire clueless that his own is missing, and the crew of the second plane thinking the guy holding the tire has somehow wound up with his own wheel in his hands. Priceless. Great story.

Gary

[stan]

Did you know that among the Naval flyers they reffered to the RNAS as "Rather Naughty After Sunset" ?

As for unusal stories there is the one of the squadron member who "appeared" in a squadron photo two days after he was killed........

[TD60]

I like this 'peacful' story extracted from:

http://www.leachintl.com/heritage/heritage-6-2001.html

It was January 26. He was stationed with the Storks at Cachy. Hunting for the enemy about 12,000 feet over Chaulnes, Guynemer was suddenly surprised by a two-seater Albatros firing at him from behind. Maneuvering "Vieux Charles" away from the gunfire, he got under the Germans and let go ten quick shots. Then his Vickers gun jammed for keeps.

Both planes dipped 4,000 feet. Guynemer flew above the Albatros, then dove for it — for all the world like a man who was about to shoot. Keeping less than 30 feet behind the German, Guynemer chased it toward the French lines. All the time, the two were getting closer to the ground.

Finally, 300 feet above the French lines, the observer on the Albatros signaled surrender and the Germans landed. It was not the first time than an airplane surrendered in the air. But it was the first time that one surrendered to an unarmed pilot!

_______________________________________________

note: the german plane was burnt by his crew before frenchs cpould stop them.

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mairiederemy/image...nemerpensif.jpg

[aodhdubh]

Actually, I remeber a case, in the last decade, where a pilot passed out, and his aeroplane (fixed gear, fortunately) flew on 'til it ran out of fuel, when it gently set itself down in an open field.

Not that bizarre, but one of the most mind-boggling, to me, was the Somers Isles (Bermuda) fighter pilot, Arthur Rowe Spurling, who single-handedly attacked thirty German fighter planes in 1918, shooting down five of them.

Why that didn't rate a VC, I don't know (he was awrded a DFC). Probably because he was insane, at the time.

Actually, it's a bit bizarre that twenty Bermudians became military or naval aviators during the Great War, considering there were no motor ground vehicles in Bermuda, at the time, and no airfields.

Motor vehicles were still, largelly, illegal, there, in WWII, but that disn't stop hundreds of Bermudian aircrew serving in the RAF and RCAF in that war.

If your curious, this is another of the cacophony of topics on my very incomplete site...

Great War Bermudian aviators

Bermuda RFC RNAS

And, Spurling, himself

Sqn Ldr A.R. Spurling, DFC

Sean

[Dolphin]

Sean

An extract from RAF Communiqué No 21, which refers to the 23 August 1918 exploit of Lt A R Spurling and Sgt Frank William Bell, is below. No 49 Sqn, together with Nos 27 and 107 Sqns, was engaged in bombing the railway centre at Valenciennes.

Lt Spurling and Sgt Bell were flying in DH 9 D3056, and had been credited with shooting down an enemy aeroplane from it on 25 July. The five victories on 23 August brought their totals to 6; they ended the War with that number. Above the War Fronts indicates that their opponents on 23 August were all Fokker D.VIIs over Lens between 1915 and 1916 hrs ; two were thought to be destroyed by flames, two were destroyed, while the fifth was sent down out of control. The Jasta War Chronology doesn't link any German losses with the action.

After 23 August D3056 was re-built by the Repair Park at No 2 Aircraft Supply Depot on 26 August and incorrectly re-numbered F6452 - a number already allocated to a Sopwith Camel. It was then re-numbered again as H7065 and delivered to No 108 Sqn where it was damaged while landing on 21 October.

Regards

Gareth

[aodhdubh]

Thanks immensely for that. Gareth. I'd a number of period articles, none of which mentioned the precise details of the action, including what machines were flying. I'd rather assumed he must have been in something other than a DH9, although i knew that's what his squadron was equipped with, because, although that aeroplane was notable for exceeding its role, it didn't seem likely to be used in an attack on thirty proper fighter planes and to survive the encounter.

Spurling was originally a rifleman in the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps, which sent to contingents to serve with 1 Lincolns in France. He was one of a number to receive commissions in Europe (in addition to the two who had left Bermuda with commissions in the BVRC). As those receiving commissions were given the option of Regiment to be commissioned into, and as the BVRC contingent couldn't absorb more officers, due to its size, they went to a number of other units. Most probably stayed with the Lincolns, but at least two went into the RFC.

There's a photo on my site of the First Contingent of the BVRC, taken while training at Warwick Camp, in Bermuda, during the Winter of 1914/1915, on my site. It's a bad copy, so squint really hard, but you'll find Spurling in it.

BVRC First Contingent to 1 Lincolns, 1915.

Also, what I have typed out, so far, in my efforts to transcribe all local, period articles relating to Bermuda and the War online:

The Royal Cazette, 8 Sept, '14 - Call for volunteers for Front

And

The Royal Gazette, 8 Dec., 1914 - 100 men accepted, training begins today.

And

Spurling doesn't seem to have joined the Contingent at the time this list was published

The Royal Gazette - Unknown date-1914/15- List of Volunteers for the Front.

There's quite a bit more, but I'll stop myself before I get carried away..too late

The First Contingent was pulled together amidst a shortage of manpower, as the bulk of the BVRC was pressed to meet its obligations as part of the Garrison, and was really exceeding itself by raising a draft for the Front as well.

Due to a lack of officers, the role of Adjutant to the Contingent, while training at Warwick Camp, was filled by the Colony's Governor and C-in-C, Lt Gen Bullock. Here, he appeals for recruits... the BVRC was seeking new recruits, specifically for the Front, and not just from within its existing ranks.

The Royal Gazette, 26 Jan, 1915 -Appeal for Recruits

The Royal Gazette, 29 May, 1915 - Notice of arrival of Contingent in England

This reminds me that I've a lot of typing to catch up on...

[aodhdubh]

Incidently, if that interested anyone, look at this thread, also

Bermudian Aviators: Help Wanted...