stan Posted 12 September , 2006 Share Posted 12 September , 2006 If you go to: http://www.biggles-biplane.com and go to latest news there is a very interesting letter written by Bill on his VC action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowNslow Posted 12 September , 2006 Share Posted 12 September , 2006 If you go to: http://www.biggles-biplane.com and go to latest news there is a very interesting letter written by Bill on his VC action. Many thanks for the plug Stan!! Few realised it, but we're now just ten days past the ninetieth anniversary of the fateful night when Leefe Robinson despatched the German airship SL-11, for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Almost ninety years ago to the very night, we spent a highly entertaining - and we hope fruitful - several hours on Sywell aerodrome reconstructing the story for Empire Productions' forthcoming TV series on the story of the Victoria Cross medal. In the absence of our BE-2 (still coming on nicely) filming centred around Delta Aviation's Tiger Moth G-ADGT, for which we modified the cockpit and fitted a replica Lewis gun. The programme is due to be shown on Channel 5 in the UK, on 18th November. Many thanks to all "the Sywell crew" who became First World War 'erks' for the duration. With thanks to "Aircraftsman Damien Burke" a few shots of the filming are shown on our website www.biggles-biplane.com, along with a copy of Lt Leefe-Robinson's report. I still can't work out how he persuaded a BE-2c to 12,000 feet. He deserved his medal for that alone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebie9173 Posted 12 September , 2006 Share Posted 12 September , 2006 If you look in the Military History section of your local magazine emporium you will see an article on the downing of SL-11. I leave it to the experts to say how good it is... Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Roberts Posted 13 September , 2006 Share Posted 13 September , 2006 William Leefe Robinson's letter in Stan's link above is very similar to the account in Peter Cooksley's book "The Air VCs" - so similar that Cooksley must have used the letter as source material. However, WLR says that his BE was damaged by return fire from the Zeppelin's gunners (it was actually a Schutte-Lanz), whereas although Cooksley uses almost exactly the same wording, he changes it to suggest that WLR accidently damaged his aircraft with his own gun. For him to damage the aircraft himself, the gun must have had enough movement in its mounting to shoot through the upper wing, which seems unlikely judging by some photos in the book. But I am sure I read another account by WLR where he says that he saw no human activity on the airship - "like the Flying Dutchman". Any idea which is right? Cooksley also says the it is wrong to give WLR a double barrelled surname - the idea arises because all the Robinson children had Leefe as a second Christian name. Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowNslow Posted 13 September , 2006 Share Posted 13 September , 2006 ....WLR says that his BE was damaged by return fire from the Zeppelin's gunners (it was actually a Schutte-Lanz), whereas although Cooksley uses almost exactly the same wording, he changes it to suggest that WLR accidently damaged his aircraft with his own gun. For him to damage the aircraft himself, the gun must have had enough movement in its mounting to shoot through the upper wing..... Well he would have claimed it was enemy fire, otherwise he'd be charged for damaging His Majesty's property! It would all depend on the type of gun mounting that was fitted to the BE-2c in question. It seems possible that the BE-2 would be fitted with a gun mounted low on the right side of the fuselage, aligned away from the propeller, and designed to fire between the wings, or traverse upward behind the leading edge. It seems from his report that there was a wire guard to protect the wing, which mysteriously got damaged! If he was trying to traverse this gun upwards in the heat of battle, not to mention almost pitch darkness, it's not inconceivable that Leefe Robinson created his own "friendly fire". Either way, based on his comments on the resultant damage, he was lucky to get the aeroplane and himself back on the ground in one piece! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Roberts Posted 13 September , 2006 Share Posted 13 September , 2006 If he was trying to traverse this gun upwards in the heat of battle, not to mention almost pitch darkness, it's not inconceivable that Leefe Robinson created his own "friendly fire". I imagine it was something like this, but....: It seems possible that the BE-2 would be fitted with a gun mounted low on the right side of the fuselage, aligned away from the propeller, and designed to fire between the wings, or traverse upward behind the leading edge. It seems from his report that there was a wire guard to protect the wing, which mysteriously got damaged! If he was trying to traverse this gun upwards in the heat of battle, not to mention almost pitch darkness, it's not inconceivable that Leefe Robinson created his own "friendly fire". .....it seems that this BE had a gun firing upwards and over the wing : (see below) If the mounting pivoted at the dog-leg join just behind the struts, its still difficult to see how he could have hit his own centre-section. On the other hand, if bullets from the airship were coming in the reverse direction, they would probably have hit Robinson. Does anyone know of instances where the airship fired back at an attacker, successfully or not? The only example I can think of is that Warneford mentioned "the airship opened up with Maxim fire" in his report after destroying LZ37 Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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