Recently discovered interview with RFC Camel pilot

[BOB ROBBINS]

Captain Howard Brokensha talking about his experiences in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Audiotape recording made on the 27th March 1977 by Anna Malinovska at Captain Brokensha’s garage in Sheen, south-west London.

I was always very keen on flying, and saw some of the very early attempts at it in my youth. When I resigned from my occupation as a relief-shift engineer at a big power station, I came up and applied for a commission in the Flying Corps. That was early in 1915. They said “Oh, no. It’s no good at all, because we’ve got a long waiting-list; there are thousands of people wanting to join. All you can do is to wait.” I went into munitions, making TNT in Hackney. One day I was walking down the Strand, and I met an old fellow engineer and asked him “What are you doing in uniform?” He said “I’ve just got my commission.” I asked “How did you do it?” and he said “Well, you just get your papers and qualifications together, and go down to Whitehall to see General So-and-so. Immediately I went down there with my record of service and engineering qualifications. I met a very old general there, who looked through them and said “That’s alright, my boy.” He submitted my papers for a commission in the Field Engineers. I stayed with them for about six months and went through all their courses, bridge-building &c. One day, a notice came down from HQ calling for volunteers for the Flying Corps. Of course, I immediately put my name in, and I was transferred.

After initial training at Reading, where we did all the technical stuff, I was sent out to Egypt, where I flew Maurice Farman Shorthorns. They were relatively easy machines to fly, but my favourite had to be the Sopwith Camel; once you got used to a Camel, you could do anything with it. I trained by flying round the pyramids. Egypt was very interesting. You had to watch the wind indicator very carefully, though, as the wind used to shift a lot. One day, a chap had gone up, and whilst he was up there the wind completely changed direction. When he tried to land, the wind was behind him and he landed with his nose wedged into the doors of one of the sheds. Thankfully he wasn’t injured.

After Egypt, they sent us back to England and I was posted to Upavon for training on the Martinsydes that they had there at the time. They put us through our paces and we qualified. One day we were doing fighting practice with my instructor, and I dived on him. He ticked me off terribly when we got back! Anyway, that gave me the entrée to a fighter squadron. Shortly after I qualified we were sent out to France. I went to No. 3 Squadron which was stationed at Albert, fairly near Amiens. There we were flying Morane Parasols. You had to be exceptionally careful with those because they were welded with one big wing, though they carried two passengers, a fighter pilot and a gunner at the back with the ammunition and everything. They were very efficient but very slow. When I got to the squadron and was going to take one up, the CO said “Don’t you stunt that machine on any account; you’ll break it up.” It was a very difficult plane to land. You had to land at at least 70 mph. It had bicycle wheels, and if you landed on them heavily, they just splayed out.

Once, we were out with the Moranes, and I had a Canadian observer in the back with a Lewis gun. He was supposed to protect my back. We were returning from patrol, and suddenly two Huns appeared, firing away like mad. I started waving, because I couldn’t possibly dive – not in those Moranes, as the engine would have parted from the fuselage. The observer used to communicate with me by thumping on my helmet. He did this, shouting “Dive! Dive! Dive!” I said “Shoot, you bloody fool!” He didn’t like all those tracers flying round him and he panicked. All I could do was weave as fast as I could and lose height until we got back over our side of the lines. The Huns followed us nearly all the way back, but we didn’t get hit. I had the observer sent back; clearly he couldn’t stand the strain of combat.

When we had a day off, we’d go into the nearest town. That was our recreation. In the mess, we were living in Nissen huts; it was rather primitive. One amusing incident I remember happened while we were stationed at Albert. We were short of milk, so we bought a cow. One of our men was a farmer’s son, and he was able to milk it. We got orders to move further down south, so this cow was put in one of our vans, and when she arrived, the poor old thing was so shaky on her legs, that she could hardly walk. Then we lost our batman who could milk, so we had to get a French girl from a nearby farm to come and milk the thing. Eventually we sold it.

After a while we were moved down the line to Auxelles. We were rather lucky, as we were in a quiet zone for the first three or four months. Then things livened up a bit, and we started getting contact with Richthofen’s ‘Circus’ and all that crowd. We finally ended up in the Cambrai show, which is where I was shot down. You’d go out on patrol, and if you were lucky, you’d come back alright. I didn’t have any solo victories, but I had a share in three. We had plenty of scraps, but weren’t record-breakers in terms of getting the Germans down. They were much faster than we were; their Albatroses and Fokkers could dive at over 300 mph, whereas our maximum was about 180. The thing was to turn round and fight them. We could always out-turn them, but they were more powerful. They were pretty good, I must say. I was leading a patrol of twelve, and we’d been out for about an hour, patrolling over the lines. We were making our way up the line, not expecting an attack (as it had been rather quiet) and flying with our backs to the late afternoon sun. I turned round and spotted a flight of sixteen Germans up above us, just about to come down and dive. The only way I could signal to the squadron, was to waggle my wings, which I did as violently as I could, and turned to face the Germans. There was a terrible dogfight, with twelve of us against sixteen of them. Very soon they’d got two of our fellows down, then it quietened a bit, and I looked round and saw another of our chaps in trouble, surrounded by three or four Huns. I thought I’d better go to him. My wing-men did not follow me, so I went alone. By the time I got there, this fellow had gone down and the four Germans set on me. We had a terrific fight. I was firing my Vickers guns at a German, but the bullets were going behind him. We were so close that I could see his face. He was the leader, and sported a black flag on his fuselage. Anyway, I thought “This is no good!” I was in a very tight spin and I determined to get one good burst in. I lowered my sights a bit, fired, and saw my bullets go into the back of his fuselage. While I was trying to recover from my spin, I felt a sudden terrific shock, and I took a bullet through my leg. We were at 12000 feet. I had a running fight, with three Huns on my tail. They were diving at me, and as they came close I turned round and loosed off at them. I got a bit scared, as I could feel the blood running down my leg. They chased me down to 200 feet. I crossed the lines and found an advance landing-ground where we always kept a mechanic, and landed quite safely. As the mechanic helped me out of the cockpit, I looked down, and behind the back of my seat, in the plywood next to the petrol tank, was a beautiful group of four bullet holes.

After three or four months in hospital I was transferred to Chester as an instructor. I didn’t return to France, but was sent out to Malta to wind up a squadron that was acting as support for a seaplane squadron there. At Chester I had another crash. I had my flight sergeant rig a new Camel and I took it up. When I got back, I said to him “I don’t like it.” He asked “What’s the matter, Sir?” I said “I want it checked all over; there’s something wrong.” I thought it felt ‘slippery’. It didn’t respond properly. The next day, the mechanic said “I’ve checked everything, and I can’t find anything wrong.” I had it painted up in black and white checks for a change (you were allowed to do that over here, but not overseas.) Then I took a pupil up for fighter instruction. When we were about 2000 feet up he got on my tail. He was pretty good. I put my plane in a spin, and to my horror, it wouldn’t come out. I tried all the usual tricks to get it out, kicking the rudder, and all that sort of thing. When a machine gets into a spin like that, it creates a vacuum. I shoved the stick right down, so it would bring the tail over my head, got out of the spin, and came down over a wheat field at about 150 mph, which was fast for those days. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground with the machine on top of me. My wheels had caught on the high wheat, and this had spun me over.

Generally I felt safer in the air than on the ground, but landing and take-off were often the most dangerous manœuvres. Once, I crashed because I came in lazily over a bridge and turned up on my nose. It didn’t do much damage, just bent the propeller a bit. During the Cambrai show, when we lost so many pilots, I came back from one patrol and they put us on bombing. There were four bombs under the wings of the scouts, and we had to go and bomb over the trenches. I came back once and a bomb had blown an enormous hole in one of my wings. I was just on top of the trenches, and the engine cut out for a few moments. I thought “This is it!” and looked around for a shell-hole to land in, but the engine picked up again and I got back to the aerodrome. We had a group of German prisoners working there in the field, filling in the holes. They were all grinning, as my machine was practically a wreck.

One of my pupils crashed very badly indeed. He was a bit slow, and I’d spent rather a long time taking him up. He had managed several good landings, however, without my touching the controls, so I said to him “Do you think you’re ready to take her up on your own?” He said “Yes, I think so.” I said “Don’t choke the engine, whatever you do!” These old Clerget engines ran on castor oil, and if you choked them, you’d stall. I sent this pupil right down the end of the field, to give him a long run. He had to cross a railway line. Although he had repeatedly crossed this line with me, when he came to it, he panicked. He opened up the engine, choked it, and crashed down onto the embankment, injuring himself horribly. It was very sad. We used to tell the trainees “If you’re going to stall, don’t turn back, but keep straight ahead.” Had that young man kept going, he’d have been safe.

When I went over to the Cambrai show, we were supposed to leave at five o’clock in the morning, but the morning of the attack was so dull and misty that we couldn’t leave until about half an hour later. The tanks were still going towards the Cambrai canal, and we were flying on top of them. I could see many of them tipped over onto their sides. Then we flew over the barrage. The guns were going hell for leather. We were unable to get up above 150 feet because of the mist. We were going in to attack a German aerodrome about twelve miles over the other side. When we got there, there were several machines on the tarmac, and we hosed them with bullets. Then we started to attack the mess huts and the hangars, too. We did this for about twenty minutes, before they were able to get any of their machines off the ground. There was a group of German officers there with a machine gun mounted on a pedestal, and as I went by they were blazing off at me. There were tracer rounds all over the place. I looked round, and saw three Huns on my tail. They had managed to get off the ground. It was so foggy and misty, and I was nearly out of petrol (having been out for an hour and a half) and I thought “I can’t possibly tangle it with you fellows; I’ve got to get home.” So I lost them. On my way back, I was flying very low over the treetops, and I came to a field where there was a body of about fifty Uhlans on horseback with their Pickelhaube helmets. They jumped off their horses and lay flat on the ground. I was doing about 100 mph, and was on top of them before I was able to do anything. I didn’t have much ammunition left anyway, and as I passed them, I just burst out laughing!

After demobilization things were very difficult. I was friendly with a major in our squadron, and we decided to put our gratuities together and form this garage. We gradually developed it, and I have been here ever since. Life had changed so much after I returned from the war. People had become disillusioned, and wondered what they had been fighting for. At the beginning the enthusiasm was terrific (quite different in the last war, though – it wasn’t the same feeling at all.) During the first war, if anyone saw you in ordinary clothes instead of uniform, they’d ask you why. I was travelling on a bus one day, during my time on munitions, and there was a drunk standing there. He said “Why aren’t you in the war? What are you doing here, a young fellow like you?” He took out a notebook, and I bashed it on the floor. The conductor came along and said “Come on, you… out!” That was the attitude then, you see – white feathers and all that sort of thing. It was strange to get back into civilian life. In the forces, everything was found for you; you didn’t have to worry about money or wages – it all came automatically. The pay wasn’t so bad. One day in France, my batman came to me and said “Do you know you’re entitled to some other allowances?” I said “What?” He said “Well, you were with a mounted regiment, and you’re entitled to a horse allowance of a shilling a day.” I put in for it, and I got it!

On the whole, I enjoyed my time with the Flying Corps. Relations were very good between the officers and the ground crews; the riggers and the mechanics were excellent and looked after us splendidly. The young pilots we were instructing were a good bunch, too. They’d ask “When am I going to pass through?” I’d say “When you can do proper landings.” They would invariably say “Well, the war will be over before I get out there.” Some of them did eventually get out there, though. We had quite big losses with pilots, and were sent new ones. Some of them came out with only two or three hours’ solo flying. We used to send them up and say “Now, don’t lose sight of this aerodrome!” The aerodrome was only a field with a couple of sheds. You’d watch a man up there and he’d suddenly disappear and land in Germany! Several of them landed over the German side of the lines, only five or so miles away.

I never flew again after the war, but I wish I’d had the chance to keep it up. The planes now are just a mass of machinery, aren’t they? After the war, a friend of mine took me down to Brooklands, where they were building all these Spitfires and Hurricanes. They were full of instruments! All we had was a speedometer, a Pitot tube for balance, and a little motor to supply pressure to the petrol tank. Of course, we had no parachutes in those days, and my biggest fear was catching fire and not being able to do anything about it. You couldn’t get out; you had to land with the machine.

Being in the RFC made a huge difference to my life. It brought me into a circle of people with whom I’d never mixed before, much more highly-educated people in the officer class. Getting into this circle was a great help and a great enlightenment into the way these people lived. When I was in the Engineers, I was stationed at Sheerness. Near us was the headquarters of the Royal Artillery, and they used to invite us to their mess. It was a marvellous experience for me to see the Royal Artillery mess, with all their silver and their long table, and to witness their ceremonial handing-round of the port! After the port had been circulated, the chief batman would roll a mat right down the length of the table. Then, the President would rap on the table and say “Gentlemen – The King!” I made a lot of friends among those people. That sort of culture was vastly different from what I’d been used to, and I found it very useful and very interesting.

I wouldn’t do it again. I haven’t become a pacifist, but I see the uselessness of this business. Look where it’s landed us! Germany, whom we beat – on top of the world. Japan, too – on top of the world. We, on the other hand, are living on borrowed money. I think its an absolutely deplorable situation, and entirely due to war. I’d never take part in another war. Of course, at the time, we felt it was our duty to defend our country; I’m glad I did it.

[john-g]

Bob,

Anna has recorded a number of interviews, some at least are held by the RAFM although not yet available to the public. Where do you find this little gem?

john_g

[BOB ROBBINS]

John -

Anna discovered the interview (audio only) a month ago while clearing out her studio. It was apparently the first interview she did with ex flying personnel. RAF Hendon has never come to a satisfactory arrangement for making Anna's footage generally available, but she does have copies of most of them on VHS.

Cheers,

Bob

[john-g]

Bob,

Thanks very much for the info. Anna interviewd a pilot I am interested in, I contacted the RAFM but they would not say much about the recordings. I will have to contact her again.

Cheers

john_g

[BOB ROBBINS]

John -

Which pilot interests you? I'm sure that Anna would be happy to be of help in any enquiries. Apparently, she has almost all of her filmed interviews with RFC chaps on VHS video.

Cheers,

Bob