'Winged Victory' V.M Yeates

[Mark Hone]

I have just been reading this as part of my 90th anniversary attempt to read some books relevant to 1918. I'm ashamed to say that I've had it for several years without reading it but I was very impressed. A bit long and repetitive, but the daily drudgery and danger over a prolonged period is one of the themes of the book. It is a very thinly disguised autobiography of Yeates' time in 46 Squadron in 1918. Yeates died young of TB in the 1930s. I was interested to read on another forum that doubts have been cast on the originality of some of the book-suggestions that it was at least partly 'ghosted' by Yeates' good friend Henry Williamson were apparently made by 46 Squadron veterans, who felt that some of the moralising and philosophical speculation in the book did not chime with the Victor Yeates they knew. Shades of Robert Graves and 'Old Soldiers Never Die'. I don't know the provenance of this, but Williamson was a champion of the book and a character called Williamson appears in the book, as does a character called Tom Cundall (the hero of 'Winged Victory', i.e. Yeates himself) in Williamson's 'A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight'. I'd be interested in other pals opinions of the book. Interesting that Yeates himself seems to have been very dismissive of the early more adult, Biggles stories of W.E. Johns, describing 'The Camels are Coming' as 'super-bunk'!

[IanA]

It is perfectly true that Henry Williamson helped to rewrite 'Winged Victory'. It was originally to be called 'Adjustment' and centred around 'the improvement of moral conditions'. Both Williamson and the publishers who saw the book agreed that it could not be published in that state and Yeates was persuaded to concentrate on the flying details.

A superb book has been published which goes into Yeates and his war service in great detail. It is called 'Winged Victor' by Gordon F. Atkin and is published by Springwater Books (ISBN 0-9546881-0-4).

[charlesmessenger]

Mark

I have read Winged Victory some four or five times over the years. I personally think it magnificent and really captures what life must have been like in a Scout squadron. I almost feel that I could now fly a Sopwith Camel!

Charles M

[ianw]

Yes, it's a fine book - I was not aware of the Williamson connection - I am wading through "The Golden Virgin" at the moment. I think the Yeates is better.

[IanA]

I am wading through "The Golden Virgin" at the moment. I think the Yeates is better.

Wading? Wading??????

[ianw]

Sorry Ian , I desperately want to like the Williamson books but find them rather stilted and a rather uninspiring read. It must be just me.

[salientguide]

Sorry Ian , I desperately want to like the Williamson books but find them rather stilted and a rather uninspiring read. It must be just me.

Indeed but each man to his own taste and be honest enough to give ones opinion as expressed.

.The Williamson books are part of a huge series The Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight. starting of from his paremts first relationship in late Victorian Britain going through to the Second World War ending at the Lynmouth flood disaster ?1953. As well as his more famous nature books, Tarka the Otter Salar the Salmon Williamson was a driven man churning these wonderful books out at the rate of almost one a year.

They can be difficult and in places a bit tiresome, as most centre around his rather sad relationship with his bullying, prissy anally retentive father and his long suffering mother and strange bitter sister. But the five volumes that deal semi-autobiographically with his heros Phillip Madison

involvement in WW1 are superb. In the first he joins a London Scottish territorial unit for social reasons but in Aug is mobilised and ends up on the Messines Ridge Halloween 1914. You won,t find a finer bit of descriptive prose of what that was like. In others he makes no secret of his heroes dealings to try and get out of the fighting, volunteering for gas duties at Loos,at one point applying for a commission with a labour battalion of navvies! Full of stuff like that

Yes you,ve guessed it I,m a fan!

Winged Victory contains large sections of Williamsons writing and prose, very recogniseable. Was this not because the author was dying of TB or similar and this was to help his family and children?

SG

[ianw]

Yes, SG, I am currently half-way through "The Golden Virgin" and chronogically am at 28/6/16. Of course, the WW1 content is intrinsically interesting and I too appreciate his honesty relating to avoiding the fighting. However, I find the writing rather Second Division - indeed Southern League in parts. But I shall see him through to the end of the war even though each volume costs me a £ to get out of the library reserve collection - I think that gives an idea of his current status as a writer - not good enough to be generally read.

[IanA]

As a member of the editorial committee of the Henry Williamson Society you would expect me to defend him but sometimes, I admit, his introspection and self-pity are hard to bear. This only slightly detracts from his wonderful descriptive powers. His served, of course, both as a private soldier and as an officer with the MGC and much of his writing is based on personal experiences. We mustn't hijack Mark's post.

[alex revell]

I have just been reading this as part of my 90th anniversary attempt to read some books relevant to 1918. I'm ashamed to say that I've had it for several years without reading it but I was very impressed. A bit long and repetitive, but the daily drudgery and danger over a prolonged period is one of the themes of the book. It is a very thinly disguised autobiography of Yeates' time in 46 Squadron in 1918. Yeates died young of TB in the 1930s. I was interested to read on another forum that doubts have been cast on the originality of some of the book-suggestions that it was at least partly 'ghosted' by Yeates' good friend Henry Williamson were apparently made by 46 Squadron veterans, who felt that some of the moralising and philosophical speculation in the book did not chime with the Victor Yeates they knew. Shades of Robert Graves and 'Old Soldiers Never Die'. I don't know the provenance of this, but Williamson was a champion of the book and a character called Williamson appears in the book, as does a character called Tom Cundall (the hero of 'Winged Victory', i.e. Yeates himself) in Williamson's 'A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight'. I'd be interested in other pals opinions of the book. Interesting that Yeates himself seems to have been very dismissive of the early more adult, Biggles stories of W.E. Johns, describing 'The Camels are Coming' as 'super-bunk'!

I met Mrs Yeates and a daughter in, I think, the late 60s or early 70s. Williamson was not liked by them. They considered he had tried horn in on Winged Victory to take part of the credit. A friend borrowed the MS of Winged Victory from them but I am no longer in touch with him. I would be interesting to have read it and seen what was cut and what was added. In my opinion, Yeates was a far better writer per se, than Williamson. Not to say that Williamson wasn't a good writer, but not in Yeates' class. Wonderful book. Many old pilots from the war told me that that was exactly what it was like for the ordinary pilots, as distinct from the books by the aces.

[IanA]

I have to disagree with you here. I have never met Mrs Yeates or any of the family but I do know that Victor Yeates himself had mixed views about HW. On the one hand, Williamson was altering a manuscript which Yeates had laboured over: on the other hand, there is no doubt that Williamson gave much help and took no reward for it. Indeed he helped Yeates out financially. He also secured a brilliant 'puff' for the book from T.E. Lawrence.

There would also be no need for HW to 'horn in' on 'Winged Victory' - he had just been awarded the prestigious Hawthornden Prize for literature and was riding very high indeed at that time. In order for you to compare Yeates and Williamson I presume that you know which sections were written by Yeates and which by Williamson?

[alex revell]

I have to disagree with you here. I have never met Mrs Yeates or any of the family but I do know that Victor Yeates himself had mixed views about HW. On the one hand, Williamson was altering a manuscript which Yeates had laboured over: on the other hand, there is no doubt that Williamson gave much help and took no reward for it. Indeed he helped Yeates out financially. He also secured a brilliant 'puff' for the book from T.E. Lawrence.

There would also be no need for HW to 'horn in' on 'Winged Victory' - he had just been awarded the prestigious Hawthornden Prize for literature and was riding very high indeed at that time. In order for you to compare Yeates and Williamson I presume that you know which sections were written by Yeates and which by Williamson?

Iana. No. I'm only quoting what I was told by Mrs Williamson and her daughter. For whatever reason they had no liking of Williamson.