Flight Lt Alex Ackworth - RNAS 4 - Coudekerque - 24 July 1916 (Mission 24)

Today a cold front has reached the north of France. The sky is grey, low and it's raining. It clears up a little in the afternoon, still with showers, and I take off with Flight Cdr Whealdon for a bombing of ground units east of Ypres. My plane is still at Bailleul and they gave me one from the reserve.

We meet our escort of 2 DH2s on the way, and as usual they fall behind. Because of the weather we fly at only 6000 ft looking for the holes in the cloud cover. We get to our objective, drop our bombs and turn around. No german plane in sight !

We fly over Ypres on the way back when my engine starts to loose power and make strange noises... Oh no, not again ! Seems like there is a price to pay for using silver bullets !

I cut down on the power and we idle gently down to Abeele airfield. While John and I have a warm tea and fruit cake (it is around 5 o'clock) the ground crew comes in with the news : the engine is fubar and the repair will take 4 days. Another return to Coudekerque by road ... By tomorrow, I hope someone will have flown my plane back from Bailleul !

The only good news is that I made the 25.67 hours. Another evening of drinks on me !

Last edited by corsaire31; 07/24/14 09:55 PM.

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