Carrick. Great pics. How do you like the Spad 13?

Lou, great to see Artemus back in the air. I'd love to get a hold of a Snipe to close out the war!

Robert, thanks for posting. I like to end my day by catching up on your vids.

Jack Cairns is not finding many Huns these days, but is nearly at 150 hours and now has 36 kills.

The last few days of July were quiet. The administration work held me to one flight a day most days.

On 29 July we attacked the Hun balloon line near Bapaume and destroyed two of the gasbags, Farrow and Heaton getting credit (although I think I probably downed Heaton’s as it nearly blew me up). On the return trip we were separated, and I encountered a lone triplane. The Hun pilot was very keen. We scrapped for about ten minutes before he climbed away. I wasn’t inclined to follow. We lost Second Lieut Bath from A Flight. Ness, who had been missing since the previous day, returned safely to us that afternoon.

I joined an afternoon patrol on the 30th, a C.O.P. east of Béthune. We attacked six Rumplers, and the lads downed three of them. My dreadful luck with two-seaters continued – mine simply would not fall.

On the morning of the 31st I led Captain Rose’s flight down to Lechelle, a good twenty miles into Hunland. We saw nothing.

Vanessa wrote often. She was working on a series of articles about women’s war service for The Graphic. Her mother was coming around to the idea of her walking out with an airman, she claimed, but I would take some convincing. I wondered if I should propose to her, but in my more rational moments I told myself how little we yet really knew one another. I could apply for leave to get to Britain and I was more than due a posting to HE, but after my recent medical leave applying for leave seemed wrong and I had a perverse desire to see out the war. You could sense that something big was up. The roads were clogged with horses and waggons and soldiers. Rumours of a big push were everywhere. I would bide my time.

August began hot and gloriously clear. On 1 August we were ordered to mount an attack on the Hun airfield at Bernes, far to the south near Péronne. A push-related job, we thought. We hadn’t done low work in more than a month, not since the last gasp of the German offensive. I didn’t feel good about this show and told Tommy Rose that if he didn’t mind, I’d lead the flight. We took off just after seven in the morning and set course for Albert, then southwest. I checked the sky methodically for ninety minutes solid but there was not a Hun to be found. Over Bernes our seven SEs made a shallow dive from 8000 feet down to 3000 and let go our bombs. We watched as they exploded among the hangars. Rose claimed an Albatros destroyed on the ground. The lack of air-Huns was anticlimactic.

On 2 August we were back to south side of the Somme, this time escorting a lone RE8 from No 59; it was conducting a lengthy artillery shoot. We circled overhead while the Harry Tate did its leisurely work, and then saw it back to the lines. Once it had crossed over safely, I led the fellows back to Hunland and we patrolled north. Near Bray-sur-Somme I spotted some distant specks dancing about the sky at 11000 feet and turned to investigate. It was our other flight mixing with four Fokkers. We joined the party. I picked out a blue and yellow machine that was on the tail of an SE and got a good crack at it from close range. The Hun fell in a flat spin, but I could not follow it.

More Fokkers now joined the scrap. I was amazed by how split-arse these new machines were. They changed direction in a heartbeat, and more than once I came within inches of colliding with them. I put some rounds into two other Fokkers with no apparent effect.

We were getting low on fuel and most of our fellows broke off, so I followed. As I approached the lines climbing back through 6000 feet, I saw a Fokker tracking behind an SE down low. The SE seemed unaware of the danger. I dived on the Hun and closed to 50 yards before firing. The machine fell out of control. The SE jockey was Tommy Rose. We headed home together.

As we crossed over no man’s land, Tommy waggled his wings and pointed behind us. A lone Fokker was following about 1500 yards behind, the sun at his back. We passed through some low cloud. Tommy continued straight and I climbed behind the cloud, ready to ambush the Hun. The Fokker emerged seconds later and I fell on its tail. The Hun zoomed straight up and disappeared.

Alone now, I set course northwest for home. Just as I passed over our lines, I noticed a machine heading east, down around 500 feet. I turned and dived. It was a lone Fokker, mainly blue. I fired all my remaining ammunition into it and it began to smoke. It tried to plane home, but soon fell out of control and crashed into the trees along the Somme River, just behind our lines.

Back in Izel, I claimed two DDOOC and one destroyed. Unfortunately, neither of the first two could be confirmed, but the third counted as my thirty-sixth official kill.


"I picked out a blue and yellow machine that was on the tail of an SE and got a good crack at it from close range."


"It tried to plane home, but soon fell out of control and crashed into the trees along the Somme River, just behind our lines."