Fullofit, I'm delighted to meet Aldi. I just hope that Colin doesn't meet his DIII for a while. Here is the latest from Colin Urquhart...

A Journal of the Great War

Part 19

I have filled my first notebook with recollections and am still in one piece so I suppose I can count myself lucky.

Since my last flight on 27 December we have had nothing but low cloud, very strong winds, and rain or wet snow. We brought in the New Year across the way with 23 Squadron, the Fee jockeys. I enjoyed a few drinks with a fellow Canadian, Eddie MacKay, whom I was told was under attack by the famous Boelke at the time of the German’s collision and death. I was not in a raucous mood and spent much of the later evening smoking by the fire and chatting with a new boy, Duckett. He is a public school type, son of a banker, and is finding the whole business of war “topping” and “ripping.” But I sense he is a learner and will do well if he gets through the first two weeks of real flying weather.
The New Year’s Promotions List is in and MacKenzie has made substantive Flight Commander, a well-deserved recognition. Booker and Compston and Grange are all substantive Flight Lieutenants, and our ever dutiful Armaments Officer, O’Hagan, is promoted Lieutenant, RNVR.

The weather wore on us. My efforts as a French teacher continued, but has become a drudgery. I fear my star student Dalgliesh will soon speak the language better than I do, as he is rumoured to be getting extra lessons from his “wee Mary,” the milkmaid from up the road. The man is a troglodyte, and it stuns me that any pretty thing could tolerate the sight or smell of him for long, but let me not to the marriage of true minds (or at least one mind and a lump of Glasgow pavement) admit impediment, as the Bard says.

After a couple of days without the Canadian Mail being delivered, on New Year’s Day I received a lovely package from home. No tobacco or alcohol, of course, but a tin of biscuits, a couple of decent books, and – joy of joys – a real Hudson’s Bay blanket to add a dash of colour to my cabin and to keep out the chill and dampness.

2 January 1917 dawned blustery and dull, with heavy snow driven by a northeast wind. I planned to sleep in under the new blanket and appear only for lunch, but Lieut D’Albiac himself rousted me out of bed at quarter to eight, shouting that a flight of marauding Hun scouts had been seen flying west over Bellevue and that I was to lead a patrol on a line from Doullens to Albert, “just in case the blighters are adventurous.”

I threw on a fleece pullover and my old cable-knit sweater and pulled a pair of corduroy trousers over my pyjamas, then I added two pairs of woolen socks and my boots, and finally I grabbed my leather flying coat, mitts, goggles, and scarf and waddled out to the hangar. Booker, Little, Compston, and a new fellow we already in their cockpits. It was a thrill to see the streamers affixed to the trailing struts of the Pup.

Leading Mechanic Black was doing the honours for me this morning. The cylinders were primed. “Switch off?” he shouted.

“Switch off. Suck in,” I shouted back.

LM Black pulled the prop against the engine compression. “Contact!” he called.

“Contact!” I replied, and closed the switch. The Le Rhône burbled into life, its rumble becoming quickly more forceful and steady. I waved my arms to the sides and the chocks were pulled away. The Pup’s tail rose quickly and the wheels banged on the frozen, snow-crusted earth. The falling flakes whipped past, stinging like needles around my goggles. I’d come away without my balaclava and I’d had no time to grease up. I huddled low behind the small windscreen. A glance behind showed that the flight of five Pups were already up and straining to gain formation. I throttled back and climbed at 75 knots eastward towards Doullens.

I did not have to wait long. Three minute after take-off, the houses of Doullens emerged from the snowy half-mist. The buildings themselves did not stand out so much, as the snow on the rooftops blended with the snow on the roadways and gardens. It was more the smoke from the chimneys that made the town noticeable.

There was movement! Dead ahead about a mile, and perhaps a few hundred feet below. Seven specks moving across the white-grey background. They were turning from a westerly to a southerly heading. I waggled my wings and opened the throttle, tingling with excitement. We were still too far away to identify the machines when two of the specks broke away eastward and the others turned towards us. They were definitely German machines. The two were probably rookies, under orders to head for safety at first contact.

We closed quickly and I could make out the pok-pok-pok of machine guns as we met. I held fire, waiting for a better shot. A brown and green machine passed close to startboard, banking hard. It had squared wing-tips and a tapered snout: Halberstadt scouts, they were. I threw the Pup into a vertical bank and turned to give chase.

The Pup was a joy in a fight like this. There was no hint of wanting to stall, and it could follow the Halberstadts in a climbing turn where my old Nieuport would have fallen out of the sky. There were aircraft everywhere. A Pup climbed directly in front of me, so close I nearly flew into its belly. I banked in the opposite direction, for I’d lost my Hun.

“Thwack! Thwack!” Rounds hit my port wings, although I could not tell where they came from. I continued to turn as tightly as possible. A Halberstadt was climbing across my bow and I fired. From 150 yards out, my tracer showed that I had raked the full length of his fuselage. The Hun turned quickly eastward and dived away. I spotted another Hun low down, about 400 yards off. There were two Pups giving chase, but both were a distance away. I dived on the Hun and pulled up less than 30 yards away firing my Vickers in a continuous burst of 100 rounds. God bless Lieutenant O’Hagan RNVR is all I can say, for this time the gun did not jamb despite my abuse. The Halberstadt banked and turned beneath me. It seemed in control and I turned to follow. I would not fall for the Hun’s ruse.

But it was no ruse. The enemy scout glided downwards, apparently under control, until it flew directly into a row of barren trees and broke itself into a thousand flaming bit. It had fallen about two miles west of Beaumont-Hamel. Booker took station on my starboard side and waved his fist in the air, then pointed down at the former Hun. This one would be confirmed as my seventh official victory.

1917 had started properly.


"The Halberstadt banked and turned beneath me."