June 16 1917 Sgt. DIH flying his first patrol with 11 Squadron. This will be a Line Patrol. These boys have just recently traded their Fee's for Brisfits and are all excited. And it will show.
Flying to the front in beautiful sunny weather. We circle for quite a while and see no Huns. Probably because they are being crowded out of the sky by all the RFC flying around.


Just inside Hun territory the Flight Leader wags his wings as I was looking the other way. 5 or 6 Huns! These two will play a personal part in the upcoming scrap. We dive to attack and the enemy accepts the challenge and noses up to greet us.


After a circle or two I find myself behind this one and shot him up. My Vickers hammers and my shooting is good. Suddenly I start to take hits. Look behind me and see a Bristol about 200' away. You stupid SOB I think then look again and see the Alb with the black wavy stripe on my left rear guns flashing. Not sure if its his guns I hear or my observers but I quickly roll out to avoid. Evade and find my original target again and see his engine is stopped. I close up and, putting my sights in the cockpit, open up again at point blank range then have to break left to avoid a collision. Look over my shoulder and he is corkscrewing down to crash just south of a town,


Climbing back into the fight I see one speck chasing another. The hunted is the all black Alb from the second photo. For whatever reason the Bristol breaks off his dive (we are pretty low) and the Hun tries to make good his escape. I turn and dive after him and cut my throttle as I get behind him at roof top height over Atheles. A three second burst with the Vickers and he noses over and plows into a city street at full speed and is now just scrap lumber and metal.


Seeing no one else around I climb for friendly lines and see my flight all landing at a forward field and do so also. Everybody has returned safely but one Brisfit has a wobbly landing and it turns out that both the pilot and the observer are wounded. I put in a claim for my two and other flight members claim three. A good day for the RFC.