Journal Entry: June 23, 1915
St. Pol-sur-Mer

Today was the first full day flying the Morane and even though Thayer and I had success in the afternoon sortie, the jury is still out on whether I will like it or not. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Thayer absolutely loves our new bus. He spoke at length tonight at mess about the improved field of fire for his deadly Lewis and I would say that his actions this afternoon would support that position. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, let me describe my day.

Woke up to another glorious day in June with high fluffy clouds and a light breeze. We are close enough to the ocean to receive a delightful breeze full of the salty clean smell that I love about the ocean. Since my promotion, I'm now tasked with leading flights on a regular basis and this morning would be my first. It would just be Thayer and myself and Lt. Simon Askew and his observer Lt. Alfred Gunn. Our morning's mission would be a line patrol and it wasn't long before we were airborne and off to our patrol area. We had reached the southern end of our patrol sector and I was just turning us north, when I spotted a sneaky Hun trying to cross our lines just to the north. I signaled Simon and we turned after him. We chased him down after a mile or so and Thayer soon started firing and I noticed that he was scoring hits. The Hun turned away from us but flew right into the firing zone of Alfred and he started scoring hits right away as well. After the burst from Alfred, the Hun heeled over and spiraled to the ground. We were so excited for Simon and Alfred and didn't hesitate to congratulate them on arriving back home. Maybe, with Simon and Alfred scoring a victory it will rouse the rest of the squadron into taking some kind of action when meeting the Hun in the air.

Our afternoon sortie was another line patrol, but this time Lt. Lawrence Newbury and his observer Lt. Tom Stanley would be accompanying me. It was another beautiful day with high fluffy clouds and we wasted no time in getting into the air. In no time at all we had reached our patrol area and once again just as I was turning us north another Hun flew past us also heading north. I signaled Lawrence and began pursuit. After a pursuit of about half a mile, we closed and this time Thayer finished him off with a long burst which must have damaged his engine. The Hun began a slow dive which ended with him crashing just on the other side of the lines.



We are still awaiting confirmation on this victory, but since Lawrence and Tom were right there it should be a formality. I guess results speak for themselves and the Morane is good for what it was designed to do and that is give the observer a good field of fire. I'm just not convinced it is a better flier than the BE.2C, only time will tell.


Member and provider of banjo music for the Illustrious BOC