Congrats to Edgar, MFair!

Albert Earl Godfrey

20 May 1917 @ 05h03 Patrol of our lines to Loos

Scott, the C.O. called “A” and “B” flights to briefing for a run up the lines looking for marauding Hun OP that have been making a point of crossing over rather regularly in the last 48 hours. Reports have been coming in from the front lines that between Lens and Loos the Hun OP have been rather active.

The weather forecast was for overall cloudy/misty skies with poor visibility and wind between 4 and 8 knots from the west.

“B” flight lead by Godfrey and composed of Molesworth, Fry, Young and Pope, took off at 05h03. “A” flight composed of Lloyd, Jenkins and Rutherford, quickly followed and we tasked to provide top cover.

The flights formed up north of the field at 3300 feet at 05h11, at which point they headed due north towards Bethune.

At 05h14, flying at 3800 feet, the flight arrived over Bethune and turned east towards Lens, climbing out.

At 05h22, flying at 5500 ft., Godfrey spotted two specs well above them heading west. “B” flight was just north of Lens near the lines at the time and not seeing any other craft about, Godfrey decided to take the flight up to investigate. It didn’t take too long to close on the two craft and it soon became evident they were 2 DFW C.V.’s. Godfrey moved the flight into position and lined up with the left most DFW firing as he moved in closer, breaking away as his mates double teamed it in front of him and then continued his attack as the DFW broke left diving away. Godfrey had been unable to confirm the demise of the DFW he had been chasing but felt that it had been sufficiently chastened. By the time he had reclaimed his altitude his flight was dispersed but within range and he rejoined them to continue the flight north towards Loos.

At 05h33 flying at 7000 ft. “B” flight ran into a schwarm of 7 DIII’s. They were yellow and black striped tails of Jasta 28. Godfrey had a good round with two of them and felt he had put them down but in the process failed to pay attention to his six and was set upon by another DIII which did significant damage to his right aileron. So much so that he was unable to level out his N23. It wanted to veer to starboard and he could see that considerable cloth on the end of his upper plane had been shredded. Godfrey put his nose down and throttled down the engine, spiraling towards the ground and ever watchful for a possible landing zone while glancing back to see if the DIII that had done him in, was convinced that the N23 was out of control. Godfrey noted the Hun following him for a time before finally breaking off. Godfrey was now down to 500 feet and just about over the Lens-Bethune road. He couldn’t have asked for any better possible landing area. H struggled to level his machine as he came down quickly in a side slip and at the last moment put power to his engine just in time to force it to pull to port and level out as the wheels touched the ground just off the road edge. He had stumbled into a patch of solid ground surrounded by shell holes and his craft came to a stop safely. At least he was on the right side of the lines and it wasn’t long before he was picked up by a convoy of troops which had just passed him as he came down. There was some lively chatter with the men as they took him with them on their way to Arras.

When Godfrey arrived back to Filescamp late in the afternoon, he discovered that all of “B” flight had suffered light wounds and Fry, Young, and Pope
Had destroyed their crafts in forced landings. Only Molesworth had made it back to base with three days of repair necessary to his machine and one claim put in. Godfrey put in two claims for DIII’s but doubted that they would be confirmed as he hadn’t been able to confirm their demise.

It had not been a good day with 4 our of five pilots of “B” flight injured and three destroyed N23 and two badly damaged. Godfrey’s craft would need to be recovered and repaired and he suspected it would take a few days to fix it up. Nevertheless he was lucky to be alive, and made a conscious note, not to be so stupid again by failing to check his six.

Throughout all of this action, “A” flight had gone unnoticed and returned to Filescamp safely without encounter with the enemy.