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#4311639 - 11/13/16 04:09 AM Cecil Lewis' friend Pip  
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epower Offline
Artless Aide-de-camp
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Remembrance Day yesterday and I dipped back into Sagittarius Rising. One of the most compelling passages for me was Lewis' account of seeing poppies with his friend and observer "Pip."

"Yet (Oh, the catch at the heart!), among the devastated cottages, the tumbled, twisted trees, the desecrated cemeteries, opening, candid, to the blue heaven, the poppies were growing! Clumps of crimson poppies, thrusting out from the lips of the craters, straggling in drifts between the hummocks, undaunted by the desolation, heedless of human fury and stupidity, Flanders poppies, basking in the sun! As we stood gazing, a lark rose up from among them and mounted, shrilling over the diapason of the guns.

We listened, watching, and then, I remember, trudged slowly on down the road without a word. That morning seems stranger than most to me now, for Pip is dead, twenty years dead, and I can still hear the lark over the guns, the flop and shuffle of our rubber-soled flying boots on the dusty road; I can remember, set it down, that here on this page it may remain a moment longer than his brief mortality. For what? To make an epitaph, a little literary tombstone, for a young forgotten man."

Pip was killed with a pilot named Kidd flying thru a British artillery barrage.
I always wondered about the man's identity and slogging about on the net found this:

http://medicalgentlemen.co.uk/aboutbow/world-war-1


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Last edited by epower; 07/22/20 04:54 AM.
#4311641 - 11/13/16 04:36 AM Re: Cecil Lewis' friend Pip [Re: epower]  
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Raine Offline
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Very interesting. Thank you for posting.

#4311650 - 11/13/16 10:14 AM Re: Cecil Lewis' friend Pip [Re: epower]  
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zifnow Offline
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Flying thru a british barrage? What from? A shrapnel, or an incredibly unlucky ammo barrel going throught their plane? I read an account from a Lafayette Esc pilot which stated that planes were actually hit by an (unintended) travelling artillery shell; I was wondering if that was an exageration, or a legend.

I mean, it would be possible but extremely unlikely...

Last edited by zifnow; 11/13/16 10:15 AM.
#4311665 - 11/13/16 12:22 PM Re: Cecil Lewis' friend Pip [Re: epower]  
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Raine Offline
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He was hit by an artillery shell in mid-flight. Lewis and many others wrote of this risk. When assigned to perform contact patrols, one had to fly low over the front to see the infantry's progress. That required passing through the same airspace as tens of thousands of shells. Pilots described the constant turbulence caused by shells passing close to their aircraft.

#4311677 - 11/13/16 02:35 PM Re: Cecil Lewis' friend Pip [Re: epower]  
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Robert_Wiggins Offline
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Thanks Epower for posting that link. It was new for me and very interesting as I have read Lewis's books


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#4311702 - 11/13/16 03:54 PM Re: Cecil Lewis' friend Pip [Re: epower]  
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dutch Offline
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Mmm, also see we are flying the wrong type of the MS parasol.

#4311712 - 11/13/16 04:13 PM Re: Cecil Lewis' friend Pip [Re: epower]  
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Shredward Offline
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There were several variations of the Parasol - we chose the one seeing the widest use. More versions of anything always come at the expense of something else. Not quite Hobson's Choice, but you get the idea.
Cheers,
shredward


We will remember them.
#4312510 - 11/16/16 02:24 AM Re: Cecil Lewis' friend Pip [Re: Raine]  
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Wodin Offline
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Happened alot I believe..remember at times the sky was full of arty shells.

Originally Posted By: Raine
He was hit by an artillery shell in mid-flight. Lewis and many others wrote of this risk. When assigned to perform contact patrols, one had to fly low over the front to see the infantry's progress. That required passing through the same airspace as tens of thousands of shells. Pilots described the constant turbulence caused by shells passing close to their aircraft.


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