In addition, warm thanks are due the following for the various kinds of help and advice they have so generously given me: John Farley, Pat Malone, Ian Marshall, Lindsay Peacock, Brian Rivas, Chris Roberts, Richard Robson, Russell Savory.
My long-time friend and editor Neil Belton, my even longer-time friend and agent Andrew Hewson and his colleague Edward Wilson all merit deep gratitude for their constant support over the years.
My sister Jane Stephens and my brother-in-law Michael have been endlessly generous with their hospitality, and I am particularly grateful to Jane for her sane and knowledgeable company on visits to Brooklands Museum and for her introduction to me of Chris Roberts, an expert on the development of airborne wireless at the Brooklands Experimental Establishment during WWI.
Tribute is once more due to the Royal Air Force Historical Society and its Chairman, Air Vice-Marshal Nigel Baldwin. The Society’s Journal is not only required reading for anyone interested in British military aviation in all its aspects but constitutes an ever-expanding scholarly source.
Yet again I would like to thank Brian Riddle, the Librarian of the National Aerospace Library, Farnborough, for his help. His encyclopaedic knowledge and painstaking assistance have been invaluable to me, just as they benefit all who use this magnificent resource.
The Bibliography shows the works to which I am indebted. Special mention should be made of two particular books on which I have leaned heavily: Ellis and Williams’ biography of W. E. Johns and Neil Hanson’s beautifully researched First Blitz. This is by far the best book I know about German air raids on Britain in the First World War and should be the starting point for anyone wishing to investigate the subject. I would also like to acknowledge various dedicated online forums, in particular The Aerodrome (www.theaerodrome.com), Cross and Cockade International (www.crossandcockade.com) and the Great War in The Air Forum (www.greatwaraviation.com). The late Dan-San Abbott’s scholarly contributions, especially to The Aerodrome, are deeply missed.
Lastly, the writing of this book – as well as that of its two predecessors – has been indelibly marked by the constant help and friendship offered me in Austria by Carmen Bausek, Helene Belndorfer and Fritz Koller, Christian and Beatrix Horicky, Fritz Kroath, Walter and Waltraud Schobermayr, and Elke and Robert Schuster. Thanks to their tireless support computer and other practical problems have melted away, as have a great many happy hours (and Euros) in Weissl’s restaurant and Mayr’s café.
In place of the authorial ritual of admitting that even Homer nods I shall simply cite the principle of TUDA: The Usual Disclaimers Apply.
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Endnotes
Introduction
1 Source: Henshaw, Trevor: The Sky their Battlefield
2 For these statistics see Pisano et al., Legend, Memory and the Great War, p.75
3 Johns W. E. Popular Flying, June 1936
4 Johns W. E., ‘The White Fokker’, The Camels are Coming. The paragraph quoted here differs very slightly (but interestingly) from the original version that appeared in the April 1932 number of Popular Flying under Johns’s pen-name, William Earle.
5 Ellis P. B. & Williams P., By Jove, Biggles!, p.178
6 Hyde, Andrew P., The First Blitz, p.16
7 Clark, Alan, Aces High, p.14
Chapter 1
8 Dangerfield, George, The Strange Death of Liberal England, pp.249–50
9 ibid, p.226
10 Turnill, Reginald & Reed, Arthur, Farnborough: The Story of RAE, p.41
11 Grinnell-Milne, D. W., Wind in the Wires, quoted in Bruce, J. M., British Aeroplanes 1914–1918, p.378
12 Stoney, Barbara, Twentieth Century Maverick, p.57
13 ibid, p.230
14 Clark, Alan, Aces High, pp.113–14
15 Murphy, Justin D., Weapons and Warfare, Military Aircraft, Origins to 1918, pp.90–1
16 Hanson, Neil, First Blitz, p.232
17 Stoney, Twentieth Century Maverick, p.109
18 Murphy, Weapons and Warfare, p.91
19 Malcolm Cooper gives 22,000 aircraft and 300,000 personnel for 1918, but by then the RAF was expanding rapidly and the date of the statistics is significant. See Cooper, Malcolm, The Birth of Independent Air Power, p.xv
Chapter 2
20 Strange, Louis A., Recollections of an Airman, pp.21–2 (with some editorial shortening)
21 Shute, Nevil, Slide Rule, pp.35–6
22 Turnill & Reed, Farnborough, p.31
23 Fokker, Anthony & Gould, Bruce, Flying Dutchman, p.49
24 See Berriman, A. E., ‘Parke’s Dive’, Flight, 31st August 1912, pp.787–789
25 Hadley, Dunstan, Only Seconds to Live, p.67
26 Lewis, Cecil, Sagittarius Rising, p.41
27 See Barnett, Correlli, The Collapse of British Power, p.86
28 Johnstone, E. G., in Naval Eight: A History of No. 8 Squadron RNAS, pp.115–16
29 See www.3squadron.org.au/subpages/RE8.htm
30 Statistics from Henshaw, Trevor: The Sky their Battlefield, p.576
31 Quoted in Kilduff, Peter, Black Fokker Leader, p.72
32 Yeates, V. M., Winged Victory, p.25
33 Bruce, British Aeroplanes 1914–1918, p.574
34 See John Thompson of Northern Aeroplane Workshops www.bbc.co.uk/bradford/content/articles/2008/05/09/sopwith_camel_batley_feature.shtml
Chapter 3
35 Quoted in Hughes-Hallett, L., The Pike, p.380
36 Published in the September 1909 issue of the periodical The Nineteenth Century and After
37 Veale, S. E., Guide to Flying, p.3
38 Quoted in Turnill & Reed, Farnborough, p.40
39 Neumann, Georg Paul, The German Air Force in the Great War, p.54
40 See Kulikov, Victor, Russian Aces of World War I, p.8
41 Strange, Recollections of an Airman, p.218
42 See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_156.
43 Strange, op. cit., pp.112–14 (lightly edited)
44 Woodman, Harry, Early Aircraft Armament, p.171
45 Lee, Arthur Gould, No Parachute, p.123
46 Quoted in Reynolds, Quentin, They Fought for the Sky, p.18
Chapter 4
47 Compston, R. J. O., in Naval Eight, pp.95–6
48 Lewis, Sagittarius Rising, pp.140-1
49 See Barnett, Correlli, The Collapse of British Power, p.112
50 Lee, No Parachute, p.84
51 Lewis, op. cit., p.96
52 Lewis, ibid, p.114
53 Neumann, The German Air Force in the Great War, p.195
54 Lee, Gould, Arthur, Open Cockpit, p.168
55 ibid, p.169
56 Johns, W. E., The Modern Boy, 5th December 1931
57 Wortley, Rothesay Stuart, diary entry for 25th January 1915, Letters from a Flying Officer, p.46
58 Neumann, The German Air Force, p.243
59 Cameron, Ian, Wings of the Morning, p.150
60 ‘Night-Hawk M.C’ [W. J. Harvey], Rovers of the Night Sky, pp.17–18
61 Jones, H., The War in the Air, Vol. III p.42; quoted in Kilduff, Peter, Billy Bishop VC, p.51
62 Ellis P. B. & Williams P., By Jove, Biggles!, pp.70–1
63 ibid. (quoting Johns, W. E., in Popular Flying, May 1932)
64 Ellis & Williams, op. cit., p.69 (quoting Johns in Popular Flying, May 1935)
65 Lee, Open Cockpit, p.38
66 Draper, Major C., in Naval Eight, p.62. The dead pilot’s name was C. R. Walworth, the date of his death 18th February 1918.
Chapter 5
67 Quoted in Pisano et al., Legend, Memory and the Great War in the Air, p.79
68 Hanson, First Blitz, p.58
69 Quoted in Nahum, Andrew, The Rotary Aero Engine, p.22
70 Fokker & Gould, Flying Dutchman, p.62
71 Yeates, Winged Victory, p.84
72 Lee, Open Cockpit, pp.23–4
73 Ellis & Williams, By Jove, Biggles!, p.34
74 War Office, Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire in the Great War
75 Clark, Aces High, p.77
76 Rippon, T. S. & Manuel, E. G., ‘Report on the Essential Characteristics of Successful and Unsuccessful Aviators’, The Lancet, 28th September 1918.
77 Wortley, Letters from a Flying Officer, p.165
78 Ellis & Williams, By Jove, Biggles!, p.34
79 Lee, Arthur Gould, No Parachute, p.23
80 Grider, John MacGavock, War Birds, pp.51 et seq.
81 Bruce, British Aeroplanes, p.191
82 Ellis & Williams, By Jove, Biggles!, p.40
83 Quoted in Barker, Ralph, The Royal Flying Corps in World War I, p.27
84 Quoted in Penrose, Harald, British Aviation. The Great War & Armistice, p.213
85 Maclennan, Roderick Ward, The Ideals and Training of a Flying Officer, p.12
86 ibid, p.77
87 ibid, p.93
88 Yeates, Winged Victory, p.273
89 De Havilland, Geoffrey, Sky Fever, p.65
90 Strange, Recollections of an Airman, p.158
Chapter 6
91 Lee, Open Cockpit, pp.57–8
92 Stark, Rudolf, Wings of War, p.78
93 Mattioli, Guido, Mussolini aviatore e la sua opera per l’aviazione, p.22
94 Sassoon, Siegfried, ‘The Child at the Window’, Collected Poems
95 Wortley, Letters from a Flying Officer, p.83
96 Oberleutnant Dyckhoff, in Neumann, German Air Force, p.423
97 Lewis, Sagittarius Rising, p.137
98 Nordhoff, Charles & Hall, James, Falcons of France, p.85
99 Yeates, Winged Victory, p.330
100 Anderson, H. G. et al., The Medical and Surgical Aspects of Aviation, p.24
101 Johns, W. E., ‘The Last Show’ in The Camels Are Coming, p.191
102 Rippon, T. S. & Manuel, E. G., ‘Report on the Essential Characteristics of Successful and Unsuccessful Aviators’, The Lancet, 28th September 1918.
103 Strange, Recollections of an Airman, p.169
104 Bishop, William A., Winged Warfare, p.146
105 ibid, p.150
106 Reynolds, Quentin, They Fought for the Sky, p.176
107 Bishop, Winged Warfare, p.38
108 Lewis, Sagittarius Rising, pp.231–2
109 Stark, Wings of War, pp.54–5
110 Quoted in Naval Eight, p.32
111 Strange, Recollections of an Airman, p.86
112 Westerman, Percy F., Winning his Wings, pp.90–1
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