On this Day (WWI aviation news), Vol. 3

[PJ Fisher]

Meanwhile, Back East...
What's going on with the canted corners on this German airplane's insignia?  Loosely translated: "GERMAN AIRPLANE DESCENDED BY THE RUSSIANS Russian aviators carry out very bold re-acquaintances. Their devices, equipped with machine guns, also allow them to hunt the 'Tauben'"

(from J'ai vu, 11 February 1915):

[PJ Fisher]

Reversal of Fortune
These Germans have turned the tables on their French adversaries using their own firepower with a captured anti-aircraft gun.
(from Truth, Perth; 12 February 1915):

[PJ Fisher]

Cool Audacity
(from Llais Llafur, 23 February 1915):

[PJ Fisher]

Ace Lost at Sea
New Zealander Lieutenant Carrick Stewart Paul DFC piloted his Bristol F.2 Fighter (serial #C4627) to acedom over Palestine during the summer of 1918.

"...Paul claimed two victories on 23 May 1918, near Nablus. One of the two Albatros D.Vs was piloted by German ace Gustav Schneidewind, who was wounded in both arms. Paul then destroyed Rumpler reconnaissance planes on 13 June, 28 July, and 16 August 1918. The July win was shared with Alan Brown and Garfield Finlay. Paul and his observer William Weir were jointly awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on 8 February 1919. Paul never knew of the honor; while on the voyage home to New Zealand, he drowned on 22 January 1919." (via wikipedia)

Paul is said to have fallen overboard from his transport ship 'after overbalancing while recovering a quoit that had gone under a lifeboat. He was seen in the water after falling in, but could not be found when the ship returned to pick him up'.  Painfully, today's news snippet notes his wartime achievements not realizing he was already dead.
(from the Melbourne Herald, 14 February 1919):



Paul's particular plane was known among his Turkish adversaries:

"The 'Yellow Peril' - I've forgotten her number - was not the easiest machine to fly, but no-one wished her any harm, with the possible exception of the enemy. (Carrick ) Stewart Paul and his offsider Bill Weir, could handle the Peril, and knew how to use their guns. I remember seeing, from a grand stand seat, the Yellow Peril and it's crew demonstrate how the job should be done. They were, or rather the Yellow Peril was, on the tail of a Hun two-seater. The poor wretch tried hard to dive away, but after Paul had fired about ten rounds it disintegrated. Just fell to bits. However the speciality of the Yellow Peril was a cavalry camp, and when it swooped down hectic things used to happen. I mentioned that Paul and Weir could use their guns. Because of it, this anti-cavalry turn of theirs earned them a unique distinction. They were specially mentioned in Turkish orders as follows; 'All ranks are instructed to take immediate cover upon the approach of the YELLOW ENGLISH AEROPLANE.' Paul and Weir certainly wrote that name on the Turkish memory in letters of fire - machine gun fire. This idividualising of machines was not cofined to squadrons in the line." (via militarian.com)

Here's a build of 'Yellow Peril' by modeler VickersVandal over at the Unofficial Airfix Modeller's Foum:

[PJ Fisher]

Quiet Conqueror
"He never spoke about it. He just said I was in the war and that was it.", recalled Jean Yearsley one-hundred years after her uncle, Second Lieutenant Ian Vernon Pyott, single-handedly shot down Zeppelin L-34 on the night of 27 November 1916.  Pyott was piloting a Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c (Serial #2738) armed with incendiary bullets - a recent innovation. Upon interception, "Both Pyott and the airship turned sharply eastwards and flew next to each other for about five miles during which stage he fired 71 rounds at the airship. "I was aiming at his port quarter and noticed first a small patch become incandescent where I had seen tracers entering his envelope. ?I first took it for a machine-gun firing at me, but this patch rapidly spread and the next thing the whole Zepp was in flames", he said. The last bomb had barely exploded on the ground when the airship was completely engulfed with flames. The engines could still be heard and the doomed airship continued on its easterly course, passing almost directly over St Hilda?s Church tower in Hartlepool. L-34 plunged into the sea a 915 metres from the shore and sank where the water was in 40 fathoms deep. During its decent it assumed a perpendicular position, falling nose first, and breaking in two with the largest section falling faster and burning much more fiercely. Hollander, watching from the Zeppelin L  22, described the scene. ?There appeared a crimson ball of fire, which rapidly increased in size. "A minute later we recognised the glowing skeleton of an airship falling in flames," he said.". (via aircraftinvestigation.info)

Pyott's feat did not earn him the fame of prior 'Zeppelin Killers' such as Reginald Warneford or William Leefe Robinson; both of whom were awarded the Victoria Cross.  Pyott doesn't even have his own wikipedia page. He subsequently flew on the Western Front achieving just one more aerial kill later that year.  After the Armistice he returned home to South Africa and ran a factory; dying in 1972.  "To hear what he actually did is wonderful", his niece noted near the centenary of his first victory.
(from the Bryan Daily Eagle and Pilot, 15 February 1917):



Fun fact - the neice of Pyott's opponent, Kapitanleutnant Max Dietrich, commander of the L 34, was screen-legend Marlene Dietrich who would later go on to renounce her German citizenship and support the allied cause in the next world war.

[PJ Fisher]

'Blimps'
Another great Great War sobriquet surfaces in the press today.  One of those words that everyone knows yet none can pinpoint its origin.

"non-rigid airship," 1916, of obscure origin, with many claimants (even J.R.R. Tolkien had a guess at it). "One of the weird coinages of the airmen" [Weekley]. Common theory (which dates to 1919) is that it is from the designers' prototype nickname Type B-limp, in the sense of "without internal framework," as opposed to Type A-rigid; thus see limp (adj.), but references are wanting. There apparently was a type b in the U.S. military's development program for airships in World War I." (via etymonline.com)

"The Oxford English Dictionary notes its use in print in 1916: "Visited the Blimps ... this afternoon at Capel". In 1918, the Illustrated London News said that it was "an onomatop?ic name invented by that genius for apposite nomenclature, the late Horace Short".  Barnes and James in Shorts Aircraft since 1900 {state}: In February 1915 the need for anti-submarine patrol airships became urgent, and the Submarine Scout type was quickly improvised by hanging an obsolete B.E.2c fuselage from a spare Willows envelope; this was done by the R.N.A.S. at Kingsnorth, and on seeing the result for the first time, Horace Short, already noted for his very apt and original vocabulary, named it "Blimp", adding, "What else would you call it?" (via wikipedia)

Just for fun, here's a chart below that tracks the vernacular usage of 'blimp' over the past century.
(from Leslie's Photographic Review of the Great War, 1919):



(image via etymonline.com)

[PJ Fisher]

Wight Goes Wrong
"Flying is cruel..." laments a young pilot in a letter home. "...no fun at all".  This poignant passage portrays the unease early aviators faced - exposure to bitter elements, placing one's fate in the hands of mechanics, learning to 'loop the loop', disparity of pay among pilots, and of course - machine failure.  That is what happened to Lieutenant W.S. Miller during the winter of 1915-1916. 

Though this article's headline reads 'With the Royal Flying Corps', Miller was actually one of a hundred men alongside thirty-one aircraft then stationed at Great Yarmouth Royal Naval Air Station.  Miller also shares his experience taking a 'dip' in the English Channel in a Wight Admiralty Type 840 that ended up "on the bottom of the North Sea".  This may be serial #1303, which is recorded has having been 'wrecked off Great Yarmouth' on 10 December 1915.
(from the Auckland Star, 17 February 1916):


(image via ukairfieldguide.net)

(image: The Aeroplane, 19 July 1916)

[PJ Fisher]

Allenby's Albatros
"At 7.30am Oberleutnant Gustav Adolf Dittmar of Fliegerabteilung 300 stepped into his Albatros (serial # 636/17) along with a comrade piloting another aircraft. This morning as he flew into the air, he did not know of an event that was to change the nature of the air war in Palestine - the introduction of the Bristol to the air strip at Deir el Belah. That morning Second Lieutenant RC Steele [a Canadian] and Lieutenant JJ Lloyd-Williams from 111 Squadron took off from Deir el Belah with two other aircraft for their morning patrol.

At 8am the three British aircraft came into contact with the two Taubes. Much to the shock of Dittmar, he was outgunned and outmanoeuvered by this new aircraft. A bullet through his petrol tank and another through the radiator ended his flight. The aeroplane glided to a smooth landing between Goz el Basal and Karm. 

Some men of the 9th Light Horsemen who were on outpost work on the west side of Goz el Basal immediately mounted and galloped out to where the aeroplane had landed. They arrived at the same time as Dittmar was attempting to set light to the aircraft.  A couple yelled instructions and a few rifles waving wildly convinced Dittmar that his downed aircraft was not worth dying for so he awaited capture. It didn't take long for dozens of men to arrive and marvel at the captive aeroplane. A gun limber was brought up and the aeroplane attached like a jinker on the limber and was carted off to British lines. Later on the aeroplane was dismantled and sent to London for examination.  As for Dittmar, he spent his first night of captivity as guest to the British at Deir el Belah and then onto a POW camp in Egypt where he spent the rest of his war." (via alh-research.tripod.com)

What happened to the three main subjects of today's story?  Dittmar was released from British captivity at the end of 1919.  In the Second World War he reported to have worked for Junkers Flugzeug und Motorenwerke AG, and was a 'political counterintelligence officer presumably kidnapped by the russians in 1945'.  Edmund 'The Bull' Allenby was promoted to Field Marshall and created Viscount Allenby in 1919.  He left quite a footprint in the Middle East, eventually becoming the defacto governor of Egypt for a spell.  Bits of the captured Albatros survive, such as the fabric sample shown here (via adf-serials.com.au).
(from the Illustrated War News, 18 February 1918):



(image via anzacs.org)
key tester

A photograph of the same image from today's headline is in the Australian War Memorial collection is captioned: "Weli Sheikh Nuran, Palestine. 10 October 1917. A German Air Force D III Albatros Scout aircraft, D636/17, flown by Oberleutnant Gustav Adolf Dittmar of Fliegerabteilung 300 unit. The aircraft had been shot down, practically intact, into AIF Light Horse lines near Bersheeba by a Bristol fighter aircraft flown by Lieutenant R. Steele a Canadian pilot with No 111 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps. No 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, members recovered the machine and moved it to their airfield where repairs, including a bullet holed radiator, were carried out returning it to flying condition. This photograph shows General Allenby inspecting the aircraft; by this time British Palmer cord aero tyres had been fitted."

[PJ Fisher]

'Wings of Love'
While the air war rages over Europe across the Atlantic love is in the clouds.  It's an American news story we've read before - rich guy marries movie star.  Only this time the groom is aviation pioneer Lawrence Burst Sperry, inventor of the autopilot and the artificial horizon.  Two days prior the war film 'From Two to Six' starring the bride, Winnifred Allen, had just been released. Sperry, who as one point was the youngest licensed pilot in America, has been recently involved in the design work of what was then commonly called an 'aerial torpedo' - the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane and the Curtiss-Sperry Flying Bomb (shown below), which three week's hence will achieve "For the first time in history, an unmanned, heavier-than-air vehicle had flown in controlled flight" (per wikipedia).  In this midst of all this the couple found time to enjoy the first 'honeymoon in the clouds'.  I love how the reporter suggests that anti-aircraft guns would be needed to throw rice on the newlyweds!  This nuptual novelty reminds me of the autogyro wedding scene from the film 'It Happened One Night': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUVwHGpoasM.
(respectively from the South Bend News-Times, 19 February 1918; and the Meade County News, 28 March 1918):




(image via airminded.org)

Fun Fact: Speaking of 'wings of love' and 'aerial torpedoes', Lawrence 'Burst' Sperry is renowned for another pioneering aviation achievement - being considered the founder of the 'Mile High Club'!  However, his historic 'first' was not achieved on his honeymoon flight with Winnifred Allen, but rather two years earlier with a different socialite. "Pilot/engineer Lawrence Sperry and socialite Dorothy Rice Sims have been described as the first persons to engage in sex while flying in an airplane; the two flew in an autopilot-equipped Curtiss Flying Boat near New York in November 1916". Sims was described in the contemporary press as "an expert in motorcycle racing, flying and sculptoring, but her bridge ability was just moderate". (per wikipedia).  Perhaps now we know what inspired Sperry to invent the self-flying airplane?  Alas, just five years later in 1923 he was disappeared while flying across the English Channel in his Sperry M-1 Messenger biplane and was never seen again.  One wonders if his autopilot was on?

[PJ Fisher]

Air Warriors
Two views today of Austro-Hungarian aviators posing for the photographer. 
(from Unsere Krieger Bilder Aus Groszer Zeit Heft, 1915):

[PJ Fisher]

"Far-Eastern Ally"
A handful of Japanese aviators flew for France during the Great War.  Five notables include Shigeno Kiyotake, Kobayashi Shukunosuke (who headlined here back in June 2022: https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=12930.msg245395#msg245395), Isobe Onokichi, Ishibashi Katsunami, and Moro Goroku. Here's an interesting webpage dedicated to 'Pilotes Japonaise' over at albidenis.freefr: http://albindenis.free.fr/Site_escadrille/Pilotes_Japon.htm.  I'm not sure if today's particular pilot, posing before a Nieuport 12, is among those photographed there... might anyone have a clue?  Also, can anyone identify the insignia on the side of the airplane?  Let's do some sleuthing!
(from the Illustrated War News, 21 February 1917):

[PJ Fisher]

Air Battle over Brzeziny
Two Russian pilots, one a 'civilian volunteer', win a game of leapfrog over two German 'aeroplanists' where each combatant fought by dropping bombs over each other!  Does anyone know more of this early-war report or the full identities of M. Opatoff or Lieutenant Grigorieff?
(from the Cambria Daily Leader, 22 February 1915):

[PJ Fisher]

Night Raiders
You're in the pilot's seat tonight!  This thrilling view, featured here on two different magazine covers, give you a cockpit perspective of the Handley Page O/400.  Searchlights and shadows, 'archie' and unseen adversaries... Are you bold enough to be a night raider?
(respectively from O Espelho, 23 February 1918; and The Sphere, 9 February 1918):



If you can deal with the dated CGI, jump to the 3:15 mark in this combat clip from the 2006 film 'Flyboys', for a quick reminder of how dangerous it was to battle in these bombers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBSJBCkbYuc

[PJ Fisher]

Royal Raid Relic
'Quick we're being shelled! Go down to the cellar!', exclaimed Mrs. Youden of Dover, England, to her son on Christmas Eve, 1914. They heard and felt the first aerial bomb ever to be dropped on the United Kingdom. "We didn't then know that it was possible for an aeroplane to come over and drop bombs in anger." the boy would recall 75 years later. 

In 1914 the Germans had offered a prize for the first German airman to bomb Dover or Britain. The first attempt, on 21st December, saw both bombs land in the sea near the Admiralty Pier.  Then just before 11am on Christmas Eve 1914 a German Friedrichshafen FF29 aeroplane of the See Flieger Abteilung 1 (Seaplane Unit No.1 or SFA 1) flew over Dover unarmed except for a bomb carried by Lieutenant Alfred von Prondzynski {shown here}, between his knees. Although not the pilot he claimed the prize and made history as the first person to drop a bomb from a plane on Britain. At the time the only way to drop a bomb was to lift it by hand, hold it over the side of the plane and let go when the bomber thought he could hit the target.

The material damage of this sole German seaplane's sortie was minimal, though it is said to have knocked a gardener out of a tree behind St James's Rectory near Taswell Street.  But this inaugural air raid's impact was enough that a fragment of the bomb was presented to King George V.  Today this fragment resides within its original reliquary in the collection of the Imperial War Museum (shown here).
(from the Cambria Daily Leader, 24 February 1915):



(images respectively via thedoversociety.co.uk, iancastlezeppelin.co.uk, and bbc.com)

Here's a centennial article on this first raid from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-30597902

[PJ Fisher]

Giant Guns to Level London
Look out above!  Following yesterday's story on the first-ever aerial bombing of Britain, here's a headline intended to scare the pants off of your English ancestors.
(from the Evening Journal, 25 February 1916):