3rd Squadron AFC HISTORY - 1917.

Training at South Carlton, Lincolnshire, before going to the Western Front.  [Written mid-1917.]

Lincoln Cathedral [WW1 Autochrom print].

Life in the Flying Corps…

By Wireless Operator 2/AM W. W. ‘Will’ CLIFTON*,
at South Carlton Aerodrome, Lincolnshire, England.
[Extract from TROVE Newspaper Library.]

… My squadron is stationed at the above aerodrome.  A big place too.  I mean the 'drome.

The work constitutes the training of pilots and observers in flying, wireless operating and other things, such as code signalling.  Of course, you can guess I am one of the wireless men.  30 of us are here. 

They start flying at daybreak and finish up at dark.  Occasionally night flying takes place, the landing ground being marked by flares.  It's wonderful what some of these good pilots can do with a machine.  ‘Stunting,’ otherwise fancy flying, is encouraged. 

‘Stunts’ consists of side banks, flying vertical to the ground, looping, and the best — or worst — the spinning nose dive.  This consists of a dive straight towards the ground, the machine at the same time spinning on an imaginary axis.  The first man I saw at this stunt hit the ground before he righted the machine and passed out.  I didn't know at this time that the ‘Spinning Nose Dive’ was a stunt, and the next day I was watching another chap ‘looping’ when the machine started spinning towards the ground and I got the ‘wind up’ immediately, but he fell a few hundred feet and flew parallel again and continued his looping, etc.   After this chap got killed, there was an accident every day for a week.
 

An AVRO 504 comes to grief at South Carlton.

[This was Cadet Harry Collier WARREN, died 4 April 1917, a Gallipoli veteran being retrained as a Pilot.]

The instructor was up stunting a couple of days after.

 
The worst I've seen so far was a couple of nights ago when a young officer of the R.F.C. was on his first solo flight in an ‘Avro’ (machines built for instruction, cheap and nasty).  We were playing cricket and several of us noticed his engine was choking before he left the ground.  Anyhow, he went up and got to about 300 feet when we noticed him in difficulties.  The machine staggered like a drunken man.  CRASH!  All in flames.  The petrol tank of 30 gallons burst.  Out went the ambulance, but too late, as they couldn't get near the machine.  (The ambulance is always on the ‘drome, cranked up awaiting its cargo.)

When it (the Avro) crashed the petrol tank would be on top of the pilot, and he would be drenched with the spirit.  The flames left practically nothing of pilot or machine, except a few broken wires.

[This accident is similar to another one at South Carlton where four members of 3AFC received the prestigious Meritorious Service Medal for bravery, after repeatedly dashing into the burning wreckage of a crashed RE8 aircraft to rescue a British pilot.]

The Major says to a few of us, ‘Don't you fellows want to get back to Australia?’
 - ‘Of course, Sir.’
‘Do you know that very few pilots ever get back from France?’
- ‘They say it's a bit risky, Sir.’
‘Do you think you would get back?’
- ‘Certainly, Sir.’

Other than the Pilots and Observers, the only men who are taking any risk in the Flying Corps are the Wireless Operators, who are with the [Artillery] Batteries, and the mechanical transport Drivers.  The other sections are safe jobs — rigging machines 20 miles behind the lines.  There are all trades represented that are necessary to build a machine.

The ‘aero’ works with the [Artillery] Battery and reports, per wireless, where the shots fall and the Battery Commander ranges accordingly.  The Operator has to report to the Battery Commander the results of his last shot and is not supposed to make any mistakes either, or else there's trouble. 

Circa 1917.  An RFC Wireless Operator, imbedded with an Artillery Battery just behind the front line.  Morse Code signals are received from the orbiting RE8 Pilot, who observes the fall of shot around the target. 
The Artillery Officer [right] uses his megaphone to yell corrections for the  aim of his guns.  Such batteries were also high priority targets for German counter-battery fire!  Two of the Wireless Operators that set out from Australia with 3AFC in 1916 were killed in action on the Western Front.  [LAUCHLAND and RICH.]

England is awfully interesting though.  Damn cold in winter and warm enough at present.  The villages amuse me.  There are three or four close to the 'drome.  Streets narrow, and wind in and out like a drawing of an eel in convulsions, old stone houses built flat on to footpath, no verandahs, thatched roofs, an old windmill, and an acre of tombstones with a church in the middle.  Most of the village people turned out to see us when we visited Nettleham...
 

Lincoln Tank Factory.

Port Melbourne, Vic., 25 October 1916.  Personnel of the newly-formed "No.2 Squadron Australian Flying Corps" wait to embark on the troop transport ship SS Ulysses (A38) for service overseas.  The Squadron was later re-numbered to “3rd Squadron AFC”.  [AWM P00394.021]

Miss Ethel CAMPBELL, known as the 'Angel of Durban' to Australian troops.  Miss Campbell greeted and farewelled every troopship, distributing gifts and arranging entertainment for the troops in Durban. She would signal to the soldiers on the troopships using semaphore flags - that refreshments and entertainment would be available to them.  [AWM P08129.005]

Cape Town, South Africa. 1916.   The town and mountain in the background, seen from the troop transport ship SS Ulysses, carrying members of the Australian Flying Corps No.2 Squadron to service in Europe.  [AWM P00394.023]

 
We [steamed] from this place in 10 days, [landed] at Plymouth in a blizzard and experienced the severest winter England has seen for 30 years.  One of us succumbed with meningitis.  [HANSEL]  Dozens went to hospital, but fortunately, I battled it out with not as much as toothache.  Remarkable too.  I walked about for weeks in wet feet.  Different from Melbourne, where, if only I got the feet wet walking to the office, I would be snivelling for a month, and likely have a week in bed.

The Squadron has a rather good concert party and an orchestra of 10.  I murder the 2nd part of the fiddle.  Mainly show, as the brass instruments drown my efforts.  We entertained the wounded Tommies at Lincoln Hospital yesterday and got a grand reception.

We said, ‘No, but have you any Rhodes or Jessops?’

Gilbert JESSOP hitting a century against Australia in 1902.

Somehow or other Jessop seemed pleased with us.  He discussed cricket in Australia, knew every man that had made over a hundred the last year or two.  He evidently follows up cricket in Australia by the papers. 

- Talk about these ‘much-despised officials’ of the Imperial Army!  - We had two Majors and Captain Jessop discussing every stroke that was played and yarning to us like men, and an English Lieutenant umpired for us, while not one of our officers appeared near the match.

We were given tea and a decent spread too.  No doubt the Australians get well treated over this way.
 

AFC  Wireless Operators, Farnborough, July 1917. 
* The author of this article, Will CLIFTON, is sitting cross-legged in the grass, at the far right of the front row.  [AWM H1 2729/01]

“DEATH OF SANDY AND HUGHES” painting by Joseph Simpson.  [AWM ART93192]
On 17 December 1917, in the middle of a dogfight, Lt. Sandy and Sgt. Hughes were both killed by a single armour-piercing bullet.
Their aircraft continued to fly in wide circles until it ran out of fuel, whereupon it glided down by itself and landed, without much damage, in a snowdrift behind the lines.  A German Albatros fighter that they shot down in the same battle is now preserved in the collection of the AWM.
- Hughes was one of the seven 3AFC groundcrew mentioned in the article above, who successfully drew lots for aircrew training.    Of the others, one became a 4AFC fighter ace [BARKELL], three were commissioned as Observer officers and flew with 3AFC in combat.  [MILLINGTON, HAINSWORTH and PRETYMAN.]  One failed training and came back to work in the 3AFC Stores and the final unfortunate individual was sent back to Australia suffering PTSD.