Royal Flying Corps 1915 - 1916

[John_Hartley]

Picked this up at a second hand bookshop some months and have only just started to flick through.

The Air Communiques started at the end of 1915 and appear to have been a weekly summary of events designed for internal RFC comsumption. So the report is not strategic but might be regarded amost as the "office newsletter". The book was published in 1969 and I'm assuming some editing has gone on but, perhaps, not too much as the language has a ring of the period.

There's some wonderful little snippets - like this from Communique No. 9 (5 - 8 September 1915):

"2 Lt Balcombe Brown (pilot) and Lt Hughes (observer), 1 Sq, in a Morane was overtaken and pursued by four Albatros machine between Ypres and Courtrai. The Lewis gun of the Morane was on afixed mounting pointing forward and could not be brought to bear on the German machines. It was fired in the air while the observer pointed his telescope at the Germans, range about 250 yards. The Albatroses sheered off at once and kept further off."

So, there you are - telescope more effective than Lewis gun.

For info, Balcombe-Brown is buried at Carnoy - he died on 2/5/18.

[Michael Molkentin]

Hi

About half the communiques are available digitally on the AWM's website:

http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/war_diaries/first_world_war/subclass.asp?levelID=1437

Actions involving AFC pilots are usually marked with pencil.

Michael