"By Jove, Biggles!"

[MikeMeech]

5 hours ago, Perth Digger said:

Check the search engine of the Mail and you will find that the article went on-line on 31 March at 8.03pm. Can't be an April fool joke then!

Hi

 

I don't want to labour the point, but this was a 'Jolly Jape' by the RAF Museum for April 1st.  They are rather 'proud' of it and apparently is still quite convincing.  There are clues in the text of the RAF Museum's website release (this can still be found on line), dated 1st April, including reference to "the Special Air Police in his later career" as a reason for other documents being missing, that is John's fictional creation. In the Combat Report there is a more subtle clue, it states that the squadron is 169 Sqn.  this was not formed in WW1 but in June 1942.  The serial of the FE.2b is real '4847' although that served in 25 Sqn.

I hope that will end the 'confusion'.  A copy of the 'Combat Report' from the website is below. 

 

Mike

[Moonraker]

It's a long time since I read the Biggles books and I'm trying to recall whether "Observer 2/Lt M. Way" was in them.

 

My local library has only a couple of the books (thus removing a temptation to re-read rather more of them), but they do have his "authorised biography" - and the biography of W E Johns. IIRC the former had our hero having a very senior moment at an air display and taking an aircraft for an unauthorised flight and deliberately crashing it into the ground and killing himself???

 

Moonraker

Edited 29 May , 2017 by Moonraker

[Perth Digger]

I'll obviously have to join the real world and begin to use emojis rather than exclamation points (LOL). Was the Mail conned too?

[593jones]

21 hours ago, Moonraker said:

It's a long time since I read the Biggles books and I'm trying to recall whether "Observer 2/Lt M. Way" was in them.

 

My local library has only a couple of the books (thus removing a temptation to re-read rather more of them), but they do have his "authorised biography" - and the biography of W E Johns. IIRC the former had our hero having a very senior moment at an air display and taking an aircraft for an unauthorised flight and deliberately crashing it into the ground and killing himself???

 

Moonraker

 

2/Lt M. Way was indeed a character in the Biggles series.  In the (chronologically) first book, 'Biggles Learns to Fly', Biggles is posted to an FE2 squadron (can't remember which) and Mark Way is his observer.  It's a considerable number of years since I read the book, so the details are a bit hazy, but I believe Mark Way was badly wounded when flying with another pilot, possibly after Biggles had been posted to 266.