RFC

November 6th 1918

1 Comment

 

The Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC)

Just two months after his death, the London Gazette of November 2nd has confirmed Capt. Geoffrey Buck (RAF) has been awarded the DFC for a mission into Germany he undertook in his Handley-Page bomber.

“Capt. Buck, with 2nd Lieut. Barter as Observer, was Pilot of one of two machines detailed to bomb an important railway junction. Owing to most unfavourable weather conditions the other machine returned, but Capt. Buck persevered, reached the objective, and made a most successful attack in face of intense anti-aircraft fire with numerous searchlights. On the return journey they were were much hampered by a severe thunderstorm, which lasted for three-quarters of an hour, the machine being out of control owing to the lightning. In this critical situation Capt. Buck remained cool and collected, and, displaying marked skill and judgement, succeeded in landing his machine safely. The success of this raid was largely due to the skill and efficiency displayed by 2nd Lieut. Barter, who most ably co-operated with Capt. Buck. During the past month these officers have carried out sixteen night bombing raids in a manner reflecting the greatest credit on them both.”

Within a week of these heroic deeds, Geoff Buck was killed, when returning home from another night raid into Germany on September 3rd. He is the first of our airmen to win this new award, the DFC.

 

In addition to the above news, Mr Bell, Geoff’s Winchester housemaster, has most kindly favoured us with a most perceptive appreciation of Geoff’s time there:

“He stood out as something very different from the ordinary boy. In the first place he always knew his mind; he knew where he was moving to and what he wanted. Whether by reading in books, thinking for himself, or talking with his friends, he had formed an idea of what life should mean for him and how he should train himself for it.

He never accepted conventional standards or ideas because they were conventional; yet, unlike many who have tastes and interests of their own, he never shirked the ordinary routine of work or neglected his Latin and Greek for excursions into other fields… None who knew him could be blind to the strong stamp of his individuality…”

I would like to think that his years at the OPS played their part too.

 

 

April 16th 1918

Leave a comment

Lieut. Ronald Stonehouse (RAF)

After a considerable period of painful waiting, the casualty lists in the papers of those lost in the battles of the end of March are now revealing the scale of our losses – over 1000 notified on the Roll of Honour of officers killed, wounded or missing in the last two days.

Our fliers have also been actively engaged and we have now been informed that one of their casualties was Ronald Stonehouse, on April 1st.

Ronald flew as an observer and his pilot has written to the family to explain the most unfortunate circumstances which led to his death: “He and I were great friends and had been together ever since he joined the Squadron, and had done many trips together over the lines, lived in the same hut or billet and had many pleasant times together…

On the night of March 31st, he and I had made two trips together over the lines.  Just as daylight was breaking, we had landed and were walking together to report to the Major. He turned back to get something he had forgotten. Half a minute later 6 or 7 bombs fell on the aerodrome, and we found him lying under the machine. He was killed instantaneously.”

Ronald took off on the evening of March 31st as a member of the RFC, but landed in the early hours of April 1st a member of the newly formed RAF – becoming, quite possibly, the RAF’s first casualty  (the RFC and the RNAS having been combined to form the RAF on April 1st).

Ronald had first joined the Army Service Corps, as he had injured one of his ankles in his early training and could not march. In August 1917 he joined the RFC and, after his training in aerial gunnery and as an observer, went out to France where he was working on a night-bombing aeroplane with 101st Squadron.

During the short time he was with us at the OPS, his manly, independent nature and his sense of humour endeared him to us all. ‘Public opinion’ meant nothing to him. His was of a most affectionate nature, and he never forgot old friends.

Neither shall we forget him.

 

July 28th 1917

3 Comments

We return today, inevitably, to the War and news of three of our Old Dragons.

On July 21st, the papers reported a number of officers of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps as missing in action. One of them is 2nd Lieut. William Sheepshanks (KRRC).

His mother received a telegram to this effect on the 19th, informing her that Bill has been unaccounted for since July 10th, but that he may still be alive. We must resign ourselves, once again, to a period of painful uncertainty.

The regiment was stationed right on the coastline near Nieuport – at the end of the trench system which stretches from there to Switzerland, and was under severe bombardment. In an account in the Daily Telegraph giving the German view, it was stated by their authorities that they had taken 1,250 prisoners, 27 of whom were officers. That gives us hope.

Bill has been such a close friend of the OPS and he never missed any Old Boys’ dinner or cricket match if he could help it.

* * * * * * *

We were startled and sorry to hear that Lieut. Lindsay Wallace (OBLI) has suffered considerable injury in France, due to unusual causes.  Whilst on a training course behind the front, Pug sleep walked out of an upper floor window. He had a nasty time for a day or two, but is now safely back in Oxford at Somerville College, having been escorted from France by his Engineer-Lieutenant brother Moray Wallace. He will not be short of visitors – if we can get past Sister Wilkinson!

* * * * * * *

We can end with one piece of good news, which has been a fearfully long time coming. It has been confirmed that Capt. Aubrey de Selincourt (RFC), having been “missing” since he was shot down on May 28th, is in fact a Prisoner of War. He joins his fellow OD aviators, Captain William Leefe Robinson VC and Lieut. Peter Warren in captivity.

 

June 8th 1917

5 Comments

Another of our valiant airmen has been listed as missing – the third since the beginning of April.  Capt. Aubrey de Selincourt (RFC) went down on May 28th 1917.

According to information received,  he was on a photographic reconnaissance in his FE2d aircraft with three others near Douai (where there is a German aerodrome).  They were attacked by German planes and Aubrey was shot down.

The FE2d aircraft

The FE2d is a strange aircraft, where the pilot has the observer/gunner in front of him and the propeller behind him. It is said to be rather slow when compared with the German aeroplanes.

There is as yet no information to say that Aubrey survived his crash, but with both Capt. William Leefe Robinson and 2nd Lieut. Peter Warren in captivity, we can hope that Aubrey may have joined them in a prisoner of war camp.

When war broke out Aubrey, along with many of his contemporaries, joined the army. He served with the North Staffs Regiment in Gallipoli, where he contracted jaundice and had to return home. Once fit again, he asked to transfer to the RFC and trained as a pilot. He joined 25 Squadron in France in April 1917.

Aubrey is the younger brother of 2nd Lieut. Leslie de Selincourt (OBLI), who was badly wounded helping to relieve Kut last year.

May 5th 1917

1 Comment

The battle at Arras continues unabated. Indeed, a couple of nights ago (around 1 a.m) many in Oxford were awoken by the sounds of the artillery bombardment – or so it was believed to be. I did not hear it myself.

* * * * * * *

We now have more encouraging news of William Leefe Robinson. His sister has been told that a captured German airman has revealed that William is alive and is now a prisoner of war.

We still do not know the fate of Peter Warren, who has been missing since April 2nd.

The casualties suffered by our airman last month must be a matter of great concern to our leaders. The Daily Telegraph of April 27th reported a significant increase in our losses (killed, wounded and missing):  January – 56, February – 119, March – 152, April –  319.

Of the twenty or so Old Dragons serving with the RFC, William and Peter are the first to have been declared “missing” and the news of William renews our hope that Peter is also a prisoner.

* * * * * * *

It is good to have the boys back and on the very first day of term our cricket team enjoyed a match against a team of young Old Dragons who are still on holiday. We scored a creditable 63 to the ODs’ 93.

The new boys are settling in well, although there have been some tears. Indeed, I found young Betjemann crying outside the Lodge. We walked up and down the road whilst I tried to comfort him.  He does know Ralph Adams from their holidays in Cornwall, so we have put them both in Form II. Let’s hope Ralph can help buck him up.

My brother Hum got to know the Betjemanns on holiday in Trebetherick a few years ago, and hearing that John was not having a good time of it at Highgate School (where his German-sounding name led to some unpleasantness), suggested he came to board here at the OPS.

 

April 13th 1917

6 Comments

The Times and the Daily Telegraph have announced that our VC winner, Capt. William Leefe Robinson (RFC) is “missing.” Yesterday’s Telegraph added that “he was believed to have been killed.”

He is the second Old Dragon airman to have suffered this fate since the start of the month.  News has reached us that 2nd Lieut. Peter Warren (RFC) is also missing. He has been at the Front barely a month.

Peter was up at Magdalen in 1914 (where his uncle, Sir Herbert Warren, is President) and being only 17 yrs old was not then eligible for service, although he did join the University OTC.

He received his commission last July and trained as an Observer with 57 Squadron. He transferred to 34 Squadron in November to train as a pilot, graduating in early February. At the end of the month he was sent to the front to join 43 Squadron.

The Warrens have close connections with the OPS. Peter’s grandmother, Mrs Morrell, lives at Black Hall (No 21, St Giles) doors away from where the OPS started.

Peter’s uncle is Philip Morrell, who was a Dragon under Mr Clarke from 1878 until 1880, when the school consisted of a few rooms at No 26 St Giles. He now lives at Garsington Manor with his wife, Lady Ottoline, and is the Liberal MP for Burnley.

 

Both the Leefe Robinson and Warren families and friends will be enduring a period of great strain until further news is received about their loved ones. Certainly it is perfectly possible that, if they came down over enemy held territory, they are prisoners of war. We will live in hope that this is the case.

February 20th 1917

Leave a comment

Lieut. Jack Slessor (RFC) makes light of a crash he had with his aeroplane. It would seem to me that he had good reason to be “off games” for a bit, but the authorities clearly thought otherwise!

Jack Slessor...“I have just been mixed up in a difference of opinion between an aeroplane, a telegraph pole, and a ditch, so just at present I am convinced that flying is an over-rated pastime. My engine played me foul getting out of a field, and the machine, as the papers say, was seen to descend steeply, with the result that the telegraphic communication between two towns was seriously impaired and one telegraph pole and a formerly perfectly good machine badly bent.

Now I must depart to make supplication to my commanding officer for 48 hours leave, to rest my shattered nerves and throbbing brain.”

There is a postscript to his letter. It reads:

“P.S. Just returned from the aforesaid interview with the C.O. Nothing doing. He says it has been tried before.”

October 23rd 1916

1 Comment

Lieut. Geoff Buck (RFC) has completed his training and has now been let loose on the Boche!

Amongst the danger and excitement of war, these latest entries from his journal show an interesting range of emotions – who would have thought war could be a laughing matter?

Buck, Geoff27/9/16. “I took a machine and eight bombs and went off with 16 other machines to raid Bocheland. Flying close together with 16 others is ‘anellofajob’. But anyhow we all came back, and it was quite pleasant – no Hun machines and very few ‘Archies’. You can’t think how queer a big battle looks from upstairs – frightfully interesting, but I simply hate to think of the poor blighters on the ground..”

2/10/16. “Flying high in formation we got slightly ‘Archied’ over the lines (I disliked this because a little bit of iron on one of my eight bombs means that I go simply to swell the Roll of Honour). We dropped our bombs, and they all fell on their objective, and probably strafed some French peasants, mice and woodpeckers. But I hope we killed more Boches.

Then the fun began, pop-pop, bang, fizz-whizz, hiss, pop, bang, little black puffs all around us, and each explosion shook our little machines as if they had been kicked. This was most dangerous and unpleasant (so I thought), and after waving to my nearest fellow-sufferer to keep clear, I performed a memorable series of switchback vertical turns at an average speed of 150 mph. This upset Archibald’s calculations some, I guess, and anyhow I lost control and was much too frightened trying to get control of the machine again to be frightened about Archie.

It really is a sporting kind of life, and I laughed till I could hardly see the instruments.”

 

As a young Dragon, Geoff always enjoyed a good scrap. I recall a bike expedition to North Cerney in the summer of 1910.  Having gone by train to Fairford we bicycled to North Cerney. There followed a cricket match against a local team of boy scouts. The match was conveniently tied before the real fun started. Paddy Burton’s brother Phil wrote up the events that followed:

“…someone bagged one of the Boy Scouts’ caps, and this lead to a battle; after about ten minutes ragging they collected their troops and sounded the charge. They were much older than we were for the most part, and they outnumbered us, but we were not going to be beaten. Keyworth had a tremendous fight with the ‘Samsonian Beefer’ (aged 19) and everyone did his best to sit on the scout he had got hold of. Geoff Buck held down a writhing mass of three scouts, and Flea Carr White and Henry Way wrought frightful havoc.

When we were told to go to bed, the lawn (of the Rectory) was covered with Dragons sitting on scouts, and I may quite fairly say that we absolutely licked them. Then we cheered them and trooped off to bed.”

The next morning we started for home, stopping to lunch in Burford. Clearly it was a good one, as Billy Smyth recorded in the hotel’s visitors’ book:

Four cyclists arrived at the Inn of the Bull;
They came very empty and went away full;
Their names were the Skipper and Billy and Flea,
And Geoffrey; a hungrier four ne’er did you see.

The fare was roast beef with potatoes and peas,
And raspberry tart, and some excellent cheese;
A fair maiden served us with all of the best;
But who wrote this poem will never be guessed.

With so much to depress us in today’s world, it is good to have these memories of happier days to buck us up!

 

 

September 20th 1916

Leave a comment

Christmas Term 1916

The excitement of starting a new school year today is dulled by its coinciding with the anniversary of the deaths of two of our masters, Leslie Eastwood and Tom Higginson. Leslie died of dysentery in Egypt and Tom was crushed by the collapse of his dug-out in France. We remember them both with great affection…

Dragons, welcome back. We number 136 with the perfect split of 68 boarders and 68 day boys. The oldest boy in the school is H. Kingerlee (aged 14.8) and the youngest D. Wallace (aged 7.11). In the Junior Department we have 22 (aged from 8.11 down to 5.10).

There is much to look forward to: the rugger – let’s hope we have a good XV, using the shooting range, doing some carpentry, playing in concerts, preparation for our school play and maybe other dramatic productions, bicycle expeditions, picnics and of course some hard work! I trust too that many boarders will join Mr Haynes for the morning bathe in the River Cherwell before breakfast. A most bracing way to start the day!

Many boys, I know, have been writing a holiday diary over the summer and I look forward to marking them over the coming weeks and awarding prizes.

The greatest excitement of the holidays was William Leefe Robinson winning the Victoria Cross for shooting down an airship. As often happens in life, he was brought down to earth with a bump when, only 13 days after his extraordinary feat, a gust of air hit his aircraft as he was taking off and he crashed. Luckily, he escaped as the engine caught fire, but his plane was totally destroyed.

Nonetheless, there can be no doubt he will be back in the air fighting our enemies again very soon.

 

September 18th 1916

1 Comment

2nd Lieut. Sydney Carline (RFC, 19th Squadron) was shot down and wounded at the end of August over the Somme battlefield, on a bombing expedition against a railway cutting some 20 miles behind the front line.  His brother, George Carline, visited him in hospital and has extracted the following details:

George Carline

“After Sydney had dropped his bombs and was returning, it appears he got separated from the rest of his squadron and was attacked by four German machines. These machines had been flying at about 15,000 ft on the look-out for any separated machine to tackle. It is one of their methods to fly high and dive at a great speed on an enemy machine, firing their machine gun as soon as they are within range until they catch it up, when they turn to one side and continue their dive to their aerodrome and safety.

My brother was apparently unconscious of any enemy machines about, until he heard the firing of the gun behind him. He says that owing to the noise of the engine it is impossible to hear anything except a gun at close range or the explosions of anti-aircraft shells.

The first German machine damaged his engine slightly and wounded him in the leg. He says there were eight holes in the petrol tank, and other shots hit the back of the seat he was sitting on.  With his damaged engine he had to put his nose down to keep up speed and consequently could not bring his gun into play. His machine was a single-seated scout, with a Vickers gun timed off the engine to fire through the propeller, and to aim the gun the whole machine had to be directed towards the object, as the gun is a fixed one.

Not being able to turn and fly upwards at the German machines and so use the gun, he had to continue his course and keep turning about trying to escape the Germans or at least make their firing harmless, and at the same time firing a Lewis gun fitted behind him. But this gun, he says, is very difficult to aim with success and fly a machine at the same time.

One after another of these machines dived on to him firing their guns, and after he had dropped about 5,000 ft., the Germans made off home, and he was able to get over the lines again at about 5,000 ft. up. Crossing again by the Somme, ‘Archie’ left him alone, anywhere else he would have made a good target at that height.

His leg was numbed by the wound, so that it did not pain him, and by using his heel on the rudder instead of his toe, he was able to manage his machine all right and get back to the aerodrome. The petrol pouring from his tank was very useful, he said, as it kept his leg cool and he was able to drive his engine off his spare tank.”

b-e-12-carline

A B.E 12 aircraft of the type flown by the 19th Squadron.

Sydney has told George that he is spending his sick leave in helping with an invention connected with flying.

Sydney Carline

Before the war Sydney was a budding artist, following in the footsteps of his father George Carline. In 1911, W. Davis of Turl Street commissioned him to complete six charming etchings of Oxford.

On the outbreak of war he became a dispatch rider before joining the RFC.