Poem of the week: Trench Poets by Edgell Rickword

Christopher Nevinson: Paths of Glory, Oil, 1917

Trench Poets

I knew a man, he was my chum,

but he grew blacker every day,

and he would not brush the flies away,

nor blanch however fierce the hum

of passing shells; I used to read,

to rouse him, random things from Donne-

like 'Get with child a mandrake-root'.

But you can tell he was far gone,

for he lay gaping, mackerel-eyed,

and stiff and senseless as a post

even when that old poet cried

'I long to talk with some old lover's ghost.'

I tried the Elegies one day,

but he, because he heard me say:

'What needst thou have more covering than a man/'

grinned nastily, and so I knew

the worms had got his brains at last.

There was one thing that I might do

to starve the worms; I racked my head

for healthy things I quoted Maud.

His grin got worse and I could see

he sneered at passion's purity.

He stank so badly, though we were great chums

I had to leave him; then rats ate his thumbs.

Edgell Rickword

Edgell Rickword (1898-1982)

Joined Artists' Rifles from school in 1916. Commissioned in September 1917 as a 2nd Lieutenant in 5th Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment. Promoted to Lieutenant and awarded MC in March 1919. Invalided out after loosing an eye. After the war he became a noted literary critic, but after 1930 devoted himself to political journalism, editing the Left Review 1934-1938 and Our Time 1944-1947. Also wrote novels, short stories and verse. War poems appear in Behind the Eyes (1921) and Invocation to Angels (1928)

Obituary for Winnie Johnson, mother of the murder victim, Keith Bennett

I was born and brought up in Manchester in the 1960's. To this day, the actions Myra Hindley and Ian Brady (the 'Moors Murderers') still haunt the city. In my time there I saw Winnie on a few occasions when I lived in Fallowfield. She was a ghost of a woman, her life ravaged by the loss of a child that she could not bury. However, she was a woman of great dignity and courage. RIP Winnie, you are with your Keith now. xxx 

Winnie Johnson mother of Keith Bennett

Winnie Johnson was an ordinary mother whose life became defined by the tragic death of her son, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, who was murdered by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in 1964. Despite her unrelenting quest to find him, she died not knowing where he had been buried – and not knowing about the existence of a letter that might reveal his whereabouts.

Winnie Johnson was born in 1933 in Ardwick, Manchester. Her mother was in service, her father a greengrocer. One of four children, she left school at the age of 15 and worked in a factory and as a cinema usherette. Her first son, Keith Bennett, was born in June 1952, when she was 18 and unmarried.

In an interview earlier this year, she spoke about this era of her life. "At first when I was pregnant, people criticised me, but I said 'it's me that's having the baby, I'm going to keep it'. I didn't give a damn; I said it's my own bloody life. I love kids, they keep you young." She married Jimmy Johnson in 1961 and moved to the Longsight area of Manchester.

Keith Bennett disappeared on the evening of 16 June 1964, whilst walking from home to his grandmother's nearby house, to meet his brother Alan and other siblings. Hindley enticed him into their van by asking if he could help with carrying some boxes. She drove to a lay-by on Saddleworth Moor, where Brady sexually assaulted, killed and buried him.

Winnie Johnson searching for her son Keith Bennett on Saddleworth Moor

Brady and Hindley were jailed in 1966 for the murder of three children. The investigation into Bennett's disappearance continued for some 20 years, with Jimmy Johnson, his stepfather, brought in as a suspect for questioning by police on four occasions.

Brady did not confess to Bennett's murder until June 1985, when he revealed in an interview with a journalist that he had also killed Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade. Prompted by this confession, Johnson wrote to Myra Hindley, asking for assistance in finding Keith's burial place:

"I am a simple woman, I work in the kitchens of Christie's Hospital. It has taken me five weeks labour to write this letter because it is so important to me that it is understood by you for what it is, a plea for help. Please, Miss Hindley, help me."

Searches of Saddleworth Moor began in 1986, with Hindley present on two occasions, and resulted in the discovery of Pauline Reade's body. Keith Bennett thus became the "lost victim" of the Moors Murders, the only one whose remains are yet to be found.

Moors Murderer Myra Hindley

On Hindley's death in 2002, Johnson remarked "I have no sympathy for her, even in death", and reiterated her determination to find her son's body. "Whatever happens," she said, "I'll never give up looking for Keith and I'll keep asking Brady." She remained true to her word and sent hundreds of letters to Brady asking him to help.

After the official Greater Manchester Police operation ended, a privately funded search began in 2010. At the memorial for Keith Bennett held at Manchester Cathedral in March that year, Johnson told the congregation, "I'm Keith's mother. He's there on the Moors; I want him back."

Johnson was to have been present at a mental-health tribunal hearing, which would decide whether Brady should remain in a psychiatric hospital or be moved to a prison. She said that she would not attend because of her health and that it would be "too traumatic". Her solicitor, John Ainley, commented: "Winnie has made it perfectly clear over the years that she considers Ian Brady should remain in a mental hospital for the remainder of his natural life and not be transferred to a prison either in England or Scotland."

Moors Murderer Ian Brady

At the time of Johnson's death, police were investigating claims that one of the letters in the possession of Jackie Powell, Brady's former mental-health advocate, may contain the location of Keith's grave. Alan Bennett, Keith's brother, said: "Until Keith is found, then he is still in the possession of Brady and Hindley. Our fear as a family is that now my mother is no longer with us, this may be seen by the police and the media as some sort of closure to the case. This must not be allowed to happen."

Her family said in tribute, "Winnie fought tirelessly for decades to find Keith and give him a Christian burial. Although this was not possible during her lifetime, we, her family, intend to continue this fight now for her and for Keith. We hope that the authorities and the public will support us in this."

Winifred Bennett (Winnie Johnson): born Manchester 14 September 1933; married 1961 Jimmy Johnson (died 1991, three children, four children from a previous relationship); died Manchester 18 August 2012.

(Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/winnie-johnson-mother-of-moors--murders-victim--keith-bennett-8069892.html )

Israel breaks silence over army abuses

Here is an article that I read earlier this evening and thought that, as it shocked me, I would share it with the readers of this blog.

Israel breaks silence over army abuses

Ex-soldiers admit to appalling violence against Palestinian children

Hafez Rajabi was marked for life by his encounter with the men of the Israeli army's Kfir Brigade five years ago this week. Sitting beneath the photograph of his late father, the slightly built 21-year-old in jeans and trainers points to the scar above his right eye where he was hit with the magazine of a soldier's assault rifle after the patrol came for him at his grandmother's house before 6am on 28 August 2007.

He lifts his black Boss T-shirt to show another scar running some three inches down his back from the left shoulder when he says he was violently pushed – twice –against a sharp point of the cast-iron balustrade beside the steps leading up to the front door. And all that before he says he was dragged 300m to another house by a unit commander who threatened to kill him if he did not confess to throwing stones at troops, had started to beat him again, and at one point held a gun to his head. "He was so angry," says Hafez. "I was certain that he was going to kill me."

This is just one young man's story, of course. Except that – remarkably – it is corroborated by one of the soldiers who came looking for him that morning. One of 50 testimonies on the military's treatment of children – published today by the veterans' organisation Breaking the Silence – describes the same episode, if anything more luridly than Hafez does. "We had a commander, never mind his name, who was a bit on the edge," the soldier, a first sergeant, testifies. "He beat the boy to a pulp, really knocked him around. He said: 'Just wait, now we're taking you.' Showed him all kinds of potholes on the way, asked him: 'Want to die? Want to die right here?' and the kid goes: 'No, no...' He was taken into a building under construction. The commander took a stick, broke it on him, boom boom. That commander had no mercy. Anyway the kid could no longer stand on his feet and was already crying. He couldn't take it any more. He cried. The commander shouted: 'Stand up!' Tried to make him stand, but from so much beating he just couldn't. The commander goes: 'Don't put on a show,' and kicks him some more."

Two months ago, a report from a team of British lawyers, headed by Sir Stephen Sedley and funded by the UK Foreign Office, accused Israel of serial breaches of international law in its military's handling of children in custody. The report focused on the interrogation and formal detention of children brought before military courts – mainly for allegedly throwing stones.

For the past eight years, Breaking the Silence has been taking testimonies from former soldiers who witnessed or participated in human rights abuses in the occupied territories. Most of these accounts deal with "rough justice" administered to minors by soldiers on the ground, often without specific authorisation and without recourse to the military courts. Reading them, however, it's hard not to recall the Sedley report's shocked reference to the "belief, which was advanced to us by a military prosecutor, that every Palestinian child is a 'potential terrorist'".

The soldier puts it differently: "We were sort of indifferent. It becomes a kind of habit. Patrols with beatings happened on a daily basis. We were really going at it. It was enough for you to give us a look that we didn't like, straight in the eye, and you'd be hit on the spot. We got to such a state and were so sick of being there."

Some time ago, after he had testified to Breaking the Silence, we had interviewed this soldier. As he sat nervously one morning in a quiet Israeli beauty spot, an incongruous location he had chosen to ensure no one knew he was talking, he went through his recollections about the incident – and several others – once again. His account does not match the Palestinian's in every detail. (Hafez remembers a gun being pressed to his temple, for example, while the soldier recalls that the commander "actually stuck the gun barrel in the kid's mouth. Literally".)

But in every salient respect, the two accounts match. Both agree that Hafez, on the run after hearing that he was wanted, had slipped into his grandmother's house before dawn. Hafez showed us the room in his grandmother's house, the last on the left in the corridor leading to her room, where he had been hiding when the soldiers arrived. Sure enough, the soldier says: "We entered, began to trash the place. We found the boy behind the last door on the left. He was totally scared."

Both Hafez – who has never read or heard the soldier's account – and the soldier recall the commander forcing him at one point during his ordeal to throw a stone at them, and that the boy did so as feebly as possible. Then, in the soldier's words "the commander said: 'Of course you throw stones at a soldier.' Boom, banged him up even more".

Perhaps luckily for Hafez, the second, still uncompleted, house is within sight of that of his aunt, Fathia Rajabi, 57, who told us how she had gone there after seeing the soldiers dragging a young man behind a wall, unaware that he was her nephew. "I was crying, 'God forbids to beat him.' He recognised my voice and yelled: 'My aunt, my aunt.' I tried to enter but the two soldiers pointed their guns at me and yelled rouh min houn, Arabic for 'go away'. I began slapping my face and shouting at passers-by to come and help. Ten minutes later the soldiers left. I and my mother, my brother and neighbours went to the room. He was bleeding from his nose and head, and his back."

The soldier, who like his comrades mistook Ms Rajabi for the boy's mother, recalls: "The commander said to [her]: 'Keep away!' Came close, cocked his gun. She got scared. [He shouted:] 'Anyone gets close, I kill him. Don't annoy me. I'll kill him. I have no mercy.' He was really on the edge. Obviously [the boy] had been beaten up. Anyway, he told them: 'Get the hell out of here!' and all hell broke loose. His nose was bleeding. He had really been beaten to a pulp."

Finally, Hafez's brother Mousa, 23, a stone cutter who joined his aunt at the second house, recalls a second army jeep arriving and one soldier taking Hafez's pulse, giving Mousa a bottle of water which he then poured over Hafez's face and speaking to the commander in Hebrew.

"I understood he was protesting," says Mousa. This was almost certainly the 'sensitive' medic whom the soldier describes as having "caught the commander and said: 'Don't touch him any more. That's it.'" The commander goes: 'What's with you, gone leftie?' And he said: 'No, I don't want to see such things being done. All you're doing to this family is making them produce another suicide bomber. If I were a father and saw you doing this to my kid, I'd seek revenge that very moment.'"

Israeli soldiers accuse a Palestinian boy of throwing stones

In fact Hafez, did not turn into a "suicide bomber". He has never even been in prison. Instead, the outcome has been more prosaic. He no longer has nightmares about his experience as he did in the first two months. But as a former mechanic he is currently unemployed partly because there are few jobs outside construction sites and the Hebron quarries, where he says his injuries still prevent him from carrying heavy loads, and partly because he often does "not feel I want to work again". And he has not – so far – received any compensation, including the more than £1,100 he and Mousa had to spend on his medical treatment in the two years after he was taken.

The report by Sir Stephen Sedley's team remarks that "as the United Kingdom has itself learned by recent experience in Iraq, the risk of abuse is inherent in any system of justice which depends on military force". Moreover, Britain, unlike Israel, has no organisation like Breaking the Silence that can document, from the inside, the abuse of victims like Hafez Rajabi who never even make it to court.

But as the Sedley report also says, after drawing attention to the argument that every Palestinian is a "potential terrorist": "Such a stance seems to us to be the starting point of a spiral of injustice, and one which only Israel, as the occupying power in the West Bank, can reverse."

Breaking the silence: soldiers' testimonies

First Sergeant, Kfir Brigade

Salfit 2009

"We took over a school and had to arrest anyone in the village who was between the ages of 17 and 50. When these detainees asked to go to the bathroom, and the soldiers took them there, they beat them to a pulp and cursed them for no reason, and there was nothing that would legitimise hitting them. An Arab was taken to the bathroom to piss, and a soldier slapped him, took him down to the ground while he was shackled and blindfolded. The guy wasn't rude and did nothing to provoke any hatred or nerves. Just like that, because he is an Arab. He was about 15, hadn't done a thing.

"In general people at the school were sitting for hours in the sun. They could get water once in a while, but let's say someone asked for water five times, a soldier could come to him and slap him just like that. I saw many soldiers using their knees to hit them, just out of boredom. Because you're standing around for 10 hours doing nothing, you're bored, so you hit them. I know that at the bathroom, there was this 'demons' dance' as it was called. Anyone who brought a Palestinian there – it was catastrophic. Not bleeding beatings – they stayed dry – but still beatings."

First Sergeant, Combat Engineering Corps

Ramallah 2006-07

"There was this incident where a 'straw widow' was put up following a riot at Qalandiya on a Friday, in an abandoned house near the square. Soldiers got out with army clubs and beat people to a pulp. Finally the children who remained on the ground were arrested. The order was to run, make people fall to the ground. There was a 10- to 12-man team, four soldiers lighting up the area. People were made to fall to the ground, and then the soldiers with the clubs would go over to them and beat them. A slow runner was beaten – that was the rule.

"We were told not to use it on people's heads. I don't remember where we were told to hit, but as soon as a person on the ground is beaten with such a club, it's difficult to be particular."

First Sergeant, Kfir Brigade

Hebron 2006-07

"We'd often provoke riots there. We'd be on patrol, walking in the village, bored, so we'd trash shops, find a detonator, beat someone to a pulp, you know how it is. Search, mess it all up. Say we'd want a riot? We'd go up to the windows of a mosque, smash the panes, throw in a stun grenade, make a big boom, then we'd get a riot.

"Every time we'd catch Arab kids.You catch him, push the gun against his body. He can't make a move – he's totally petrified. He only goes: 'No, no, army.' You can tell he's petrified. He sees you're mad, that you couldn't care less about him and you're hitting him really hard the whole time. And all those stones flying around. You grab him like this, you see? We were mean, really. Only later did I begin to think about these things, that we'd lost all sense of mercy."

Rank and unit unidentified in report

Hebron 2007-08

"One night, things were hopping in Idna village [a small town of 20,000 people, about 13km west of Hebron], so we were told there's this wild riot, and we should get there fast. Suddenly we were showered with stones and didn't know what was going on. Everyone stopped suddenly; the sergeant sees the company commander get out of the vehicle and joins him. We jump out without knowing what was going on – I was last. Suddenly I see a shackled and blindfolded boy. The stoning stopped as soon as the company commander gets out of the car. He fired rubber ammo at the stone-throwers and hit this boy.

"At some point they talked about hitting his face with their knees. At that point I argued with them and said: 'I swear to you, if a drop of his blood or a hair falls off his head, you won't sleep for three nights. I'll make you miserable.'

"They laughed at me for being a leftie. 'If we don't show them what's what, they go back to doing this.' I argued with them that the guy was shackled and couldn't do anything. That he was being taken to the Shabak [security service] and we'd finished our job."

(Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-breaks-silence-over-army-abuses-8081393.html )

We'll Eat again: War Time Recipe of the Week

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

We are constantly reminded that we are currently in times of austerity with the global economic downturn, and for many of us that means finding ways to make the pennies go further, particularly on the weekly shopping bill when the price of food stuffs just seems to be spiralling. So it occurred to my partner to ask me to research for the blog, a recipe of the week, inspired by the doyenne of cookery books writers, Dame Marguerite Patten OBE, who had the unenviable task of advising the British Nation how to cook nutritional and wholesome meals during WWII with the meagre ration book. Now at the age of 97, Marguerite still inspires us with her innovative, authentic and interesting recipes, having written over 170 books and sold millions of copies. 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Patten

Over the next few weeks I will post recipes from some of Marguerites’ wartime cookbooks using only ingredients that were available at that time, to give you a sense of how austere times were during the war, and long after the hostilities were over for the British people.

'Potato Pete'

Typically, the ration book for adults per week allowed you to buy;

Bacon, ham, meat 4oz  (100g)

Butter 2oz  (50g)

Cheese 2oz  (50g)

Margarine 4oz  (100g)

Cooking fat  4oz (100g)  often dropping to  2oz per week

Milk  3 pints  often dropping to 2 pints per week

Sugar  8oz   (225g)

Preserves 1lb  (450) every 2 months

Tea  2oz  (50g)

Eggs  1 shell egg a week if available or

         

 Dried eggs    1 packet each 4 weeks

The following recipe requires dried eggs (if fresh eggs were unavailable)

Here are Marguerites top tips for the use of reconstituted egg powder:

1)      Store in a cool, dry place and replace the lid of the tin after use

2)      To turn a dried egg into a fresh one, mix one level tablespoon of the powder with 2 tablespoons of water, This mixture equals one fresh egg

3)      Now treat the egg as you would a fresh one. Don’t make up more egg than is necessary for the dish you are making. Beat as usual before adding other ingredients.

HARD-TIME OMELETTE

Cooking time:  10-12mins     Quantity:  4 helpings

1 ½ oz cooking fat                                    3 eggs or reconstituted dried eggs

4 medium potatoes, cooked                       1 ½ tablespoons water

and sliced or diced                                    Salt and pepper

2 small bacon rashers,

Chopped

Method;  Heat the fat in a large frying pan or omelette pan. Fry the potatoes and bacon together until crisp nd golden in colour. Beat the eggs with the water and seasoning. Pour over the potatoes and bacon until set then fold and serve at once, or serve flat.

(Recipe taken from “We’ll Eat Again” Marguerite Patten, in association with the Imperial War Museum, Published by Hamlyn)

Thought for the weekend

Do not be too moral.

You might cheat yourself out of much life.

Aim high above morality.

Be not simply good;

be good for something.

(Thoreau)

Shell casings of the week: Why do shell casings always come in pairs?

As I am new to blogging, I have been trying to find my way around the site, and this morning, noticed that someone had found the site by Googling 'Why do shell casings always come in pairs? The simplest answer to this, and without being facetious, is that they don't, either by design or because one has been lost in the mists of time. Even those that may seem to be a pair, may not necessarily have been intended to be so.

Shell casings sold separately on ebay recently

When I sold a 'pair' separately on ebay recently, I had a message, criticising me for selling them separately. (The offending items are in the photograph to the left)! My response was something like 'to get the best price for the shell casings, it is often more profitable to sell them separately, and just because they look alike does not mean that they were originally intended to be a pair.' (One sold for more than the other)! To fully understand how a pair can not be a pair, I think that we need to look at the date, subject matter, and try to fathom the original intent of the actual artefact (although provenance is so often lost between manufacture and coming on to the open market).

Firstly, though, I think that the very nature and definition of WWI Trench Art should be looked at. Often, I think that it is just assumed that just because (as with this 'pair') the name and date of a battle is on a shell casing or other artefact, then it was made in the Trenches at that time. This is not necessarily so. 'Trench Art' was also made long after the war to cater to the burgeoning Tourism (or Pilgrimage) trade to the battle sites of 'Great War' and to the War Cemeteries. Often these were made by ex-service men, but also by civilian men and women who never fought. 

Jane A. Kimball (http://www.trenchart.org/index.htm)  categorises Trench Art thus:

• Objects collected from the battlefield by soldiers or non-combatants during or after the war and modified in some way to produce war mementoes
• Hand-crafted pieces created by soldiers during the war from battlefield detritus and sent home to their families
• Hand-crafted pieces created by soldiers or civilians from battlefield detritus to sell or barter to other soldiers or to non-combatants during the war
• Hand-crafted pieces made by prisoners of war in exchange for food, cigarettes or money
• Handicrafts made by wounded soldiers to relieve the boredom of their convalescence
• Post-war souvenirs made by ex-soldiers and civilians for sale to tourists and pilgrims visiting the battlefields
• 'Trench art style' manufactured wars souvenirs

(Jane A Kimball: Trench Art an Illustrated History)

To return to the original question about 'pairs', it is perhaps better if I say a word about the distinctions that I have seen over the years, and how I categorise them:

1. Exact Pair: (Photograph above) Two shell casings which look to be exactly the same. To me these may not ever have been intended to be a pair, and could stand alone, or together. More than two of this design may have been made by the same maker to be sold singly or in pairs.
2. Mirror Image Pair: (See the photograph of the floral pair below) These have the same motif which mirror each other when stood side by side. Although these too would look well on their own, the fact that they are still together implies that they are a true pair, and intended to be such.
3.  Complementary Pair: (See the 'Felix/Steph' photos below) These could be either of the above, however with a detail such as two different names or initials which seem to be personalised by or for the same owner.

Complementary and Mirror Image pair of shell casings
(Felix/Steph) Front

Complementary and Mirror Image pair of shell casings
(Felix/Steph) 

Pair of Mirror Image shell casings

I hope that this has clarified two of the myths regarding Trench Art and particularly shell casings , that a pair is not always a pair, and Trench Art was not always made in the trenches.  However, if anyone disagrees with me, you are more than welcome to comment, or discuss. Kind regards, Eamonn.

 

Reginald Alexander John Warneford VC

 

Further to my article the other day regarding the death of a boy soldier whose grave I found in Brompton Cemetery, here is a page from wikipedia on the other military grave that I mentioned and thought might be of interest to readers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Alexander_John_Warneford 

Born      15 October 1891

Darjeeling, British India

Died       17 June 1915 (aged 23)

Buc, Yvelines, France

Buried at              Brompton Cemetery, London

Allegiance           United Kingdom

Service/branch Royal Navy

Rank      Flight Sub-Lieutenant

Unit       Royal Naval Air Service

Battles/wars      World War I

Awards Victoria Cross

Légion d'honneur (France)

Reginald Alexander John Warneford, VC (15 October 1891 – 17 June 1915) was a Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) officer who received the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Contents 

1 Early life

2 Service

3 See also

4 Notes

5 Bibliography

6 External links

[edit]Early life

Warneford was born in Darjeeling, India, the son of an engineer on the Indian Railways. He was brought to England as a small boy and educated at King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon[1] but when his family returned to India he continued his education at the English College, Simla. Following apprenticeship in the Merchant Marine, Warneford joined the British-India Steam Navigation Company. At the time of the outbreak of World War I, he was in Canada awaiting return to India. Instead, he sailed then to Great Britain, joining the Army but almost straightaway transferred to the Royal Navy Air Service for pilot training.[2]

[edit]Service

A drawing of the downing of LZ37 by Rex Warneford

Warneford's initial training took place at Hendon, passing then to Upavon where he completed his pilot training on 25 February 1915.[2] During the course of training, the Commander of Naval Air Stations, R M Groves was quoted as saying: "This youngster will either do big things or kill himself."[3] Warneford's flying instructor at the time, Warren Merriam, noted his skills as a pilot but had to make special arrangements to ensure that Warneford's perceived over-confidence did not bar him from attaining a commission. Merriam took an opportunity whilst Commander Groves was visiting Hendon to ask Warneford to demonstrate his flying skills. Groves' favourable impression overcame the views of the Squadron Commander at the time who believed that Warneford would never make an officer because of his lack of concern for disciplinarian matters.[4]

Warneford was initially posted to 2 Wing on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent but was quickly (7 May 1915) posted to an operational unit with 1 Wing at Veurne on the Belgian coast. Over the next few weeks, Warneford was involved in attacks on German troops and guns, as well as actions against enemy aircraft. His aggressiveness and effectiveness led to his being given his own aircraft and a roving commission.[5] On 17 May 1915, Warneford encountered Zeppelin airship LZ39 setting out on a raid over the UK. He attacked LZ39 with machine gun fire but the airship was able to ascend out of range by jettisoning ballast.[5]

On 7 June 1915 at Ghent, Belgium, Warneford, flying a Morane-Saulnier Type L, attacked the German airship LZ37. He chased the airship from the coast near Ostend and, despite its defensive machine-gun fire, succeeded in dropping his bombs on it, the last of which set the airship on fire. LZ37 sunsequently crashed in Sint-Amandsberg[6](51°3′43.2″N 3°44′54.7″E).[7] The explosion overturned Warneford's aircraft and stopped its engine. Having no alternative, Warneford had to land behind enemy lines, but after 35 minutes spent on repairs, he managed to restart the engine and returned to base.

On 17 June 1915, Warneford received the award of Légion d'honneur from the French Army Commander in Chief, General Joffre. Following a celebratory lunch, Warneford travelled to the aerodrome at Buc in order to ferry an aircraft for delivery to the RNAS at Veurne. Having made one short test flight, he then flew a second flight, carrying an American journalist, Henry Beach Newman, as passenger. During a climb to 200 feet, the righthand wings collapsed leading to a catastrophic failure of the airframe. Accounts suggest that neither occupant was harnessed and were both thrown out of the aircraft, suffering fatal injuries. In the case of Newman, death was instantaneous. Warneford died of his injuries on the way to hospital. He was buried at Brompton Cemetery,[8] London on 21 June 1915 in a ceremony attended by thousands of mourners.[9]

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovil, Somerset, England.

 

Reginald Warneford's funeral

 

Funerary monument, Brompton Cemetery, London

[edit]See also

Leefe Robinson - another VC awarded for shooting down a Zeppelin

[edit]Notes

^ http://www.kes-stratford.org.uk/houses/houses.html

^ a b O'Connor 2005, p. 26.

^ Turner 1972, p. ?

^ Merriam 1954, p. ?

^ a b O'Connor 2005, p. 27.

^ In remembrance of this event and the pilot, Ghent a street in Ghent was named Reginald Warnefordstreet on the spot where the airship crashed.

^ (in Dutch) Historische ontmoeting in Gent, Hangarflying.b

^ CWGC entry

^ O'Connor 2005, p.31

[edit]Bibliography

Buzzell, Nora (1997). The Register of the Victoria Cross (3rd ed.). Cheltenham, Gloucestershire: This England Alma House. ISBN 0-906324-27-0.

Cooksley, Peter G. (1999). VCs of the First World War: Air VCs. Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd.. ISBN 0-7509-2272-9.

Gibson, Mary. Warneford, VC: The First Naval Airmen to Be Awarded the VC. Fleet Air Arm Museum for the Society of Friends of the Fleet Air Arm Museum, 1979 (republished in 1984).

Harvey, David. Monuments to Courage: Victoria Cross Headstones and Memorials. Vol.1, 1854-1916. Kevin & Kay Patience, 1999.

Merriam, F. W. First Through the Clouds: The Autobiography of a Box-kite Pioneer. Batsford, 1954.

O'Connor, Mike (2006). Airfields and Airmen : the Channel Coast. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 1-84415-258-8.

Rimell, Raymond Laurence (1989). The airship VC : the life of Captain William Leefe Robinson. Bourne End: Aston Publications Ltd.. ISBN 0-946627-53-3.

Turner, C.C. (1972). The Old Flying Days (Reprint ed.). New York: Arno Press. ISBN 0-405-03783-X.

[edit]External links

Location of grave and VC medal (Brompton Cemetery)

Reginald Warneford ;findagrave.com