Arthur David's parents lived in Middleshaws, Walpole Avenue after his death in 1917

ARTHUR RHYS DAVIDS (1897 – 1917)

At an early age it became clear that Arthur was an exceptional scholar, starting to be top of his class in many subjects despite being in a form with boys up to two years older. He attended Summerfields, a school which prepared boys for scholarship examinations for the public schools. The scholarship exam for Eton lasted two and a half days ending with a viva with the great and the good from the school. Arthur passed with flying colours and became a King’s Scholar (an endowment dating back to Henry VI). The scholars were known at Eton as Collegers and made up just 7% of the school population the balance being Oppidians (fee payers). I am sure that it would not have been easy being a Colleger in 1911 when Arthur age 12 joined the school.

Arthur at Eton

Arthur settled in well at Eton with glowing school reports. The fragility of life in the early 20^th century even for the middle class was demonstrated when he returned to school for the Lent term in 1912, he discovered that his best friend had died of meningitis over the Christmas holidays. Arthur suffered with a stammer and was at times a sickly child, collapsing after overworking for exams whilst being unwell, he suffered from asthma and was prone to heavy colds. He excelled academically achieving the highest marks of any boy in the school when he took his School Certificate Examinations.

In 1914 Arthur joined the Eton Officers Corps and the same year he went with the school to Windsor Castle to see Gustav Hamel loop the loop in a plane. In his letter home his excitement was evident as he drew both the plane and the manoeuvre in some detail. In December 1915 Arthur learned that he had been successful in winning the Domus Exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford together with the Newcastle Scholarship. He was Captain of the school. He also got rave reviews in the Eton Chronicle for his performances for the Eton first XV.

In 1916 Arthur left Eton and applied for a commission in the Royal Flying Corps, which had been formed in 1912. On 17^th August 1916 aged 18 he was ordered to report for training as a 2^nd Lieutenant on probation in the Royal Flying Corps. Today RAF pilots train for between two and a half and three and an half years before being allowed to fly operationally, at the start of the second world war it could be as little as six months (150 flying hours), but on average it took between 18 months to two years (somewhere between 200-320 flying hours).

In early 1916 the RFC began regulating training standards, with pupils expected to fly at least 15 hours solo before becoming operational. Unfortunately, the ever-increasing demand for pilots at the front, and a lack of resources at the flying schools, meant some students received not even this insufficient training and arrived at operational squadrons completely unprepared for combat. Partly because of this, casualties rose sharply and by the spring of 1917 when Arthur arrived at the front, the life expectancy of a new pilot could be measured in weeks.

Arthur as a young member of the RFC.

Training started at the end of August 1916 and five months later in January 1917 Arthur had gained his wings and was ready for his first posting, which was to the newly formed 56 squadron which contained one of the most famous fighter pilots of the time, Captain Albert Ball DSO MC, with 30 victories to his credit. Arthur was delighted with his posting he wanted to fly scouts and 56 were to fly the Scout Experimental (SE5’s) which were hot off the production line. On 7^th April 1917 the squadron left for France. The squadron were posted to aerodrome Vert Galant Farm located some 20 miles behind the lines. As the name suggests the aerodrome was a converted farm, grass fields for runways and canvas tents for accommodation.

The SE5 was a biplane constructed mainly of wood, wire and canvas and was one of the fastest planes used in WW1, capable of speeds of over 100mph. The pilots were open to the elements vulnerable to cold, low oxygen at altitude and structural collapse or fire when struck by the enemy. The SE5 was armed with a single synchronised .303-inch Vickers machine gun which enabled bullets to be fired through the arc of the spinning propellor without hitting it. But it also had a wing-mounted Lewis gun fitted on the top wing which enabled the pilot to fire at an enemy aircraft from below. The plane contained no navigational instruments, aviators relied on their compasses, crude maps (charts), observation and dead reckoning (the determining of position by using direction and speed data) for navigation. I cannot begin to imagine the courage and character required by these young men even to try to fly these planes, let alone fight in them.

Arthur’s first flight the morning after his arrival to learn the country (they had to be very familiar with the terrain and its landmarks) was a disaster. Before taking off for France, Arthur discovered that his fur cap and goggles had been stolen (these items were not providing by the RFC but had to be purchased by the pilots themselves), at short notice he had to buy another pair of goggles and fly with a scarf wrapped around his head. As a result of the said new goggles losing a lens, he ended up flying without goggles and when attempting to land thought he was a foot off the ground when in reality he was six. He landed badly and overturned his SE5 breaking the fuselage in two and badly spraining his back. To add insult to injury, Arthur was thoroughly unimpressed when his CO said that in the Army if you lose things you have just got to steal somebody else’s. His plane had to be sent back to Canada for repair and this left Arthur without a plane for nearly a month. He did eventually make his first active flight on 3^rd May.

Flying was a chaotic activity, completely weather dependent with no radio communication between the pilots themselves and the ground. In Arthur’s letters there are examples of being attacked by planes thought to be friendly and the occurrence of regular mechanical failure.

 On 7^th May Arthur was involved in his first ariel dogfight and was attacked by Leutnent Kurt Wolff, a leading member of Baron von Richthofen’s (The Red Baron) Jasta (flight), with over twenty victories to his name. Both Arthur’s guns jammed (not an infrequent occurrence for pilots on both sides) and his plane was hit, for some unknown reason Wolff disengaged and Arthur was left to limp home, eventually having to make a forced landing in a field someway short of the aerodrome. Of the 11 SE5’s to leave on patrol that day, only six had returned. How Caroline reacted to these tales of fighting in Arthur’s letters can only be imagined, it was only a short time ago that telegrams were sent to Eton at the slightest sign of ill health and now her beloved only son was putting himself in constant danger.

Subject to weather conditions patrols were flown up to three times a day. The pilots were developing tactics on the hoof, Arthur’s first victory came on May 23^rd when he attacked a German Albatros by diving out of the sun from 12,000 feet. Over the next three days Arthur was credited with five further victories. On the last day of May, 56 Squadron moved north to a new aerodrome Estree Blanche, just south of St Omer. The squadron had completed its first seven weeks in France and in five weeks of fighting for the loss of ten of its own pilots it had claimed a total of 57 enemy aeroplanes.

The move to the new aerodrome was to support the allies attack on the Messines ridge. Shortly before the attack General “Boom” Trenchard, General Officer Commanding the RFC visited the squadron to explain the object of the coming battle, which involved a massive tunnelling operation under the ridge, which were filled with almost a million pounds of high explosive, the plan being to literally blow the Germans off the ridge. “When will it be” asked one of the pilots, “within three or four days” replied Trenchard. “But of course I can’t tell you the exact date”. After a little more conversation about the forthcoming battle Arthur piped up, tongue in cheek “What day did you say the battle was to begin, Sir?” Trenchard caught off guard replied “The seventh” then realised by the laughter that he had been neatly tricked. It could almost have been a scene from Blackadder Goes Forth.

In his correspondence home from his regular mentioning of the writings of Rupert Brooke and the fact he always flew with a collection of his poetry, it was apparent that Arthur had not yet lost the idealism of the war so evident in Brooke’s poems. Unlike the young infantry officers of Arthur’s generation whose Illusions had already been shattered by trench warfare and were already writing the cynical, angry and disillusioned poetry exemplified by Sassoon, Rosenberg and Wilfred Owen. It was at this time that Arthur was awarded the Military Cross for his earlier victories and the squadron started to receive the SE5 with a new 200hp engine which gave them a top speed in excess of 120 mph and a ceiling of nearly 20,000ft.

Inevitably the constant flying and fighting took its toll and Arthur was allowed home on two weeks rest and recouperation leave in June, ironically, he was followed to England by the whole squadron which had been posted to Bekesbourne, Kent to defend London following a German bombing raid which had caused many casualties in the capital and consequently a public outcry. The squadron’s time in Kent seemed to be one of inactivity and the loss of such a crack squadron was immediately felt on the western front. The squadron was recalled under the direct orders of General Haig in early July. Bizarrely, whilst in Kent the squadron had been under the orders of 6^th Brigade Horse guards and when London was attacked again on 6^th July, Horse guards ordered the squadron to intercept the bombers only to discover that it was no longer in England, having left for France a few days earlier.

Flying tended to be centred over and around the battles being fought in the trenches below. In the summer of 1917 Arthur and 56 squadron saw much action in the skies above Ypres. They took part in what was then the largest dogfight of the war and took their total number of victories to 100, which was celebrated with a fine dinner, by mid-August the tally was 144. Arthur avoided a potentially fatal crash whilst testing a new plane, spent an hour attacking a squadron of eight German planes on his own, shot down three planes in one day and by mid-September had taken his personal total of victories to 20 and received a bar for his MC. On 14^th September Arthur was involved in a dogfight with Leutnant Karl Menckhoff, a German ace who ended the war with 39 victories, Arthur was outflown by the German, an unusual occurrence and ended up with a bullet hole in his petrol tank, meaning he had to nurse his plane home and Menckhoff made no attempt to finish off the damaged plane.

On 23^rd September Arthur fought and killed Werner Voss a German Ace widely regarded as the finest German pilot of his day. According to another pilot involved that day, Woss in a new Fokker Triplane single handedly attacked seven British planes for ten minutes putting bullets through all of the machines and shooting down three of them.  “His flying was wonderful, his courage magnificent and in my opinion, he is the bravest German airman it has been my privilege to fight”. Because of the superior abilities of Voss’s plane, he could have pulled out of the dogfight at any time, but he did not. Eventually Arthur got on his tail and managed to shoot him down.

Arthur was now at the very zenith of his career as an air fighter, the news of the fight with Voss (who because he was a famous Ace himself) spread rapidly throughout the RFC. Arthur was awarded the Distinguished Service Order to go with his MC. By the end of September at just 20 years of age he had 24 kills to his name. He was chosen by the RFC to have his portrait painted by Major Orpen a government artist. Orpen wrote of Arthur “He hated fighting, hated flying, loved books and was terribly anxious for the war to be over, so that he could get to Oxford.”

Arthur’s portrait by Major Orpen a government artist

It could not last, on 22^nd October 1917 he wrote what was to be his last letter home to his mother in Chipstead. On the 27^th October Arthur left on patrol at 10.40 never to return. It is not clear what actually happened, there was a dogfight and Arthur was last seen diving east after an enemy plane. The uncertainty left a ray of hope that Arthur may have been alive and taken prisoner and understandably Caroline refused to give up hope and left no stone unturned. Caroline even wrote several letters via Germany to Arthur in the event that he was a prisoner. One of those letters tells Arthur of the family plans to sell Cotterstock. Eventually, all hopes were dashed on 29^th December in a letter from the War Office which stated that a German plane had dropped a message behind the British Lines to say that Arthur was dead. The Daily Sketch published Arthur’s photograph on its front page calling him “Eton’s Boy Airman”. 27 victories to his name.

With the benefit of hindsight and access to German Airforce records it is believed that Arthur was almost certainly shot down by Leutnant Karl Gallwitz near the front line during the Third Battle of Ypres, his grave as was probably obliterated during the heavy fighting in the area during the battles for the Passchendaele Ridge. Arthur has no known grave, there is for him “no corner of a foreign field”.

Ian Baker after having read 'Brief Glory'. The life of Arthur Rhys Davids DSO, MC and bar written by Alex Revell