On another bumpy day, Greg was on Counter Battery Patrol duty. He dropped his first bomb – a 20lb Cooper bomb – and fired his first shots in anger, but without much success at least in the case of the bomb.
Log Book
Date: 15.6.18 Hour: 9.50 Machine type: RE8 No.: E27 Observer: Lt Roche Time: 2 hrs Height: 4000 Course/Remarks: Engine rough. Good landing.
Diary
Saturday June 15th. E27. Counter Battery Patrol from 10 to 1 pm. Sent FL FR FD. Very bumpy. Dropped a bomb on a bridge, missed rather badly. Fired off 50 rounds into Hun lines from Vickers gun. Observer fired 100 from Lewis.
“Sent FL FR FD”
This somewhat cryptic sentence in Greg’s diary is in the active voice, not the passive voice. It refers to signals that he sent to the squadron’s Central Wireless Station (CWS), not places to where he might have been sent by them. In fact, they were weather signals:
- FL: Weather fit for counterbattery work
- FR: Weather fit for registration [of artillery fire onto a target]
- FD: Weather fit for photography.
The corresponding ‘unfit’ signals would be UL, UR and UD, respectively.
Hat tip to The Long, Long, Trail for the letter codes.
Cooper Bomb and Vickers and Lewis Machine Guns
For an description of the bombs and guns carried on the RE8, see:
Counter Battery Patrol
For a reminder of what counter battery patrols involved, see:
Header image: cutaway version of a 20lb Cooper bomb in the RAF Museum, Hendon.