Tag: Did not fly

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Tuesday 27 August 1918 – No Flying – Bill Ledlie

No flying for Greg today.  As he wasn’t keeping up his diary any longer, we don’t know the reason.  But we can take the opportunity of an off-day to look a little more at Bill Ledlie.

Captain William Ledlie RAF

Bill Ledlie was the Commanding Officer of B Flight, 42 Squadron  RAF.  In the post for 25 August 1918, a couple of days ago, he was to be seen sitting (in shorts!) front-and-centre of the group photographs of the B Flight officers.

Ledlie was an Ulsterman, born on 16 April 1894 according to the IWM’s Lives of the Great War, who attended Banbridge Academy.  Banbridge is a town in County Down that grew wealthy on the linen industry.  It is on the A1 between Lisburn and Belfast to the north, and Newry and Dublin to the south.

Ledlie was some five years older than Greg, and was his commanding officer.  But the two became friendly, as evidenced by the several photographs of Ledlie in  Greg’s collection.  

Capt. Bill Ledlie, CO B Flight, 42 Sqn RAF, with RE8
Capt. Bill Ledlie, CO B Flight, 42 Sqn RAF, standing in front of an RE8 bearing (appropriately enough) the squadron marking B1 “somewhere in France”. Click for larger image. Photo credit: Greg’s War Collection.
Capt. Bill Ledlie
Capt. Bill Ledlie, “somewhere in France”. Click for larger image. Photo credit: Greg’s War Collection.
Capt. Bill Ledlie
Capt. Bill Ledlie, “somewhere in France”. Click for larger image. Photo credit: Greg’s War Collection.

After the War

Ledlie and Greg had apparently made some tentative plans for after the war.  They would go into business together, drawing on their aviation skills, but nothing ever came of it.

Although Ledlie survived the Great War, he died during the Second World War on 23 October 1940 when co-piloting the sole example of a de Havilland DH.95 Hertfordshire, no. R2510.  The Hertfordshire was the military transport variant of the de Havilland DH.95 Flamingo.  The IWM has a photograph of this aircraft here.

According to Peter Clare, in a post on the WW2Talk forum ‘The War in the Air’, Air Vice Marshal Charles Hubert Boulby Blount was on board.  Peter Clare writes:

The aircraft took off on a sortie to Belfast and was carrying a crew of five and six passengers. Shortly after taking off the aircraft crashed into some houses at Woodlands Way [sic, should be ‘Woodland Way’], Mill Hill, London and all those on board were killed. The aircraft was the sole Hertfordshire in use with the RAF and it was a military version of the Flamingo aircraft. No Accident card was found for this aircraft nor could any reference to the outcome of the Board of Enquiry be located. AVM Blount was AOC 22 Group at the time of his death and was on a scheduled flight to Belfast to discuss joint training exercises with the GOC Northern Ireland. 

Wikipedia records that the cause of the crash was jamming of the elevator.

Woodland Way is a short residential road just over a mile (about 2 km) north of what was then RAF Hendon (now the site of the RAF Museum) by Mill Hill Broadway Railway Station and backing on to the M1 motorway:

 

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Sunday 25 August 1918 – Did Not Fly – 42 Sqn B Flight Photos

No flying for Greg today, for unrecorded reasons. So we take a look at some photos of the officers of B Flight, 42 Squadron RAF.

42 Squadron, B Flight Photographs

It would have been sometime around now when the following photographs of some of Greg’s fellow officers were taken. The location is almost certainly in front of the flight’s hut on the aerodrome at Rely.  Greg isn’t in either of them, so he may have been the photographer.

Officers of 42 Squadron RAF, probably B flight
Officers of 42 Squadron RAF, probably B flight, almost certainly taken in front of the flight’s hut at Rely aerodrome, Summer 1918. Click for larger image. Photo credit: Greg’s War Collection
Officers of 42 Squadron RAF, probably B flight
Another group photo of officers of 42 Squadron RAF, probably B flight, almost certainly taken in front of the flight’s hut at Rely aerodrome, Summer 1918. Click for larger image. Photo credit: Greg’s War Collection

In both of the above photos, the person in shorts in the middle of the front row is Captain William (‘Bill’) Ledlie, who was the commanding officer of the flight.  More on him another time.  And sitting on the sandbags at the end of the second row on the right, in both photos, is Lt Edward Ives – thanks to his grandsons Julian and Les for the identification.  More about Lt Ives here:

Saturday 29 June 1918 – CBP Cancelled by Weather

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Monday 19 August 1918 – No Shoot To Do, Merville Liberated

Although Greg was down to do a shoot today, there was no shoot to do so he didn’t fly.  On the ground, the front on the Lys sector was starting to move eastwards: on this day, British forces liberated Merville.

Diary

Diary

Monday Aug 19th. Down for shoot – none to do, so did not fly.

Merville Liberated

As the tide began to turn, British ground forces on the Lys sector today retook Merville. The Germans had taken it on 11 April 1918, the day of General Haig’s ‘Backs-to-the-Wall’ order:

Thursday 11 April 1918 – Merville Falls – Backs to the Wall

 

Page updated 20 August 2018, 11:55

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Thursday 15 August 1918 – Dud Day, Paris-Plage Beckons

Greg was down for a shoot today, but it was a ‘dud day’ – so Greg went and had a good time in Paris-Plage:

Diary

Diary

Thursday Aug 15th.  Down for a shoot.  Dud day. Went to Paris-Plage – good time. 

Paris-Plage

In contrast to today’s unexpected bonus outing, Greg’s previous trip to Paris-Plage was on a scheduled day off, and rather chaotic because of a driver not knowing where he was going:

Thursday 11 July 1918 – A Trip to the Seaside

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Thursday 1 August 1918 – Good Time in St Omer

An intended early counter battery patrol was cancelled in view of the weather.  So Greg had the day off and went to St Omer.  A “good time”; but a close encounter with some bombs at night.

Diary

Diary

August 1st 1918.  Thursday.  CBP at 5.30am.  Too dud to take off, heavy fog and ground mist.

Went to St Omer at 11.am & came back at 7.  Good time, quite a change from camp. 

Bomb raid at night.  10 bombs dropped near us.

St Omer

St Omer was something of an aviation hub during the First World War.  It was the largest British airfield on the Western Front, and the centre of operations for the RFC and then the RAF.  There was also an associated hinterland of supply facilities.  Socially, it was quite a buzz too.  Nonetheless, as Cross & Cockade International reports, there was a variety of views on the merits of the place:

The town itself seems to have brought out mixed reactions. Major Edward (Mick) Mannock, described St Omer as a ‘nasty town, mainly composed of estaminets, old women, and dirty – very dirty children’, while Lieutenant Harry van Goethem, who arrived with 10 Squadron at St Omer in July 1915, appears to have relished his brief time billeted there describing his visit as ‘historic’. He particularly enjoyed the Café Vincent and ‘the wonderful waitress (Jeanne) whose fair coiffe was the admiration of countless thousands of British officers. “Given the number of squadrons for whom a night out in St Omer was a regular social event –  being recognised as a meeting place for members of any squadron within a reasonable distance – it may be concluded that for the majority of RFC personnel it was an agreeable destination. (https://www.crossandcockade.com/StOmer/)

From Greg’s brief report, he evidently shared the majority view.

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Wednesday 24 July 1918 – Bilious Attack, Had a Day Off

No flying for Greg today, owing to a ‘bilious attack’.

Diary

Diary

Wednesday July 24th. Had a bilious attack, & a day off.

Bilious Attack

So what exactly is that?  Collins English Dictionary defines this medical term from another era as follows:

Bilious Attack (British)

[pathology, obsolete]

a group of symptoms consisting of headache, abdominal pain, and constipation
 
Quite possibly what Greg suffered was a migraine attack.  In migraine, a moderate-to-severe headache (typically on one side of the head only; the word ‘migraine’ derives from ‘hemicranium’) is often accompanied by gastric disturbance including reduced gut motility.
 
Greg was prone to migraines in later life – a tendency which he passed on the two generations immediately after him (ah, well).  But he swore that he had a remedy that always caused a migraine attack to abort: a stiff glass of whisky.  Sadly, it never worked for me!
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