THE LAST DAY
Major Edward Mannock DSO and two Bars, MC and Bar, was awoken as dawn broke and just as he had been countless times over the last two years or more, was instantly alert and pulling on his flying clothes. After a quick splash of cold water on his face from the jug and basin in his room, he left the hut and crossed to the squadron office. The airfield was St Omer, not only an operational base but the home of a pilot pool and an Air Depot. For many flyers St Omer was their first landing spot on coming across the Channel from England. Here they would wait for a posting to a squadron, filling dead men’s shoes.
Within a few moments a second airman arrived, Lieutenant D C Inglis DCM, who had travelled from New Zealand to fight in this great war. Mannock acknowledged the other man’s presence and then both headed out across to where the four squadron Bessonneau canvas aircraft hangars stood. In front of them the mechanics had already rolled out, primed and tested, two SE5a fighters, Mannock’s E1295 and Inglis’s E1294, interestingly but quite co-incidentally, numbered in sequence. Both machines had arrived on the squadron on consecutive days, 16 and 17 June. E1294 had been flown on a number of sorties over the last several weeks but Mannock in E1295 had achieved seven victories with it since his arrival to take command of 85 Squadron on 18 June. Soon after he arrived he had test flown it, liked it, and was now comfortable in it.
Students of WW1 flying will know the famous picture of 85 Squadron’s SE5 line-up in front of these same hangars, taken on 21 June 1918, with Captain S B Horn MC seated in Billy Bishop’s old C1904 ‘Z’. It was here that Mannock and Inglis prepared to climb into their machines on this fateful July morning in 1918. Visitors today to St Omer airfield can easily locate the spot, it is just to the right of the British Air Services Memorial stone, where a WW2 hangar now stands. 85 Squadron’s buildings would have been further along.
Mannock had already studied the morning sky. Despite it being July, all he could see were lowish grey clouds. From his experience he felt sure it would rain later but at least going out on patrol with these clouds he would not have the glaring rays of the rising sun to contend with as they headed east. They would of course need to fly lower than was comfortable, but so too would any German aircraft they encountered. They could expect German two-seaters, either making a dawn reconnaissance, or trench strafing.
In the front line trenches just south of Pacault Wood [1], by the La Bassée Canal, near where Mannock would have his last air battle, British troops were viewing a grey sky too. Not thick or heavy, but the sort of greyness that soon disperses when the sun rises. Visibility was good and they could see the Nieppe Forest, some seven miles to the north-west, quite clearly.
The two airmen’s flying boots were wet with dew as they arrived at their aircraft. Each said the customary few words with their ground crews before climbing into the tiny cockpits to begin the routine checks. It is sometimes assumed that Donald Inglis was a new boy, but in fact he had been with the squadron longer than his SE5a had. His first CO had been the Canadian, Billy Bishop. This belief has come about because Mannock was, this July morning, taking him out to try and help him down his first Hun. Mannock, ever the leader and teacher, was always concerned that pilots be blooded as soon as possible. It would give them heart, encouragement and hopefully and equally necessary, that killing instinct which fighter pilots had to have if the war was ever to be won.
Up to this moment as they started their engines, it had been virtually the same ritual as had occurred just 24-hours earlier. On the evening of the 24th, Mannock had casually asked Inglis if he had succeeded in shooting down a German yet. Doubtless he knew already that the New Zealander hadn’t, he would have already gone through all his pilots’ files and noted that Inglis had yet to put in a combat report for a successful air fight. Inglis had replied that he hadn’t as yet been successful. Mannock, in a matter-of-fact way, said, ‘Well, we’ll go out and get one.’
Donald Inglis was no new boy, nor a youngster. He was just a month past his 25th birthday, having been born in June 1893 and in 1914 he had been a motor engineer/mechanic in Christchurch. Joining the New Zealand forces he had served in the 2nd Battery of the NZ Field Artillery as a bombardier/fitter and had won the Distinguished Conduct Medal at Gallipoli, for repairing three guns despite heavy Turkish fire. Having transferred to the RFC in August 1917, he joined 85 Squadron while the unit was working-up and under training, then following further instruction he had finally returned to 85 in France on 21 May 1918. Therefore he had been with 85 in France for over two months. What is more, he would end the war with the squadron, finally leaving in December 1918, having been successful in surviving the air battles above the Western Front for six months – itself no mean achievement.
Inglis had recalled all this in an article for Popular Flying magazine in July 1938, edited by the creator of the famous Biggles – Captain W E Johns – himself a World War One pilot, but flying bombers, not single-seat fighters. No doubt Inglis had told the story often enough in the intervening twenty years, and while it may have been finely tuned, would nevertheless be approximately the same.
On the morning of the 25th both he and his CO had prepared for take-off. It was a reasonable day, promising a blue sky although the forecast predicted some possible showers as the day progressed. In the event it didn’t matter for although his leader took off, Inglis’s machine, much to his chagrin, had a problem. His elevator controls were jammed. The ground crew worked to try and clear the fault, but it was going to be a longer job than he hoped. Mannock’s SE5 arrived back over the airfield and landed. Taxying up to the hangars, Inglis ran over to report the bad news to Mannock. Mannock grinned and said it was all right. ‘We will go out tomorrow and get one.’
So here they were again, on the 26th, both seated in their machines. It was now well past 5 am, and Mannock’s final instruction to Inglis was, ‘Sit close on my tail and if you get too far away I will waggle my wings!’
While it may seem that Mannock and Inglis had merely flown off in order to bag a Hun for the New Zealand lad, there was also a viable reason for this early sortie. According to Captain Lance Rushbrooke, who had visited the squadron some time after the events of 26 July 1918, a front line army division on 85 Squadron’s portion of the front had complained that at specific times each day two low-flying German machines flew over and ‘worried’ the infantry in the trenches. These were obviously aircraft of the Schlachtflieger units, whose two-seater crews’ task was to ground strafe Allied front line trenches both to inflict casualties and damage morale among the soldiers. Mannock had, Captain Rushbrooke learnt, received a call – unofficially – from friends in this division and had decided to do something about it. While no doubt Inglis recalled his involvement as the suggestion of Mannock in order to get him a victory, Rushbrooke was told that Mannock had in fact asked for a volunteer to accompany him. A pilot had offered and the two had set out together. Essentially the same story, but with a little variation. [1]
The two SE5s headed for the front, Inglis recalling they were never higher than 50 feet, and then flew along the front between Nieppe Forest and Mont Kemmel, where Mannock kept mostly to the gullies. Inglis recalled:
‘… suddenly he turned for home [i.e. west] and commenced climbing full out. I knew from this he must have spotted a Hun. As I climbed after Mick I kept my eyes skinned for the Hun, but could not pick him up. However, a few moments later I noticed that Mannock half-rolled and went into a power dive. But the Hun must have spotted Mick as he was attacking from the rear. Apparently he disabled the rear gunner, as when [I finally saw the German] I attacked the Hun gunner was not shooting.
‘Both my guns were going full out, when suddenly the Hun’s tail shot up in front of me. A chill ran through me as I pulled up, just missing his tail and wing by a fraction. Looking back I saw my first Hun going down in a mass of flames.
‘We circled once and started for home. The realisation came to me we were being shot at from the ground when I saw the major was kicking his rudder. Suddenly a small flame appeared on the right of Mick’s machine, and simultaneously he stopped kicking his rudder. The plane went into a slow right-hand turn, the flame growing in intensity, and as the machine hit the ground it burst into a mass of flame.
I circled at about 20 feet hoping for the best – but Mannock had made his last flight.’
At this stage the two SE5s were at about 200 feet. In his combat report, the New Zealander wrote:
‘I went into a spiral down to 50 feet and saw machine go straight into the ground and burn. I saw no one leave the machine and then [ I ] started for the lines climbing slightly; [and] at about 150 feet there was a bang and I was smothered in petrol, my engine cut out so I switched off and made a landing 5 yards behind our front line.’
Inglis crash-landed near to British trenches and soldiers of the 24th Welsh Regiment ran out, got him out of the machine and quickly pulled him into the nearest dugout. He was quite shocked and bemoaning the fact that the Germans had shot down his major. Once he pulled himself together and was able to give an army officer details of himself and his squadron, the officer arranged for a message to be put through to St Omer and 85 Squadron.
At St Omer the squadron had no inkling of the disaster as the two SE5s were not yet overdue. Then came the devastating message from the Welsh Regiment trenches:
‘Major Mannock down by machine-gun fire from ground between Calonne and Lestrem after bringing enemy aircraft two-seater down in flames at Lestrem. Lieutenant Inglis shot through petrol tank landed on front line at St Floris. Machine OK, pilot OK. Machine likely to be shelled, salvage to-night if possible; more later. Machine at Sheet 36a SE, or 36 NW, K.31.D.14.’
That night 85 Squadron did indeed send out a party in an endeavour to retrieve Inglis’s machine, led by the equipment officer, Lieutenant Peter Rosie. He and some of his men managed to get within 600 yards of the position indicated by the Welshmen but heavy artillery fire made it impossible to get closer without endangering the salvage party. In the event the SE5 was abandoned and struck off charge on the 28th.
Mannock and Inglis’s two-seater victory was a DFW CV (2216/18) piloted by Vizefeldwebel Josef Hein and his observer Leutnant Ludwig Schöpf of Feldflieger Abteilung (A) 292b, (the ‘b’ denoting a Bavarian unit) so not ordinarily a trench-strafer, but an artillery observation staffel. Both men, Hein, aged 24, from Dortmund, and Schöpf from Pfaffenhausen, aged 24, died in the action and are buried in Billy-Berclau German cemetery, south-east of La Bassée.
Inglis would later suffer another forced landing after being shot-up by ground fire on 31 August, and again survive. Donald Inglis finally brought down his one and only sole victory on 9 October 1918, a Fokker DVII fighter.
The evening of the 26th saw a very subdued dining-in night at St Omer. Several of Mannock’s friends from neighbouring squadrons came over. Keith Caldwell, Mannock’s former CO with 74 Squadron was one of them and he made a short speech saying that Mick would not have wanted them to brood over his death, but this failed to raise spirits any higher. According to J I T Jones, also of 74 Squadron who also attended (he was later Mannock’s biographer), even with drinks and a well used record player, it was a sombre affair.
Next day, after Inglis returned and confirmed the spot where the CO had fallen, a number of pilots flew out at low level to inspect the area – and to shoot-up any sign of German troops in nearby trenches.
The devastating, terse, telegram was despatched to Mannock’s mother on the 29th, to 96 Ettington Road, Aston, Birmingham:
‘Regret to inform you that Major E Mannock DSO MC RAF, is reported missing on July twenty sixth. Letter follows.’
Another communication was sent the same day to his brother Patrick, at 13 Albert Road, Dover, which was received by his wife Dorothy, as Patrick was in France with the Tank Corps.
Mick’s cousin (also) Patrick received the news of his relative’s passing, and wrote to 85 Squadron in early August. Cousin Patrick’s father was J P Mannock, a famous billiard player who had taught King Edward VII the game. The squadron adjutant, Lieutenant W E W Cushing, replied:
| 85 Squadron, | |
| Royal Air Force, | |
| BEF, France | |
| Patrick L Mannock Esq, | 7/8/18 |
Dear Sir,
I am in receipt of your letter dated August 3rd. I have already written to Major Mannock’s brother, who has answered my letter.
I think I can tell you all you wish to know, but I was not an eye-witness. Only one officer was with him at the time, Lt D C Inglis, who is at present on leave, and is due to return on the 14th August.
At all events, this is what happened. At 5.0 am on July 26th Major Mannock left the ground in company with Lieut. Inglis; they drove down a hostile machine in flames, about 5.30 am, the fight finishing at a height of 200 feet over enemy territory. They then turned towards our own line, and had covered half the distance when Inglis noticed flame coming from Major Mannock’s machine, which at once fell uncontrolled to the ground. Inglis spiralled down to fifty feet hoping that he would see Major Mannock climb out of his machine, but the S.E. was so completely obscured in smoke and flame as to render it impossible to see anything. Inglis then left for our lines and was himself shot down, but landed unhurt just inside our front line.
Under the circumstances it is useless to tell you that there is a chance of Mick being alive; it is such a remote one that I would only raise false hopes. I should like to repeat what I wrote to his brother, that we all loved him, both as a friend and a chief. One could not wish for a more loveable, thoughtful or energetic leader. Please accept sincerest sympathy from 85 Squadron.
[1] On British trench maps and in all official correspondence referred to in this book, Pacault is spelt without an ‘l’, ie: Pacaut. The authors have followed the correct spelling although this demonstration alone is a good illustration of variations of interpretation on maps and documents, given that such anomalies are a crucial element of issues discussed in chapters 11 and 12.
[1] The 1930s pulp fiction writers became renowned for their embellishments to stories of the air war, and the impression has certainly become fixed that Mannock would often take out un-blooded pilots in the way Inglis described. This too led these writers to embellish the tale by saying that Mannock, in doing this, would not therefore claim any such victory achieved, but would ‘give it’ to the youngster. This all sounds magnanimous and gallant but in reality, there was no need. These fiction writers had obviously not understood that during WW1, fighter pilots who shared a victory were each given credit (although the same rules did not apply in the German Air Service), so while Mannock and A N Other might well down a German aircraft, both men would be able to add it to their overall score.
There is also the thought, if this logic is pursued, that Mannock’s score would have been very much higher than it was, had he not ‘given away’ these victories, but that is just not the case. One has to remember too, that Mannock, like the majority of the more successful fighter aces, was always mindful of his personal victory score, and would not easily give a victory credit away. It is facile to assume that men such as Mannock – and many of his contemporaries – did not think so materialisticly about personal scores, yet most of them did. Mannock often wrote to friends, and in passing, mentioned his score, so we know he ran a mental total at least.