The Eccles Journal of November 1915 published a letter from a Swinton despatch rider on the French battlefronts who told of the incredible aerial battles in the skies overhead.
Corporal S. Yates, who lived at Parksend, Swinton, wrote of the atrocious weather conditions he and his motorcycle had to endure to get vital messages to and from the front line.
The weather was cold and wet and the mud was getting thicker every day but he wrote that they have “to keep on keeping on” although sometimes he admits it would be quicker to do the journey on foot.
He mentions that he is billeted at “Charmed Farm” and is likely to be there for the winter; in preparation his unit had made a fireplace in the cellar and moved their beds down there for warmth and no doubt safety.
Interestingly enough Corporal Yates says that his men had discovered a gramophone in Ypres along with 100 records and an ‘everlasting jewelled needle’ on which they would listen to German composer Richard Wagner “and other records of which they could not understand”, although they had copies of the National Anthem and Rule Britania to keep their morale up.
He then goes on to say how he saw his first aerial combat duel when two British bi-planes and a German Taube aircraft engaged in a dogfight.
This would have been one of the earlist recorded airplane fights: when the war started in 1914 planes were used mainly for observation missions.
But the stakes were raised in 1915 when the German Fokker airplane was introduced which allowed it to fire through its propellor, giving the Germans air supremacy.
The Taube aircraft was a very basic model and was quickly withdrawn from production being replaced by the Fokker Dr. Triplane as used by the famous Red Baron, Manfred von Richthoften, while British pilots used the more reliable Sopwith Camel.
The 148th American Aero Sqaud prepare for a raid on German trenches
The aerial combat in the skies above must have been an amazing spectacle for them to watch.
Yates says that the planes circled around one another and he could distinctly hear the machine guns crackling, with the Taube the quicker of the planes.
As the pilot swung around trying to shoot down the British airmen, a second Taube joined in the dogfight and the sky was full of little puffs of grey smoke caused by the anti aircraft guns below.
A third British aircraft joined in the combat and after several minutes of hit and run tactics the German planes headed back for their lines, however one of their planes was seen to be trailing smoke and was brought down behind the British lines.
WW1 dogfight over Western Front by Wesley D Archer – now widely accepted to be faked
Several British soldiers raced towards the stricken plane and crew and the pilot and observer were found dead still strapped in their seats, apparently scorched to a “roast” by the burning petrol: a hideous death.
What followed next is quite amazing. Yates tells of how one “Jock” soldier scrambled in and took a gold watch from the dead pilot’s body.
It contained a photograph of his girlfriend, he writes, “no doubt she is now bewailing the loss of her Fritz, still it is the fortune of war and we were all shouting with delight when the Taube came down.”
The other soldiers quickly stripped the Iron Cross markings from the aeroplane’s wings and they were kept as souveniers of the dogfight with each soldier sharing a small piece of canvas.
It doesn’t sound very chivalrous behaviour looting a corpse for his gold watch, but I can imagine after one year of combat they had seen some terrible sights and to make gain of your enemies loss was just part of the brutal, dehumanising nature of war.
Main image: A German Hannover CL III shot down over France in 1918 – Wikipedia
