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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0577.PDF
JULY 6, 1916, AVIATION IN PARLIAMENT. is IGHT The Loss of an Aeroplane. IN the House of Lords, on June 27th, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu asked whether the Government could give any information as to the start, flight, and landing of a certain F.E.2.D. aeroplane which left Farnborough on May 31st and had not yet joined the squadrons at the front; and whether any wireless message had been received in reference to it. He said that he would not refer to the incident if anything that he intended to say would give any assistance to the enemy; but he thought the House was entitled to have the information which he sought, and also to have a pledge from the Government that steps should be taken to ensure as far as was possible that such an incident should not occur again. On the morning of June 1st the aeroplane left Farnborough to fly to France. It flew across the Channel, passed over our lines and the German lines, and descended unhurt with its pilot and observer in the German aerodrome at Lille. There is a possibility of a mistake being made in distinguishing between St. Omer and Lille, for pilots are very often guided by two canals which are to a certain extent similar, but in this case there is no question of a mistake in the two canals because, he was sorry to tell their lordships, the pilot who flew this machine had never flown to France before and had no knowledge whatever of the geography of the Front. That is what made it a very serious incident. The pilot's name was Lieutenant Littlewood, originally of the North Lincolnshire Regiment, and the observer was Lieutenant Grant, who was gazetted as a flying officer in the R.F.C. nine days after he was in the hands of the enemy. Lord Montagu said it would perhaps be as well if he read the fol lowing extracts from a letter from one who was at the aerodrome at Farnborough at the time the start to. France was made :— "The War Office sent down and asked for two F.E. pilots, the machines being F.E. in which the engines were placed to fly them over-seas. Owing to an error in the delivery of the message it was understood that the pilots were to fly ordinary F.E. machines, with the result that in one case an inexperienced pilot was sent. I saw the pilot, who complained that he was not an experienced F.E. pilot, also that he had never been over-seas and was not sure of the way. "The authorities, who heard all this, took no notice of his com plaints and told him to take the machine. Later a report came through that F.E. had crossed the lines at Armentieres and dis appeared in the direction of Lille. That evening a German wireless communiqtd stated that the F.E. had landed intact south-west of Lille, the pilot having lost his way. [Lord Montagu said that the somewhat sarcastic German wireless message was to this effect. While informing us that the officers and machine had landed unhurt at the German aerodrome at Lille, they thanked us for the engine and plane, which, they said, would be ' most useful' to them.] Thus it will be seen that within three hours of its having been taken out of the factory our newest aid latest machine was handed over intact to the Huns. " I should think if you wrote and told —— about this he would have somebody's blood, as it is the second time our beauties at the War Office have lost a brand-new machine in the same way. When the V.E. machine was just out, the fourth or fifth we sent over to France was also sent over in charge of a chap who had only just got his wings (flying certificate), and who also didn't know the way, and he landed right on the Lille aerodrome, and handed his machine to the Huns." Lord Montagu put three questions to the Government:— Who was responsible for sending this pilot, who was obviously an inexperienced man, with one of our most valuable and latest machines ? Is it a fact that other pilots inexperienced in the geography of the western front have been sent on similar missions ? Will the Government take steps to ensure that such serious mis takes will not take place in the future ? Earl Curzon said the last questions which Lord Montagu had ad dressed to him were not those which appeared on the paper. To the questions on the paper he would reply. As to the incident in question, Lord Montagu was himself obviously fully acquainted with all the details. He (Lord Curzon) could only give as much informa tion as he had been able to get from the sources available to the Government. The aeroplane to which reference had been made left England on June 1st. The German wireless of June 2nd stated that a British biplane had landed near Lille, no date being mentioned. The pilot and passenger were prisoners in the hands of the Germans. The pilot after crossing the Channel appeared to have lost his way and descended in the German lines. Such incidents had happened before and would happen again, and they were not confined to one side. They had happened to German pilots just as they had happened to our own pilots. He was not clear •whether the noble lord had meant to suggest any particular inference or base on what had happened any particular charge. He believed it was true that the pilot had not gone across the Channel before, but he doubted whether it would be wise to make it the law that no machine should be taken across the Channel, even by a competent pilot, unless he had had experience of that particular route. No doubt in all those cases they would only be too glad to send in the machine a pilot who had done the same job before. But a pilot who had such qualifications might be much more valuable at the front than employed in this country to take machines over to France. This was one of the risks which had to be run in aerial warfare. In the present case we had lost a valuable machine. He could, however, give no undertaking that such incidents would not recur. Lord Montagu said there were two other pilots available on the morning in question. At any rate that was his information from very competent sources. He would like to know why this parti cular man was chosen to fly over with such a valuable machine. He thought that was a very serious matter, and he was sure equally serious notice would be taken of it. G.P.O. Ladies and Air Raids. IN his speech on the Post Office Estimates in the House of Commons, on Monday, the Postmaster-General, Mr. Joseph Pease, paid a well-deserved tribute to the female workers in connection with air raids. He said :— " In connection with Zeppelin raids, the work of the women who have come forward voluntarily to do duty at night deserves, I think, very high praise. Hundreds of women have thus come forward. When Zeppelin raids have been anticipated, and some times when they have been going on, these women have come out of their homes, and even when bombs were dropping, gone to their positions in the various exchanges. They have played an important par.t in an organised scheme of air-raid warnings, and in gallantry and self-sacrifice they have set a good example to the whole country." Post Office Air Raid Policies. ANOTHER interesting point in the same speech was that the scheme organised by the late Postmaster-General in connection with insurance against Zeppelin raids found great favour with the public. Up to June 21st policies, varying from £2$ to ,£75, to the number of 168,000 have been taken out for the insurance of property to the amount of £1,600,000, whilst the premiums paid under this insur ance scheme amount to ^10,000. The Lost Aeroplane. IN connection with his statement in the House of Lords, Lord Montagu has written the following letter to Superintendent Littlewood, father of Lieutenant Littlewood :— " It may interest you to know that at Chelsea Town Hall I publicly expressed regret at the unfortunate occurrence to your son, and also sympathy with yourself and family in your son having been made prisoner in Germany. I only say this to remove any mis conception there may be on your part as to my attitude. " In my opinion, blame for what happened should not be laid to your son, but on those who, despite his justifiable protest, despatched him to France on a machine with which he was not properly acquainted, with maps that he did not find easy to read, and without his having had sufficient experience of geography in lines in France to ascertain exactly where he was. " I am sorry that any reflection should have been cast by some people on your son as regards his skill and patriotism, for I feel sure from what I have heard that he was a promising officer, and I hope will live many years after the war to do good work for his country." • • • • Lord Montagu and the Air Services. IN the course of an address on aerial matters at the Chelsea Town Hall last week, Lord Montagu said that as to the inquiry into the administration of the R.F.C., it struck him as somewhat of a scandal that men like General Henderson and his able staff should be devoting a great amount of energy in defeating people possibly not worth defeating, and taking their energies away from the pro secution of their duties, which were of far more importance. He was inclined to think that departmental jealousy, up to a point, was right in so far as it led to efficiency, but if it led in times of war to energies being devoted to quarrelling with their own people, then the departmental jealousy amounted almost to a criminal proceeding. At the present moment we had two more or less disunited air services and a good deal of jealousy, and whether it was possible to carry out a combination of two services in time of war was a very vexed question. The ideal for which they should all strive was towards making an Imperial Air Service. In future some of our finest pilots and flying machines would come from the Dominions. 577
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