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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0531.PDF
FLIGHT, 22 April 1955 SOPWITH CAMEL . . . 531 which pursued its course to drop its bombs on Ber-mondsey. On its homeward journey the Gotha's other engine failed and it came down into the sea nearFolkestone. Few other "firsts" in aerial combat were quite sosignificant as the victory scored by Capt. G. H. Hackwill and 2nd Lt. C. C. Banks, both of No. 44 Sqn., on thenight of January 25th, 1918. In their Camels they closed with a Gotha they sighted near east London. Theybrought it down in flames at Frund's farm, Wickford. This was the first direct victory ever achieved in nightcombat between aeroplanes. It was effected without radar, without radio telephony, and with only the com-paratively primitive aid of the Neame illuminated gun-sight.Another of the three night-fighter pioneers, Capt. C. J. Q. Brand, put his early experience to good useon the night of May 19th/20th, 1918. He was then with No. 112 Sqn. At 8,700ft over Faversham heattacked a Gotha and shot it down in flames. The Camels of the night-fighter squadrons were LeRhdjie-powered, and many of them were modified to be more suitable for their specialized task. Since thetwin Vickers guns of the standard Camel were so close to the pilot he was blinded by the flash when he firedthem; moreover, there was a danger in firing explosive and incendiary ammunition through the airscrew. Toovercome these difficulties the Camel night-fighters were armed with two Lewis guns on a special doubleFoster mounting above the centre section. To facilitate the re-loading of the guns and to enable them to befired upwards at 45 degrees in the manner which had been proved to be so efficaciously accurate at Orfordness,the positions of the pilot and the main fuel tanks were interchanged. Thus the cockpit was one bay farther aftthan on the standard Camel, and the pilot was behind the trailing edge of the upper wing. The centre sectioncut-out was enlarged, and some machines had cut-outs in the trailing edges of the lower wing-roots. Thesemodifications gave the pilot a better all-round view but impaired the Camel's flying qualities to a certain extent. At the end of the war it was official policy to equipall the Home Defence squadrons with Camels. The night-fighting Camels contributed a good dealto the defeat of the Gothas over England. It is recorded that Major Freiherr von Biilow, the German authority,has said that the German bombing squadrons were withdrawn for more urgent work on the Western Front,and there can be little doubt that their withdrawal was expedited by the activities of the Home Defence Camels.The Gothas' operations in France occupied them exclu- sively from May 1918 onwards.And where the Gothas were to be found, there also were the Camel night-fighters. For service on theWestern Front, No. 151 Sqn. was formed from Home Defence Flights at Hainault in June 1918; the unitreached France on June 21st. From then until the opening of the British offensive on the Somme onAugust 8th, the squadron's principal duty was the night defence of the Abbeville area. Capt. A. B. Yuille scoredNo. 151's first success on July 23rd, when he damaged a Gotha-type biplane over Etaples and forced it down.On August 10th Yuille shot down a five-engined Giant, probably a Zeppelin R.XIV, in flames near Talmas.When the British offensive began, No. 151 Sqn. moved to Vignacourt, and from there the Camels carried outmissions which, in a later conflict, were to be known as night intruder sorties. On the night of August 21st/22nd, 1918, four ofNo. 151's Camels bombed the German aerodromes at Moislains and Offoy, and a pilot of the squadron shot down an enemyaircraft in flames near Arras. Three nights later, the squadron shot down two German night bombers; and on the night ofSeptember 17th/18th three more German machines fell to the Camels of No. 151. In its five months of operational service in France the squadronshot down sixteen German bombers which fell in the British lines and ten which fell in the enemy lines; yet No. 151 itself sufferedno battle casualties. This was a magnificent record in days when night-flying aids of any kind were virtually non-existent.A second Camel night-fighter squadron, No. 152, arrived in France on October 18th, 1918. It was planned to send threemore squadrons for night-fighting duties, but the Armistice intervened.Of all the fine pilots who used the Sopwith Camel as an aero- batic mount, probably none exploited its astonishing manoeuvrabi-lity more fully than a certain Capt. Armstrong of No. 44 Sqn. Waddon, Chingford, Netheravon, Kenley—all saw Armstrong's t.B. fmB L-/ 3 4 FEET " ' SOPWITH F.I. CAMEL flying, most of which was done very low down. He could—anddid---loop his Camel from ground level, and he specialized in flick rolls performed at about fifteen feet. It is recorded that onone occasion one of his Camel's wing tips brushed the grass while flick-rolling. Armstrong went to France with No. 151 Sqn., andthere he was killed late in October 1918 when his Camel spun into the ground.In the training schools casualties were heavy among pupils who went on to Camels. By the end of 1917 flying training hadimproved considerably, thanks largely to the adoption of the Gosport system of instruction which had been initiated by Maj.R. R. Smith-Barry (see Flight, July 16th, 1954, page 83). Pupils learned to fly on Avro 504Js and 504Ks, and it was then normalfor them to proceed directly to Camels. The differences in hand- ling characteristics between the two aircraft were so great, how-ever, that many first solos on Camels terminated in fatal crashes. If the pupil had been accustomed to Avros with Monosoupapeengines his difficulties increased, for the Camel's Clerget had two controls—a throttle and a fine adjustment petrol control—whereasthe Monosoupape had only the latter. A characteristic of the Clerget was a tendency to choke at about 200ft after take-off; at
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