Siggi 10 Posted November 1, 2009 (edited) Sub Flt Lt Sidney Williams 2 RNAS St Pol sur Mer 29th October 1916 08.15hrs Enemy planes over the field, took off with flight to engage. Long bursts into two Albatross scouts which went down into woods near Capelle le Grande. 11.30hrs Enemy planes reported near the field, took off with flight to engage but could find nothing at our low altitude, returned without incident. ______________________________________________________________ 30th October 1916 15.20hrs Arty Obbo. Our flight engaged by at least five Fokker Eindeckers at 6000ft, approx five miles west of Lille. We were escorted by DH2 scouts. During the fight over our obbo station I fired into three EIIIs and drove them down. I did not follow, prefering to maintain the safety of my altitude. Three of my chaps reported seeing an EIII I had fired into going into the ground, but without knowing if they'd all seen one or seperately saw three I can make only one claim in good conscience. The fight lasted at least ten minutes with both my chaps and the DH2s wheeling around ever lower with the EIIIs. Half an hour later I spotted two trying to close with us at 5000ft as we left our station to return home but they gave up when we outran them. Our flight returned safely without losses. ___________________________________________________________________ 1st November 1916 10.00hrs Recce flight. Engaged by a flight of Alb DII a good 20 miles on our side of the lines. One got through our escort and tried to engage me, I turned into him and got on his tail and drove him down from 6000ft to 5000ft with a number of bursts. Large pieces came off him but nobody saw what happened to him after that. Climbed back to height and made our way to our station over the lines and took notes for 20 minutes or so. On the return flight, at almost the exact same position as our outward leg, a lone DII engaged us. I got onto his tail and chased him down to 3000ft with multiple bursts and observed him crash into the ground. Diary note. Today was my second trip over the lines. The noise of the barrage is frightful, even at 6000ft. There is a pall of smoke and the smell! Then the stress of constantly having to look out for enemy machines, it does tire one. We were escorted by our latest type, four Sopwith Pups. A very good looking machine. They kept the DIIs off our backs and we lost sight of them before arriving over the lines, but shortly thereafter a single one reappeared and stayed with us for a while. I do hope the others were ok. I now have four claims pending, two Eindeckers and two DIIs. None I've encountered so far have put up much of a show, they all appear to have been flown by novice pilots. Long may that continue, I have no illusions about my own skills. ______________________________________________________________ 2nd November 1916. 09.18hrs. Airfield Bombing. three-plane flight, three-plane escort. Intercepted by Halbs over the enemy field. Got the bombs away ok but unable to watch for effect as had to engage the Halbs. Drove one down 1000ft with a few bursts. Upon return leg engaged flight of four Roland two-seaters at 2000ft behind our lines, emptied belt into one who was observed shortly thereafter to crashland in no-mans land. _________________________________________________________________ 3rd November 1916. 14.06hrs. Preparing for takeoff when our field was attacked by enemy scouts. Some of the chaps got up but I never got my motor started and made for cover (slit-trench). Our chaps brought down four of the bastards. Max Cutter got two and ended up in the drink. _________________________________________________________________ 4th November 1916. 09.27hrs. Recce over the lines at 5000ft, no air contact, all returned safely. Escort by Fe2s who were barely able to keep up with us. _________________________________________________________________ 5th November 1916. 09.08hrs. Field hit by strafers at take-off, aborted and ran to trenches. 12.29hrs. Received new planes today, two-seater Strutters, along with new personnel to man the rear guns. After re-fueling them we were straight out on a strike against an enemy airfield at Longavesnes. We were attacked by Halbs on two occasions, the second directly over the target (which I missed with my bombs from 5000ft), but in both cases they made only one pass before hanging around out of range for a while and then making off. We took no evasive action, I kept our flight of four straight and level so as to concentrate our defensive fire and not split the flight into easy individual targets. Our escort was conspicuous by it's absence until we'd left the target, the planes shadowing us from behind about two miles out turned out not to be Halbs as we'd originally thought but the Be2s supposedly escorting us. We all returned safely but the strike was a bit of a dud I'm afraid. _________________________________________________________________ 6th November 1916. 09.57hrs. Arty obbo at 5000ft over Festubert. Driving rain. Three-plane flight. Uneventful, not even much of a show from archie. Brought fire down on a bosche battery. __________________________________________________________________ 7th November 1916. 14.53hrs. Went up under an umbrella of strafing Halbs and put down in a nearby field two minutes later with a bullet in a cylinder. _________________________________________________________________ 8th November 1916. 10.17hrs. Arty obbo. Two wingmen, three N16 escort. Engaged over the lines at 5000ft by Halbs with red wheel-covers. I got into a fight with one which went down to about 2000ft until I hit the pilot. He went down in a shallow glide into no-man's land. All returned safely. Edited November 8, 2009 by Siggi Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Siggi 10 Posted January 20, 2010 It's been a while since I updated this log, due to mislaying it after I was wounded. Soon as I find a quiet moment I'll set to it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
