Dej

Animated BOC Signature... 'What shall we do with the Barmy Airman?'

A scene I put together primarily to show off the rather nice Le Rhone enginge model I found on the TurboSquid 3D resource site. The model was uploaded by TurboSquid user J H Thomas

St. Omer Aerodrome, 05:45 hours, 26th July 1918. As ‘rosy-fingered Dawn’ paints the Eastern sky with cliché, two S. E. 5a of No. 85 Squadron, illuminated by the light spilling from the open hangar behind them, are readied for a trip across the Lines. The nearer machine is to be flown by Lt. Donald Inglis, a New Zealander and new member of the squadron, who has yet to open any score. The farther S. E. 5a, in which the armourer is double-checking the Lewis drum, is the mount of No. 85 Squadron’s Commanding Officer, Major Edward Corringham ‘Mick’ Mannock, DSO and two bars, MC and bar. Mannock is a superb leader and tactician and at this juncture a 60-victory ace. Mannock has offered to take the newcomer up to the Front in order for Inglis to ‘bag a Hun’. This they will do, bringing down an Albatros near Lestrem, but it will prove to be Mannock’s last. Shot down in flames - a fate that haunted his nightmares - by intense ground fire, Mannock’s body is found (it is said) 250 yards from the wreck of his machine. Inglis’ machine is also badly shot about and his fuel tank punctured, but he manages to bring his S. E. down safely on the Allied side of the Lines. Buried by German troops close to where he fell, Mannock’s body was never formally recovered and has never been convincingly identified. Mannock was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross in 1919, after intense lobbying by former comrades.

04:10 HRS, 28th May 1918. Little has taken off from Filescamp Farm on a moonlit night to intercept Gotha bombers in the vicinity. Closing with one of the returning raiders pinned by a searchlight beam, Little's Camel is fatefully highlighted by another beam swinging across to join the former, temporarily blinding Little and exposing him to the bomber's alert crew. Little has thrown up his hand to shield his eyes and is banking his machine out of the light but in doing so will unknowingly drift into the machine gun fire of the Gotha's rear gunner, whose bullets will fatally wound Little in both thighs. Little will crash-land near Noeux, and survive the impact, but will bleed to death before help arrives.

Cappy Aerodrome mid-morning of 21st April 1918, a short while before the famous last ever photo of Manfred alive. The mist that plagued the early hours is not yet quite fully lifted but it's dissipating rapidly. Von Richthofen's famous red Triplane awaits its pilot outside the hangar tent, in which a mechanic, having finished with the Rittmeister's machine, busies himself with a puncture repair. Manfred, with his faithful hound Moritz in tow, is on his way over, but has stopped to talk to a fellow pilot - maybe it's the newcomer Wolfram von Richthofen, togged up a bit prematurely in his excitement... who knows?