First World War plane flies again
The only operational Bristol Scout will fly in tomorrow’s 100th anniversary commemorations at the Somme. Joe Shute reports
A Bristol Scout will fly in tomorrow’s commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. The Bristol Scout, the only airworthy example in the world, will be piloted over the former Western Front by the grandson of its original pilot, ‘‘Bunny’’ Bremner. David Bremner has spent £100,000 rebuilding it after finding three battered components in his grandfather’s workshop.
This is a story that begins with three battered components recovered from a workshop in Kent. In 1983, Francis Donald Holden Bremner – known as “Bunny” because of a childhood predisposition to twitch his nose like a rabbit – had died on the eve of his 90th birthday and his family was sifting through his possessions.
Among the mementos, they found a control stick, rudder bar and electrical generator powered by magnets, known as a magneto. These were the last relics of a long-defunct biplane called the Bristol Scout, which Bunny had flown in the First World War.
Throughout his life, Bunny had regaled his grandchildren with his adventures in the Royal Naval Air Service; being shot down over Gallipoli and flying 117 missions in 12 different types of aircraft. But it was the Bristol Scout (20ft long, with a 24ft wingspan) that he cherished above all. One day, he told them, he would love to see it fly again. And tomorrow – as the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry gather on the Western Front alongside Europe’s leaders to mark the centenary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme – Bunny’s Bristol Scout will indeed take to the skies once more.
The biplane will fly in formation with other First World War aircraft involved in the battle – including a BE2e and Albatros DVa – over the Thiepval memorial, which honours the 72,195 servicemen killed fighting for Britain in the Battle of the Somme, whose bodies were never recovered.
At the controls will be Bunny’s grandson, David, who, with his brother Rick, has pieced together the plane from scratch to make it the only airworthy one of its kind in the world.
Bremner will also have in the cockpit a photograph of his grandfather’s first cousin, David Bremner, after whom he is named. The second lieutenant served in the 1st Battalion, The Border Regiment, and was wounded on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, in which close to 20,000 British troops were killed, making it the bloodiest 24 hours in the history of our Army. Eight days later, the 27-year-old Bremner died of his injuries.
“He had to lead his men over the top knowing exactly what was going to happen to them,” 65-year-old David Bremner says. “It chokes me up every time I think of it.”
Sad memories aside, that solo flight gently puttering over northern France at 150ft will mark the high point of a project that has lasted more than a decade. It began in 2002, when David and Rick, along with friend and amateur pilot Theo Wilford, began investigating the possibility of rebuilding the plane from the items in Bunny’s shed. Over the years they have sourced original drawings and parts from across the world and spent countless hours getting the plane off the ground.
Bremner, a mechanical engineer from Ludlow who is married with two grown-up children, admits the project has cost around £100,000 – a sum that would have left his grandfather aghast. But, he insists, it has been time and money well spent.
For in the newly built plane, everything is exactly as it was: the same wooden frame covered with doped Irish linen; the same Lewis gun fixed to fire through the propeller; and bombs strapped underneath. Bremner – who, at 6ft 3in, is the same height as his grandfather – has even removed the seat cushion and extended the control stick by two inches, just as his forebear did.
“I’m 99 per cent confident this is exactly as Grandad flew it,” he says. “Now, flying the same aircraft that he did, I respect and admire his natural skills far more.”
Bunny Bremner had just graduated from Cambridge University when war broke out in 1914. He was exceptionally bright and had been studying on a mathematics scholarship but, emboldened by youthful promise, he immediately volunteered to join the Navy. The following year, he was posted to the Royal Naval Air Service and began training as a pilot.
In 1903, the Wright brothers had recorded the first powered flight, marking the beginning of a golden age. The Bristol Scout (which made its first flight in 1914 and has a maximum speed of around 75 knots) and Sopwith Tabloid (1913) were the first times that aviation engineers from this country comprehensively outperformed the rest of the world.
The Scout was the first wheeled aircraft to take off from a moving ship, and ace pilots such as Lanoe Hawker and Albert Ball used it to wreak havoc along the German lines.
Nevertheless, the aircraft were incredibly basic by modern standards – little more than wood and cloth – and flying them was perilous. More than 14,000 British pilots were killed during the First World War, and at its worst the average life expectancy for an Allied pilot amounted to just 17½ hours of flying time.
There was little glamour involved. As the planes flew higher, the airmen suffered hypoxia and hypothermia and had to cover themselves in goose grease to avoid frostbite.
After being promoted to sublieutenant, Bremner’s first posting was to provide air support during the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. On January 8 1916, during the final evacuation of all Allied forces from the peninsula, a bullet punctured his engine and he was forced to crashland within range of the enemy guns, and flee as shells whistled past.
Remarkably unharmed, soon he
was back up in the air. In May 1916, he flew his Bristol Scout a further 90 miles, to a posting on the Greek island of Thassos, to launch bombing raids over the Bulgarian border. In August that year, he contracted malaria and severe dysentery and was put on leave for nine months. Despite begging to be allowed back into full service, he was to spend the rest of the war working on the Home Front.
“My grandfather was a very privileged, lucky young man,” says David. “He got to fly all the most advanced machinery. There was less danger than on the Western Front, but it’s just as well he got malaria before he was killed flying.”
Bremner, who still has his grandfather’s old aviation magazines, says he too was born with one eye to the skies. “My mother says I was always interested in aircraft. When I was in the pram, I used to point at aircraft going overhead. But while my grandfather’s stories clearly interested me, I don’t think either of us would call it a defining motivation.”
He and his brother began learning to fly on hangliders, then moved on to microlights. Today, Bremner is chairman of the British Microlight Aircraft Association. Even so, the test flights of the Bristol Scout were a nerve-racking experience. “Bearing in mind that this is the only one of its type in the world, and we had no real idea about some of the bits, the flying is actually very straightforward.”
What he couldn’t have prepared himself for were the raw emotions as he cranked the propeller of the Bristol Scout and eased into Bunny’s flying seat. “It has been a really overwhelming experience,” he says.
When the Somme ceremonies are over and the aircraft is grounded once more, Bremner admits he doesn’t know what will happen with the plane to which he and his brother have devoted a decade of their lives.
For the moment, though, he doesn’t care. His head remains ensconced among the scudding clouds, flying in his grandfather’s shadow and honouring those condemned to never leave the endless miles of the Western Front.