Newly-formed Royal Air Force saw airman shot down over enemy lines
Historian Malcolm Goode looks at the continued fighting 100 years ago. July 1918 saw one South Derbyshire sodlier awarded the Victoria Cross and a Burton man was lost in action with the newly formed RAF.
THIS month has seen many celebrations and air displays celebrate 100 years of the RAF.
However, one Burton man who was part of this newly formed service was killed in action during July 1918.
It was reported in the local newspapers of July 1918 that Sergeant Tom Smith of the 48th Squadron of the newly formed Royal Air Force had been reported as missing.
Tom Smith’s parents, Walter and Elsie, lived at 204 Shobnall Road. They had received a letter from one of his colleagues Sergeant Shuker of the same squadron.
In his letter, Sergeant Shuker wrote: “Last Sunday Tom Smith was acting as observer with the finest pilot of the unit, First Lieutenant Ervin David Shaw an American from Sumter, South Carolina.
“It was a cloudy day with occasional rain showers when they left their base at Bertangles at 1800 hours for a reconnaissance flight.
“Their Bristol Fighter was attacked by three enemy planes in the Albert area. One wing was shot away and the machine crashed into the enemy lines”.
Sergeant Shuker and his colleagues hoped that there was still a possibility that the occupants landed and would still be alive, alas that was not to be.
Sergeant Tom Smith who was only 18 years of age had been at the front for only six weeks and had already brought down one enemy machine.
He was formerly employed by Allsopp’s Brewery Ltd. Tom Walter Smith is honoured on both the Town Hall Memorial and at St Aidan’s Church in Shobnall Road.
Other reports from the time shared better news.
Another informed its readers that a local man had been awarded the Victoria Cross.
This soldier was William Beesley who was born on October 5, 1895 in Linton.
However, it is likely very few local people would have known him as his mother Emma Beesley moved the family to Coventry before his sixth birthday.
In the wider context of the war, the month of July 1918 opened with a small but highly successful operation 10 km to the east of the important allied rail link at Amiens.
The objective was to push the German Army off the high ground that overlooked the city.
On July 4, an attack was launched by the Australian 4th Division assisted by four companies from the American 33rd Division, approximately 3,000 troops.
This force was supported by British and Australian artillery, the RAF and the new British Mk V Tanks.
This combined force commanded by Lieutenant General Sir John Monash took just 90 minutes to gain their objective, completely dislodging the Germans from the ridge capturing 1,470 prisoners and in excess of 200 guns.
Monash’s plan was deemed to be so successful that it was disseminated throughout the British Army as a blue print for future operations during the autumn months of this year.
His plan very much depended on good staff work including complete secrecy that took the enemy by surprise. What stood out like a bright light was the excellent co-operation between all arms of the assaulting force which would become the model for all British Army Generals to follow.
Monash wrote in his diary; “A modern battle plan is like nothing so much as a score for a musical composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases.
“Each individual unit must make its entry precisely at the proper moment, and play its phrase in the general harmony”.
German general Erich Ludendorff now postponed his Operation Hagen and launched the German Seventh, First and Third Armies in the Friedensturm (Peace Offensive) of July 15.
This move was a renewed attempt to draw Allied reserves south from Flanders and to expand the salient created by