Aces who fired first
QUESTION
When did the first recorded aerial dogfight occur? AN INCIDENT in the Mexican Revolution in 1913 is often claimed to be the first aerial dogfight. American mercenaries Phil Rader, in a Christofferson Pusher, and Dean Ivan Lamb in a Curtiss Model D Pusher are said to have fired revolvers at each other while airborne, but it seems the two knew each other and the ‘fight’ was staged.
On August 25, 1914, Lieutenant De Bernis, observer in a French Morane Parasol aircraft piloted by Roland Garros, fired six or seven times with a carbine at two Germans flying an Albatros. The German aircraft escaped in a dive, although one of the two men on board was wounded.
On the same day a German two-seater was forced to land after a series of ‘ passades’ by three BE2s from the 2nd Squadron. One British pilot, Lieutenant H.D. Harvey-Kelly, landed nearby and, with his observer, forced the enemy crew to hide in a forest before burning the German aircraft and taking off again.
On September 7, Russian Pyotr Nesterov was the first pilot to destroy an enemy aeroplane, but he did it by ramming his Morane into an Austrian Albatros. Both air crew died as a result.
On October 5, French pilot Sgt Joseph Frantz and his mechanic/gunner, Louis Quenault, flying a French Voisin III biplane of Escadrille VB24, engaged a German Aviatik BII flown by Wilhelm Schlichting with Fritz von Zangen as his observer. The two-seat Voisin had a Hotchkiss machinegun on the front.
The Hotchkiss proved its worth when Frantz chased the German who was engaged in a bombing mission near the village of Jonchery-sur-Vesle.
Frantz recalled later that he saw the passenger in the enemy plane ahead of him take out a rifle as Quenault fired a few dozen rounds, finally hitting the Aviatik’s fuel tank. The Germans went down, trailing smoke and crashed in a swamp. Schlichting, the pilot, had been killed by a bullet. His observer, von Zangen, died in the crash.
Frantz was awarded the Legion of Honour, while Quenault got the Military Medal. One reason for their fame is that there were many witnesses to their action. According to an account from October 16, 1914: ‘All the French troops on the spot forgot the danger of passing shells, and jumped out of the trenches to watch the air fight.’
Charles Yates, Salisbury, Wilts.
QUESTION
A tombstone at Kirby cemetery in Essex is said to be inscribed with a prophecy predicting the end of the world. What does it say? IT’S said that a 1508 gravestone at St Michael’s, Kirby, which serves the parish of Kirby-le-Soken and Kirby Cross, bears the portentous inscription:
‘When pictures seem alive with movements free, When boats like fishes swim beneath the sea. When men like birds shall scour the sky. Then half the world, deep drenched in blood shall die.’
At the behest of the Rotary Society of America, this was investigated in 1949 by the Royal Archaeological Society in Britain. They questioned the Vicar of Kirby, who said he had received 400 letters on the topic and a film crew had once turned up to find the grave.
It seems that an item in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not might have started the hunt and the RAS concluded the report was a hoax. For one thing, the wording was too modern: gravestones from 1508 would have been written in Latin.
Closer scrutiny shows this was one of the many predictions made by fabled Yorkshire seer Mother Shipton, said to have lived from 1488 to 1561, a contemporary of French prophet Nostradamus.
Like Nostradamus, Mother Shipton had visions of future events and recorded them in verse. unlike Nostradamus, Mother Shipton’s verses were very direct. In this case the ‘pictures that seem alive’ refer to television, the ‘boats beneath the sea’ are submarines, when men ‘scour the sky like birds’ refers to aircraft, which together spell out impending doom: ‘Then half the world, deep drenched in blood shall die.’
The first extant reference to Mother Shipton is found in the 1641 booklet The Propheceyes Of Mother Shipton, a work claiming she had accurately predicted the deaths of contemporary figures Cardinal Wolsey and Edward VI as well as the horrific reign of ‘Bloody’ Queen Mary and the ascent of Queen Elizabeth.
Other pamphlets of her predictions appeared over the years such as Three Times Shall Lovely Sunny France Be Led To Play a Bloody Dance and Before the People Shall Be Free Three Tyrant Rulers Shall She See. However the prophecies tended to appear in print after the event.
One of Mother Shipton’s most famous prophecies was that, ‘The world to an end shall come / In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.’ This was circulated widely throughout England as 1881 approached and caused great popular concern.
Brighton bookseller Charles Hindley, who in 1862 had published what he claimed to be a reprint of a 1684 biography of Mother Shipton, owned up to creating this prophecy. It’s interesting to note that Shipton’s or Hindley’s predictions with regards to future technology were remarkably prescient.
Simon Rushton, Kidderminster, Worcs.
QUESTION
In the age of steam engines, ‘doubleheaded’ locomotives were often used. How did the two crews work in harmony? FuRTHER to the earlier answer, I understand that the old Great Western Railway, which always did things differently from other railways, had a special policy for double-heading.
When a train needed assistance, i.e. at Newton Abbot to tackle the steep banks to Plymouth, the engine would be uncoupled and pulled forward to allow the assisting engine to couple up to the train. The original engine would then reverse onto the other engine so the senior driver was always at the front. That eliminated any arguments between crews.
Trains heading for Cornwall usually had a King class locomotive as far as Plymouth, the crew having worked the train all the way from London. Kings were too heavy to cross the Saltash bridge, so a change of loco was needed at Plymouth.
Mike Thompson, Plymouth.
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