DOG FIGHTS AND NARROW ESCAPES

DOG FIGHTS AND NARROW ESCAPES

known May 1917

In May 1917 Eric went out to the Front and soon did good work there. In that month he brought down a Hun two-seater, and again in August, when on patrol at 15,000 feet, he dived on a Hun scout and shot him down into the sea, five miles N.E. of Dixmude. He had a very narrow escape on this occasion, as his engine was damaged and stopped dead when he was at 5,000 feet; but fortunately he sighted some French destroyers and managed to alight on the water near them. He and his machine were rescued, and a most interesting photograph appeared in a London paper, reproduced from Le Miroir, showing the machine secured to the destroyer in such a position that one wing pointed to the sky. At the beginning of September he came home on eight days' leave. On September 21st, the day that the School returned, exactly a week before his death, he had come over for a new machine and, at 6 p.m. on his way back accompanied by another Pilot on the same errand, he bade farewell to the School and to his home by circling low over the School buildings and the Park, and then returned to France in record time.

Created by: , Richard106785

  • Profile picture for Eric James Kershaw Buckley

    Born 1895

    Died 1917

    Royal Navy Flight Sub-Lieutenant Royal Naval Air Service Dunkirk