Great War ace was a real high flyer

As a Flying Officer in the Royal Navy, he had been sent up on a test flight by his commanding officer and he was enjoying every minute of the wonderful views which unfolded of the great river snaking through the capital.

But that enjoyment only lasted as long as it took him to return and land at his Westgate-on-Sea base near Margate, where an agitated staff member ordered him to immediately report to the commanding officer.

Philip –who lived in Old Castle Road, Weymouth – clearly remem-bers what happened to him when he stepped into the CO’s office.

He said: “He asked me where I’d been and did I know that the whole of the Thames defences had been on the phone to him about my flight?

“They wanted permission to open fire because they thought I might be some sort of strange new German aircraft.”

Philip’s life may have spanned three centuries, but his memory was as sharp as a razor.

He was born in Cardiff on November 22, 1899.

He said: “My father started business in 1907 as a glass merchant and I went to a variety of schools in the Cardiff area.

“War broke out in 1914 and the Government introduced conscription in 1916. The wartime atmosphere was very severe, but we took it in our stride. We expected to join up.

“We were men when we were still boys and we talked together about joining up for nearly two years before we actually did so.

“I thought I was going to join the Royal Navy and in the summer of 1917 I applied.

“They said come up, and I went before a selection board in London.

“I had been an ardent boy scout, always out camping and very independent, and I can still remember how correct these three senior Navy officers were, gold braid everywhere.

“They said they thought I would do and I was commissioned straight away as a provisional Flying Officer in the Royal Navy.

“I then had to buy my own uniform, which was the tradition in those days.”

He added that the flying services had only started a few years before in about 1912, when planes began to be taken seriously and the Royal Navy and Royal Flying Corps were vying with each other for aircraft and crews.

Philip learnt to fly, tackling theory, navigation and other requirements at the Ecole d’Aviation in the Loire valley in France where he underwent his training, spending many hours flying from a base at Vendome where he also had training on the American aircraft, the Curtiss J3.

When the Russian front collapsed, Philip was told he was wanted back in England.

He said: “I had two nights in Paris. The Germans had a giant naval gun and they were using it to fire on the city.

“You could hear the shells landing. The Germans thought it would terrify the French, but they took it in their stride.”

Philip was trained to fly seaplanes from shore bases at Lee-on-Solent and Calshot near Southampton Water and he soon went on active service in Kent at Westgate on Sea with 219 Squadron.

He said: “We were there to be the eyes of General Operations to watch the sea lanes, the Thames approaches, the southern North Sea and Straits of Dover, but we carried 230lb bombs so we could attack a submarine if we found one.

“Westgate was a small station. We were all only about 18 or 19 years old but we were all expert flyers.”

He got to fly the Short 184 seaplane and remembers: “I had an observer behind me and we wore heavy coats and helmets because it was very cold in the pen cockpit aircraft.

“You didn’t want to be more than 1,000ft because you wanted to have a good view, yet be able to identify anything quickly.

“Usually we stayed between 800-1,000 ft. Flights lasted no more than four hours and we used to go up in pairs for protection.

“We didn’t see any German planes but we could hear them talking on the radio.

Philip was armed with a machine gun on the wing above him and his observer had two Lewis machine guns mounted on a ring inside his cockpit.

Their communication consisted of crystal radio sets which could receive and send over 60 miles.

For a patrol he packed a haversack with emergency rations including tins of spinach, chocolate, a quart of water, a clock a compass a chart and, perhaps most important of all, two carrier pigeons to send messages if the plane came down. They had to be released in pairs.

Philip said: “I came down three times in the North Sea with engine failure.

“A fishing boat towed us in the first time and a trawler the second.

“On the third occasion we were searching for a German submarine when suddenly the engine failed. We came down and I landed on the floats and there we were bobbing up and down.

“I asked the observer if he could see any smoke to indicate a ship was coming but he couldn’t. Anyway, it was a fine day so we just sat there and waited.

“Eventually the observer spotted something moving and it turned out to be a small steamer which suddenly turned and came in our direction. We’d been spotted.

“The steamer was the Dagmar of Christiania from Norway but suddenly and English destroyer came up and cut in. A boat was sent across to us and I asked if they could tow us to Harwich.

“We took our gear off, rowed back and had a damn good meal in the ward room. We also released the pigeons to report we had been picked up.”

Back on terra firma the station had commandeered some of the best houses in Westgate with their own grounds and Philip said they had their own kitchen and their own cook although recalled the food as being ‘pretty awful’.

The war ended in November 1918 but Philip was not demobbed until May 1919, spending much of the time on mine-spotting duties.

He also saw the surrender of the German submarine fleet at Harwich.

After the war he worked as a tractor driver on a farm before returning to Cardiff and the family glass business which he stayed with for many years right through the Second World War.

Philip had married his wife Nora in 1925 and they had two daughters and a son.

Although his family was his life he always remembered his great love of flying, including one incident in the Loire Valley when he was piloting a Caudron G3.

He said: “There was nothing else quite like it, to be up there in the air, and I decided to see how high I could go. I manager to reach 10,100ft over the Loire and I always remember the wonderful view of Tours.”

He never did forget France and it didn’t forget him as his wartime efforts were finally recognised 11 days before his 100th birthday when he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur.

It was presented to him by Air Vice-Marshal David Niven at the Royal British Legion College in Tidworth on Armistice Day, 1999.

He continued to live quietly in Weymouth surrounded by his memories and models he made of some of the aircraft he flew in an age when men really did reach for the sky.

He died three days before Remembrance Sunday and two weeks before his 102nd birthday in November 2001.