It was always vees

First World War Audio Archive

It was always vees

Transcript

It was always vees; one on each side, one on the left, one on the

Pilot wearing heavy mitts.

right, and one in the centre. And we might be, oh, we might be, between airplanes I’d say we’d probably be 25 yards, between airplanes. So we were spread out pretty well so we didn’t make a concentrated target. And the other one was that it gave us a little room to turn and slip and if you were watching something you didn’t bash into the other fellow too soon. And, usually, there was a squadron leader. He was to lead the whole squadron. Usually it would alternate between the three flight commanders. Occasionally, our squadron commander would himself take the leading flight. We couldn’t fly like they fly formation today, I’m sure we couldn’t. We didn’t have the instruments. We had no radio, you see, no communication. You had to depend on the fellow who was chosen to lead the show or your own flight commander and

Photograph of pilot wearing fur coat.

we always had, if the leader was knocked out, a deputy. And a couple of times, I had to take over simply because that was my turn that day. That was all, and the leader got knocked down or on another occasion, he turned back. He was having engine trouble, obviously. But, generally speaking, if we got 15 airplanes out of 18 we were supposed to have, that was good. I guess our average would be closer to 12 than it was to even 15. You see, I think as I told you, I had to come back I think six times with engine trouble. One way or another, plugs fouled up or something or other anyway and I couldn’t get up to even 10,000 feet. Rather than hold the whole rest of the squadron back, you had to make a decision when you got to a certain point. That was one other angle of this. If you were not having

Pilot receiving commission.

performance to equal the average of the others, go back when you got to a certain point. So, that was another rule we had. So, it was a case of there, that all these things, to my mind, it was pretty well planned, and pretty well organized.

Description

Mr. Dickins describes formation flying, chain of command in the air, and difficulty maintaining a full complement of aircraft in a flight.

Clennell Haggerston ‘Punch’ Dickins

Clennell Haggerston ‘Punch’ Dickins was born in Portage la Prairie on January 12, 1899. He interrupted his education at the University of Alberta in 1917 by enlisting in the 196th Battalion, having already completed an officer training course. After being sent to England, he joined the 21st Reserve Battalion. His brother, an observer with the Flying Corps, convinced him to join the Air Force. Mr. Dickins jumped from the Canadian to the British Army in order to facilitate a transfer to the Air Force. Once there, he trained at Tetford in a Morris Marmon Shorthorn. His active duty was with 211 Squadron at Dunkirk. Mr. Dickins and his gunner are credited with 7 enemy aircraft destroyed, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, he spent time in the RCAF, with whom he did aerial photo-survey work. However, most of his civilian career was spent flying in Canada’s North, adapting aircraft for Arctic flight. He became one of Canada’s most famous bush pilots and a pioneer in aviation. Mr. Dickins and his wife Connie (nee Gerrie) lived in Gold Pines, Ontario. Mr. Dickins died on August 2, 1995.

Meta Data