Voss's Rudder Whereabouts

[Scottie]

Following on from a post I started back in July 2002 , I have had the following response from the Imperial War Museum:

"Whilst it would appear that we may have displayed Voss' rudder in the
1920's, it was returned to the owner during the '20s.
We do have a yellow-painted DR1 rudder on display, but despite being the subject of considerable research in recent years, it does not appear to be Voss'.
It was measured in detail some years ago by Paul Leaman, who produces "Cross & Cockade International Journal", and he has just published a fairly definitive article on the Fokker Triplane rudder in the latest edition (Vol. 34 No. 4 2003). This includes constructional details and also his researches into our exhibit.
I suggest that you have a look at this article.

Yours Sincerely

Martin Garnett"

Hope that this adds fuel to the debate!!

Scottie.

[alex_revell]

Scottie
I thought I would answer your message about the Voss rudder and its present location on the forum so that everyone could see it. The position is this.
When Arthur was first lost Major Blomfield CO of 56 wrote to Mrs Rhys Davids on 28th October 1917 In the letter he said ‘All of his kit and trophies are being sent to you per Cox’s shipping Agency with the exception of the rudder from Lt Voss’s machine – and if you would like this , and will let me know, I will arrange to have it delivered to you….’ Mrs RD wrote back on 3rd November to say..’ Thank you, do not send home rudders of fallen Huns. I could not bear to see them’. On 6th June 1918 Major Gilchrist, the CO of 56 Squadron wrote to Mrs RD offering to send her the Voss rudder. He described it as being ‘quite light weight weighing only about 3-4 lbs – a very light steel framework covered with fabric finished white with black crosses on it. It has 9 patched bullet holes in it and one unpatched from his last fight.’
Mrs RD obviously relented about having the rudder and it was brought back to the UK by Gerald Maxwell who was flying a refresher course with 56 Squadron during June/July 1918. In March 1920 Mrs RD presented the rudder to the IWM. From here on the situation becomes a little confused. The rudder obviously went back to the RD family sometime later because Brad King of the IWM told me that the rudder was re-donated ‘sometime in the 70s’. He couldn’t remember the details of the correspondence but thought it was from a Nesta Rhys Davids and her husband, a Major Rhys Davids or Davis. This didn’t make a lot of sense because Nesta (Arthur’s youngest sister) never married and she died in 1973. Brad promised to send me copies of the correspondence, but never did. If we could see this correspondence it would possibly clear up the question, although I am sure that the rudder must be somewhere in the depths of the IWM. I will ring Brad sometime in the coming week and see if he will send me the correspondence. It really would be nice if the IWM would make a search, but museum people are often very lax in such matters. With Gilchrist’s description of the bullet holes it should be easy to ascertain if it is the Voss, rudder if and when it’s found.

[Scottie]

Mr Revell,

I have had the following response from Mr Garnett of the Imperial War Museum this morning, which will no doubt be of further interest:

"Thank you for your emails.
As people have queried the whereabouts of Voss' rudder for some time, we have carried out extensive searches of our stores, both here and at Duxford, but have drawn a blank.
If it did "return" to the Museum in the 1980's, I've yet to see it, along with Paul Leaman and Alex Imrie.

Yours Sincerely

Martin Garnett "





And so it seems that the mystery continues.......

Scottie

[alex_revell]

No mystery. The silly buggers at the IWM have probably lost it!

[Barrett]

Hmmm...anybody keeping an eye on E-Bay? h34r:

[charles]

This is the same nonsense that has been going on again and again at practically every museum related to military aviation.

For instance, the National Air and Space Museum has the very same problem. All of the fabric of the 'Stropp' Albatros with the exception of a small peice sent to Toelle for examination was disposed of, according to Peter Jakab, the curator responsible for it, who told me personally that "we can't keep everything." I told Pete Grosz this and he said that was "nonsense" because the fabric, as one can see in the Mikesh book, was carefully rolled up to be preserved, and they simply do not have a good inventory. Indeed, Jakab told me himself that they have container loads of things donated which have never been inventoried, ascessioned or the boxes even open because every retired aviator wants to give his bomber jacket to NASM.

Or the Pfalz they hung from the ceiling and painted red.

Brussels Army Museum... well, enough said...

[PeterL]

I find this very interesting, not least because it supports my own view. First, from the post speculative-yellow period:

We do have a yellow-painted DR1 rudder on display, but despite being the subject of considerable research in recent years, it does not appear to be Voss'.

Then the contemporary and very much pre-speculation:

......* a very light steel framework covered with fabric finished white with black crosses on it. ’

This is the same nonsense that has been going on again and again at practically every museum related to military aviation.

From the point of view of someone who occasionally conducts museum collection audits, it is a truism that every museum has stuff in it that isn't in the catalogue... and stuff that should be there but has gone awol (seldom through theft, most often through mis-numbering). In a multi-site museum as big as the IWM (where they presumably have catalogue entries that say things like 'complete B52'!), it is no surprise that the original Voß rudder might be missing.

However, there appears to be an important gap in the trail of this particular artefact: as I understand it, the Voß rudder went from the Rhys Davids family, to the IWM, back to the family, and then a rudder went back to the IWM.

Could the yellow rudder (which nearly everybody agrees never belonged to 103/17) not be the one that came back from the family, perhaps in the mistaken belief that it was the one originally donated? Much would depend upon the IWM's catalogue entry for the artefact: if they acquired it at about the time the Voß rudder supposedly came back such a scenario may become more plausible. The original letter from the IWM to the family is, incidentally, in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Cambridge ( http://www.oriental.cam.ac.uk/archive/rhys.html ). The collection does not include a rudder, only lots of papers and the odd placemat.

So, the 'real' rudder need not still be in the IWM but might be out there... somewhere.

Stalling,

Ron Dragg

[Langdon]

We should also consider the rudder from 425/17, there is an IWM photo of the rudder with an identifying tag on it, possibly it is sored alongside the 103/17 rudder

Langdon

[gipsymoth236k]

The "F1" type (100,101,102,103) rudders were slightly different than later "production" rudders and if anyone could produce the Voss rudder, I think I could verify it with my research. The yellow specimen in the IWM is a standard production rudder and I would LOVE to personally examine it but I never get a response to my email request from the IWM!