Hi All,
Here's something I thought fellow aerodrome members might be interested in seeing. Since the publication of
Fire in the Sky: The Australian Flying Corps in the First World War, a number of families of AFC veterans have contacted me, offering photographs, access to private papers, personal recollections etc. I am forever saying to people 'I wish you had contacted me earlier...' But I guess that's the way publication works. At any rate, I am gathering much excellent privately held material for my next book on Australia and
the Great War in the air, which will be published by Oxford in 2014.
Anyhow, Mr John Love, son of No. 3 Squadron pilot Nigel Love recently contacted me after reading the book and invited me to come and see his father's papers. I walked in to the Love's living room to find a dining room table full (literally) of papers and items from Nigel Love's time in the AFC- private diaries, logbooks, photo albums etc etc. There were also a number of things he kept as souvenirs- the map board he used when flying an RE8 over the Somme in April and May 1918 (still with a map of the area around Hamel attached, still with enemy batteries marked). Then there was the serial number from his RE8 and an Iron Cross we believe he took from a German soldier at some stage during the Allied advance.
Those of you who have read my book will know I quote Love (from his unpublished memoir) saying he got hold of a section of fabric, a turnbuckle and one of the Baron's epaulettes. Well, wasn't I thrilled to see there, among his treasure trove of relics, a section of red fabric and what I am assuming is the very epaulette!
If there are any Luftstreitkräfte uniform specialists about they might confirm whether it is indeed likely to be Richthofen's epaulette.
Michael Molkentin
9 March 2011, 10:57 PM
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