Lewis Ewart Whitehead

[OldLeatherBottle]

In a previous post I shared a recollection of my Grandfather's told to me in the sixties that his brother Lewis used to visit his parental home when he was at Brooklands. The house was in West Byfleet so very close by. I thought he just dropped in but now know Sopwith and others had factories there. As part of my research I bought The Camel File book and note in it that B3977 was collected from there on 3/7/17 allocated to 65 Squadron based at Wye and Lewis Crashed it the next day breaking his thigh in the process. Was it normal for pilots to collect their new machine from the factory? and does anyone know if B3997 met its end at Wye? It went in from about 30 feet up with mention of a prop strike on the ground on takeoff.

My sister lived in Wye for many years in a property overlooking the site of the airfield and did not know there had been one there until I told here recently. There is probably no visible remains. She has probably spent many hours in "His" pub without knowing her great Uncle had been there sixty years before.
Drink was a big part of his life as part of his R and R from this crash was to visit pubs about 20 miles from home and drink all day getting his younger brother to collect him and take him home. One of the pubs was The Old Leather Bottle at Cobham hence my user name. He had already served as a rifleman in France for two years at this point so perhaps had a lot to forget about. My Grandfather said his brother on one of these drinking drips had admitted to having killed numerous Germans whilst in the Army and that was before he started killing them with an aeroplane! It was obviously on his mind.

[Bert Angles]

It sounds as if he had PTSD before he became a pilot.

[OldLeatherBottle]

Almost certainly did have it even though a name had not been put to it then he also had Survivor Syndrome. They say cigarettes are bad for you but smoking extended Lewis's life for three years as when in the trenches earlier in the war he offered a friend one but dropped them and as he bent down to pick them up his friend was shot through the head and died instantly. It was probably a sniper hiding in no-man's-land. The bullet would have hit him if he had not bent down. He was later in the war shot himself and sent home to recover and transferred to the RFC and pilot training. I am certain all the pent up anger and aggression came to the fore when he crossed the line and got into dogfights.

[Airshipped]

Welcome to the forum.
Capt Whitehead had previously served with No. 60 Squadron over the Somme in 1916. (Alas there were two Lts Whitehead serving with the squadron at that time, which makes for a lot of sifting to identify which one was flying any particular aircraft).
You've probably much of that detail already but one incident worth noting is that his observer, Lt Walter Edward George Bryant, also survived being brought down on 30 July 1916.
Bryant later rose to the rank of Air Commodore:
https://www.rafweb.org/Biographies/Bryant.htm
He died in WWII but the lengthy period of service might allow for the possibility of Bryant's memoirs being complied or some anecdotes, reminiscences etc being featured in an article at some stage.
In short don't just focus on No. 65 Squadron: there might well be other resources (e.g. No. 60 Squadron) that could help build the bigger picture of Capt Whitehead's wartime life and death.

[OldLeatherBottle]

I have ordered his service record at great expense from the national archives. When that arrives I can build a timeline of significant events. I am hoping it will have his pre RFC service as well. I have also found a photo montage of the area taken a few days after his final crash with not too much in the way of shell holes at that point in the war. There are several plane crashes in the area as well that show up as a white circle with a black mass in the middle. I am trying to get it scanned at a higher resolution so that more detail can be seen.
For the last 107 years the family have thought he was shot down and he was buried in the crash as one thinks of mud when the Somme is mentioned but this area looks to have shallow soil over what is probably a limestone hence the big white patches.
Now the hypothesis has changed thanks to some research and especially from the input of people on this forum to the following:
The Camel suffered structural failure in the wings and they folded back and it went into a vertical dive.
The crash was on hard land and was consumed by fire hence no serial number or dog tags for identification.
The remains of Lewis were possibly recovered and buried in a cemetery or buried close to the crash site and are either still there or were tidied up post war and the most likely place they were put is the Dive Copse cemetery.
I will try and build on this by searching for records.
Robert

[Bert Angles]

Those white circles with a black mass in the middle might just be shell holes.Not having seen the photo montage l can only assume.
lts very unlikely that the picture shows several wrecked aircraft in it.l can't recollect ever seeing more than one wreck in a battlefield photograph.
The white In the pictures is chalk rather than limestone.
Good luck in your continuing quest.

[OldLeatherBottle]

Thanks for the rock type update it explains the white circles displayed on a very few impact sites. Most are just small marks but there are a very few in the image below about 400m just to the right of the 26 of the white blob with black in the centre marks. By chance they sit on the line due south of Morlancourt. They must be another type of munition than the smaller ones that made a bigger better bang.
I have found an image of a plane crash but can not save it to put it on here and that shows a white ring about 10m diameter with a black lump in the middle that looks like a 4in line engine standing on its nose with other metal bits all burnt. The grass is flattened for about another 10m beyond the white.
I thought the bits on the image looked similar.
The Dive Copse cemetery is about half way up on the right side of the grid square with 25 in its lower left corner of the image below.
I have spoken to a friend and as an ex fireman asked if he thought there would be remains. He said there would as the fire would be short lived and the flying suit would offer initial protection. So that puts aside the was there anything to bury question.
Thanks for all your input.
Robert
The Western Front Association Mapping Portal.html
look for 62D K 19-32 Morlancourt