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Sopwith Triplanes (3)

Neither Crundall nor Thompson flew on the 11th but Jenner-Parsons, McCrudden and I were led by Booker on an evening patrol beginning at 8:40 pm until about dark. We had difficulty in keeping together owing to large lumps of thunder clouds and lost Jenner somewhere the other side of Henin-Lietard-Mericourt district, who dived on an EA. Getting nearer the lines we saw a hell of a scrap going on over No-Man's-Land, Arras way.


By the way Booker led into that fracas showed he was still swearing about his having to leave the Squadron: no messing about getting in the sun or manoeuvring for a side-tackle, just under and into the middle of the sods. There seemed to be ten Albatrosses against six Nieuports and six SE 5s and us three triplanes, splitarsing, dodging collisions, finding out who's who and firing when the chance came. I peeled off right, saw McCrudden dive left, and I took after the last Hun. Booker went straight at the first he could get at, and as I turned back saw he had fastened on a black Hun which was going down with full engine on and smoke spewing out of cockpit obviously on fire. Good old Bookie. There were two machines under Booker's tail; as I shook off my first chap I could only make the last one on Booker and drove him off. Not watching the Hun on fire I did not see him crash, but Bookie himself was flopping about, now and at almost ground height I saw him spread out near Farbus, which Jerry started to shell at once. The air was now clear of machines and we had left 13,000 feet to a few hundred in no time.


That was the end of Booker's last Triplane. Now for those damned Camels.



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1916-1939 Articles (3)

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