Gone to Russia to Fight: The RAF in South Russia 1918-1920 by John T. Smith

Author:John T. Smith [Smith, John T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2013-07-17T21:00:00+00:00

At about 4 pm on July 30th whilst escorting Capt Anderson on special operations in the vicinity of Tcherni-Yar I followed Capt. Anderson down to within 1000 feet to take oblique photographs for Russian Caucasian Army Intelligence. We were subjected to continuous heavy machine gun fire and my machine was disabled through being struck on the Starboard side of the engine through the water jacket and just above the carburettor. I was finally forced to descend about five miles behind the enemy lines in the neighbourhood of several bodies of enemy cavalry. On landing I at once set fire to my machine, and had hardly done so when I found that Capt. Anderson had also landed close by. His machine was also disabled and Lieutenant Mitchell was standing on the wing stopping a bullet hole in the tank. Lieutenant Laidlaw (my observer) and I at once got into Capt. Anderson’s machine and Lieutenant Laidlaw who got in first opened fire with the Lewis gun on the nearest party of cavalry. Captain Anderson took off and flew the four of us back to our airfield at Beketovka. Lieutenant Mitchell throughout the flight of fifty minutes remained on the wing. He was dressed in shorts and a drill tunic which made it the more wonderful that he was able to withstand the hot exhaust of the engine to which, in addition to the pressure of air he was being subjected.8

The heat from the engine exhaust had burnt Mitchell as he struggled to hold on against the 100mph slipstream. But this cannot have been too bad, as he flew the day after. As he also became covered in petrol, any spark from the exhaust would have transformed him into a human torch.

There had been reports that the Bolsheviks would crucify any captured British pilots. But none of 47’s aircrew were ever captured. Marion Aten, in his book, claimed that the British pilots carried morphine as a suicide pill for use if they were captured, but this sounds unlikely. In reality, all British prisoners of war captured during the intervention, on all fronts, were returned in 1920, after being relatively well treated.

The DH9, flown by Captain Elliot, that crashed on 30 July 1919. Elliot claimed to have burned the aircraft but there is no sign of a fire having taken place, although it is certainly wrecked. The photograph was taken after the area was recaptured.

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