Billy Bishop, one of the new observers has been in training since joining 21 (Training) Squadron at Netheravon for elementary air training on 1 September. He arrived in England from Canada in July and had quickly transferred to the RFC as an observer – as there were no places for pilots.
He went to the gunnery school at Dover on 2 October and then returned to Netheravon for further training.
Today he had his first crash. He went up with a new pilot Captain Wadham to carry out a ranging exercise, but crashed on landing and wrote off the machine.
He wrote of the incident:
“While landing we had a real ,live crash and “did in” the machine. Both of us got off very lightly. I got my foot bruised a bit and now have an artistic limp, of which I am very proud. The pilot was also very lucky and got off with a few bruises.”
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