Updated images of aviator Edmond Banks have been added to Souveniring history: Lt. E.C. Banks and the Red Baron’s last flight
Lt E.C Banks
The photos are from the 3 Squadron website. A book on Bank’s co-pilot during that flight, Lt. Simpson, was published within days of completing the story.
Lt Simpson
Barrow & Garret
3 Squadron
Citars
Richthofens Circus: JG 1;
Jasta 11
Jasta 5
‘Naval 8’ Canadians:
Roy Brown
‘Wop’ May
At around 10.30am a pair of two-seater RE8 aircraft from No. 3 Squadron set off on a reconnaissance mission over the German lines. A third RE8 was to act as escort and, in the words of its observer, to “drop a few bombs on the way”.
Three planes from our A.F.C. squadron were dispatched on the day of this engagement, two on photographic reconnaissance and the third in which I was an observer to act as an escort, drop a few bombs on the way and carry out a three hours patrol of the front line.
From an altitude of about 7000 feet Stan Garrett’s observer, Alf Barrow, looked up and saw two Fokker triplanes diving towards them.
The RE8s were well armed but slow and cumbersome in comparison with the agile German machines. While Garrett tried to get rid of the triplane on his tail, Barrow fired his Lewis gun. In a letter Garrett described the Fokker as a “gaudy red one [that] seemed to be all over us at once, but Barrow was pouring in lead at 800 shots per minute and apparently the Hun got fed up, for we last saw him in a funny roll, with Barrow firing for all he knew”. Catching sight of a formation of British Sopwith Camel scouts, the triplanes flew off, leaving the Australians to resume their reconnaissance.
Returning to Poulainville, the RE8 crews found the aerodrome “all excitement”. Private Frank Rawlinson, in a memoir written after the war, wrote:
“It was my good luck to have the first news of Richthofen having been shot down. Lieut’s Barrow and Garret[t] … beckoned me over and … Lieut. Garret[t] told me they had the dickens of a fight with the Circus. They had been pounced on by a swarm of Fokker triplanes and he was sure that they had downed Richthofen’s Red Plane … They thought that they were very lucky, but they had saved themselves by putting up a mighty fight … The red nosed Camels flew low over our tents on their way to the old R.N.A.S [Royal Naval Air Service] squadron landing ground nearby. They had never done that before.”
https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/who-killed-the-red-baron-2
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