Jill Bush - Lionel Morris and the Red Baron: Air War on the Somme

Air War on the Somme

Jill Bush

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

George Eliot

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by

Pen and Sword History

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright Jill Bush, 2019

Hardback ISBN: 9781526742223

Paperback ISBN: 9781526765871

eISBN: 9781526742230

Mobi ISBN: 9781526742247

The right of Jill Bush to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Author, The Sky Their Battlefield II: Air Fighting and Air Casualties of the Great War. British, Commonwealth and United States Air Services 1912 to 1919

Jill Bush has written what I feel to be a unique and important book on the First Air War. Concerted and devoted research has enabled the author to glimpse right into the thoughts and hopes and experiences of a loved ancestor, who would be killed, high in the unforgiving sky above the Western Front in September 1916. Lionel Morris, whose young life she reveals so well, was just nineteen years old when he was shot down, along with his Observer Tom Rees, following an attack by Manfred von Richthofen, a German fighter pilot who would emerge with such remarkable fame and notoriety in the following years. So much is written about such men, but Lionels own story, told so well here, perfectly explains how important each mans life was. He had trained devotedly, and after only a few months, found himself at the Front Line in France, with 11 Squadron RFC a unit boasting Albert Ball and others, yet filled with mostly ordinary young men, who were also impassioned young patriots, to a man. For a few hours each day, each of these highly trained individuals faced a numbing challenge of duty and survival in the sky, just as in the evening these same comrades linked arms and sang, talked and laughed, and helped one another to carry on.

It is amazing that Lionels personal diary of these days exists. It is such a precious thing, and is one reason why this book achieves something unique we move, with Lionels thoughts and narration right into this world, almost able to see it through his eyes. Often, it feels like a book about minutes and moments, rather than the great sweep of history: the mood and atmosphere of squadron life is superbly evoked. All those other resonances and voices the author has additionally brought in, from the papers and memoirs of those who were around him, work superbly. Her deep reading and research also ensures that the wider stories of Lionels earlier life, and of the war are not just very factual and straightforward, but often quite enlightening.

Ultimately, however, it is a story about Lionel Morris. We catch sight of a young airman, in his final months striving so hard now, on every patrol, to learn and become a better pilot, team member and adversary, in the hope of surviving, of course. Like all the others who would die, he should have had all his life ahead of him. This book, told with such conviction and flair, goes a long way to keeping his and others memory alive and vivid and meaningful, to readers over a hundred years later.

Trevor Henshaw

M y grandfathers first cousin Lionel Bertram Frank Morris was the pilot of the first aircraft to be officially shot down by the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, on 17 September 1916. The day he died marked a turning point not just in the air war, but in the creation of its greatest legend: the German pilot who ended Morriss life turned out to be not just a lucky German airman, but someone who developed into a lethally skilful killer. For a period of nineteen months he became a nemesis for Britains Royal Flying Corps (RFC), the predecessor of todays Royal Air Force.

Pilots of the Great War were exceptional men, displaying levels not just of immense courage, but also unbelievable technical ability and survival instincts that we, with our twenty-first-century horror of jeopardy, cant hope to understand. By any standards, Morriss ten months with the Royal Flying Corps were an adrenaline-fuelled flight of terror and exhilaration. He had no more than two shared victories himself (officially, five was the necessary total to be an ace) but his achievement was still impressive mastering machines just as likely to kill their own crews as the enemy was one thing; being able to successfully manipulate them in combat was another. Those first two years of the war turned teenagers into virtuoso performers without the benefit of adequate time-served experience. Their learning curves were as steep as the climbs they made when they stood their aeroplanes on their tails to evade their attackers. It was a time of incredible progress made at the appalling expense of many lives; when gallantry still had a place in warfare, and wreaths were dropped over enemy lines to show respect for the airmen who fell.

This is not a book about Manfred von Richthofen; his appearance in Morriss life came with ballistic velocity right at the end of it and I have not attempted to relate a story that others with better qualifications have told. I have drawn heavily on the charismatic presence of Albert Ball because his training and subsequent squadron placements often ran on an irresistibly parallel course to Morriss.

Up until Morriss arrival in France in May 1916, when he decided to start keeping a diary, direct mentions of him in surviving records are limited. For me, with that diary, a window that had been only slightly ajar was all of a sudden banging open. It tore me from the reference books. His gleeful participation in a real-life boys own adventure sprang out in vivid moments, and was a touching expression of a young man not yet traumatised by a monstrous conflict. It was an unselfconscious day-to-day narrative of the most significant test the Royal Flying Corps had yet faced in the war, and one which highlighted the chaos and comedy of an under-resourced service always three steps away from the critical mass needed to comprehensively beat the enemy. The abrupt end to the diary, seven weeks before the endgame with Richthofen, was in many ways a relief any references to the horror of war are concise and unremarked on.