Source 3 - Action Abroad - A Short Life in the Sky

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Source 3: Kut al Amara, April - May 1916

By September 1915, the British had taken the town of Kut al Amara, south of Baghdad. Their advance ended with their defeat by the Turks at the Battle of Ctesiphon in November. The survivors retreated to Kut al Amara where they endured a siege by the Turks for 147 days. The Royal Naval Air Service tried to supply the garrison with food and medicine but could not deliver enough by air to break the siege. The town surrendered to the Turks on 29 April 1916.

An entry in Douglas’s Pilot’s Flying Log Book for 16 April 1916 records that on that day he was 55 minutes in the air, flying at a height of 9600ft over Kut and managed to drop 100lbs of sugar, 100lbs of flour and 500 rupees. He gives a more detailed account of his mission in this letter home.

Image

Douglas Hume's Flying Log Book
NAS: GD486/175

Transcript

Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’
Mesopotamia
9 May 1916

Dear Mother

By this time you will know about the failure to relieve Kut and our efforts to delay this by dropping food…
I, by reason of a good machine, put in at least a quarter of the total amount dropped by RNAS [Royal Naval Air Services] and RFC [Royal Flying Corps] together – which is something accomplished in this unsatisfactory campaign.

In my last letter, I wrote that flying was getting horribly stale and unexciting, but neglecting to touch wood, my next trip was as exciting as anyone could wish.

It was a food trip and at that time I had beaten everybody else by doing the trip to Kut and back in
42 min[ute]s. I was trying to beat my own record and made a straight line for Kut passing over the lines at just 6000ft when – bang – and a shrapnel burst 10ft right of my tail. Within half a minute there was another in the same place. As this was the best shooting before or since that the Turks have done, I put on full speed and vacated that unhealthy region.

I had hardly recovered from the cardiac stricture resulting from this excitement, when having dropped my food, I passed over another machine on the same errand and about 20ft lower. I waved to him and he to me, then chancing to look up there was Fritz in a brand new Fokker, pointing straight at me; scarcely
30 yds away on my right. With a wild jerk I turned and dived underneath him escaping the two rounds he loosed off at me. By the time I had turned round, extracted my revolver from its case and loaded it, he was 3 miles away having about 50 knots more than I.

Since then he has brought down one seaplane and put 45 shots each into two other land machines, but now that the pressure of work is over he goes his way and we go ours. Besides I have fitted my machine for 3 guns – so shall give him a warm welcome next time we meet.

The Turks seem to be getting Cholera pretty badly and one or two cases have appeared among our men so I have had my first dose of innoculation today. Out of the RFC pilots there are only two left, the rest having gone down river with fever or dysentery. So Dunn and I on land machines are remaining here to give the RFC a hand while the rest of the squadron goes down river to refit.

…The heat is getting strong – 105 in the shade today – but I don’t mind it so far and large doses of quinine keep off the hayfever quite a lot…

Much love to all
Douglas

NAS: GD486/105