John Templeton-Smith

Glass houses and stones comes to mind . . .

I'll tell you a true story of WW1 flying machines: In the mid 1980's I dropped into Lands End airfield, in Cornwall and went into a small hangar. I met an ex-naval aviator, he was working on a Sopwith Camel. I asked him where he had got it from and he told me it was a replica and had built it himself. When asked if he had flown it - he said, "Just once ... frightened me to death." The look in his eyes and the tone of his voice told me he meant it. The point is he meant it. An ex-Navy pilot who had flown everything from Seafires to Buccaneers with tens of thousands of flying hours! My point being, given the flying machines were enough to persuade a veteran flyer that "they" were bl***y dangerous, imagine the young boys who were given one to fly on the Western Front after a mere 15 hours training back in Blighty, and having to contend with ack-ack and the German fighters trying to knock you down as an additional side-show. They said you had a 3-week life expectancy. Brave boys all, well portrayed in this stirring movie.