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Please note that The Old Vicarage at Leysters has ceased trading and is no longer offering dinner, bed and breakfast to paying guests
Captain William Allcock, Royal Flying Corps (1897-1917)
Over the years I have been given various pieces of memorabilia relating to my great uncle who was killed in 1917 whilst serving as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. My father, who was named after his uncle, joined the Royal Air Force and, in due course, so did I. With this ‘aviation’ connection various letters, photographs, and newspaper cuttings relating to Great Uncle Will have been passed to me but, most importantly, I have his Aviator’s Certificate and the diary he kept whilst serving on the Western Front. I was fairly certain that my great uncle had no grave but a call to the British Legion confirmed that his name was recorded on the Flying Services Memorial at Arras in France, which I was able to visit in 2001. The final piece of the jigsaw came when the RAF Museum at Hendon were able to give me a copy of my great uncle’s (Captain William Allcock’s) casualty record. I also have a transcript of some letters that Great Uncle Will sent back after setting off in March 1914 from his home in Knighton, Radnorshire for some adventures in Canada and the following paragraphs are an extract, in chronological order, from the memorabilia I have. My great uncle, William Thomas Lloyd Allcock was born in Knighton, Radnorshire on the 14 October 1897, and was educated at Whitton School and Bourne College, Birmingham. He completed his schooling in 1913 and, like many young men of the time, he decided to seek a little adventure before settling down in the family grocery business. Young Allcock therefore crossed the Atlantic to Canada and worked first in Calgary and then on a ranch in British Columbia. Some of his early letters home have survived and the following passage describes his first view of St. John’s, Newfoundland when arriving on a ship full of emigrants, who had left Liverpool for a new life in North America. At the time of setting out on this adventure he was only 16½ years old. ‘9 April 1914. The Corinthian being the first in was tugged into the harbour first and then we came next. This is an awful slow business - slowly but surely we were pulled to the side and at last we anchored safely. But oh what time before we could disembark. Of course this port is not used so much for passenger vessels as cargo ones. This is where the products of the country are shipped and so the accommodation for emigrants is poor. A small gangway was lifted aboard, narrow and awfully steep - about two feet six inches wide - with just strips of wood to form steps. First of all the First Saloon Passengers disembarked, their luggage was all carried down by the stewards, slowly, and people were slipping down this gangway. Then the Second Saloon Passengers landed; it was a wonder no serious accidents occurred because if one slipped at the top, he would push and knock the rest down. I landed somewhere about first, collared a boy to carry my bag to the customs. Well, there seems to be no system at all, in St. John’s anyway. I walked up, met a customs officer who told me to open my bag; he just looked in and told me to pass on. That was all right but I then passed into a kind of sheep and cattle pen yard; petitions up, and one by one we passed through - a man at a desk asking us what we were, where we came from, how much money we had, what we intended to do etc. Well, a number of people had a bother with that man, but I passed through quite all right into the railway offices to purchase my ticket. Having read of others experience I knew exactly what to do so after asking a few questions about time of trains etc. I went to cable you of my arrival which cost me 37 cents - very cheap. I then went to bring my grip into the booking office to be safe, having got round one of the men to keep his eye on it. After having seen the two young men who I mentioned before through their performances, we went up to the city. Well, the first look I had of St. John's from the boat didn't impressed me greatly but when I saw the streets, buildings, railway station (or depot in this country) etc. I was shocked. The telegram and phone posts went like a dog's hind leg and couldn't see the sun for wires. The streets were thick with mud and I didn't see a decent lunch house in the place. We were hungry so walking into a white lunch restaurant we asked the price of dinner: 35 cents for beef potatoes and gravy. Well, the less I say about the meal and how the woman the other side of the table used bad language, and everybody then simply went mad - for all we received was a piece of beef tough as the animal's hide, one tablespoon of potatoes and two tablespoons full of gravy - you could see through its, like water. I had potatoes and gravy and they charged me 30 cents and even wanted to charge 15 cents for a bottle of ginger beer. No thank you! I got up paid my fare and walked out. We then crossed the river in a ferry to another part of the city, the business part I guess. After strolling about the went back to get our trunks checked and examined, this was the worst of all. There were about three checkers and three customs officers to about 500 second-class passengers. Well I got tired of waiting so I went to one of the men and simply pulled him to my box. At last I got him and also received my check. One poor woman with her son, she had her box robbed of nearly all her jewellery including a gold watch. Our train was due to leave at six so, just before, I went to the store which is run by the railway company to supply passengers with food for the journey and bought bread, a cup and plate. I rushed to catch the train with my two pals who were waiting and together we hunted for a decent seat. Of course, in this country they are not particular to starting on scheduled time anywhere within a few hours. Well, at last we pulled out of the depot and got fairly on the road. We were hungry having had nothing to eat since seven o'clock (of course, our potatoes etc. are not counted) so we boiled our kettle in my billycan and set to for a jolly meal and then we went to sleep.’ A few days later on his great journey west across Canada, William Allcock describes the engine pulling the train. ‘I might just as well explain the train business now, because everything is so different to the Old Country. I’ll start with the engine; this is a great piece of mechanism weighing 200 tons. In front there is a large cow-catcher, then the next thing is a large search light just below the funnel which lights the track for miles in front. Then, when we near a depot they sound a kind of the whistle that it is more like a fog horn. Then a bell clangs just at the start of a tunnel and, when you draw into a very large place, you hear a number of church bells going like an Easter morning at home (only they are engine bells). Well, the boiler and wheels are similar to the large engines on L.N.E.R. only on a much larger scale but the cabin and tender are different. The cabin is half as large as our motor house nearly. Not many working contrivances but a large fire box which will take one of our English light engines (as used in the large goods yards). Then the tender holds the coal and a large tank of water; this is a reserve for they have to travel miles at a stretch without the chance of getting water, so you see the necessity of a large tender. I don't think I have explained it to satisfaction but if you will take one of the lunch freight engines which run between Shrewsbury and Swansea and seeing that it takes three of those to make one Canadian Pacific Railway trans continental engines, then you will have some idea of size. They stand so high from the ground. Well, we had twelve coaches on and that was some train. We had one tourist car, one dining car, two first-class cars including sleepers, one luggage car, seven colonist cars. One train has about ten officials on; generally, of course, it is according to size and what class of people there are on board. Two for the engine - an engineer (driver) and fireman (stoker), one conductor (head guard), three trainmen - like guards there are none in the Old Country), one newsagent - sells papers, books , eatables, and three cooks (if dining car). When the train drops into a fairly large depot where a restaurant is, there is a rush for bread, butter etc. Oh, there is one little thing I should like to explain; at every depot when the train is ready to start the conductor shouts out in a gruff voice: ‘aw on bowd’ - which means ‘all on the board’ - that’s as near as I can get to his pronunciation.’ Meanwhile the Great War had broken out in Europe, with
Great Britain declaring war on Germany on 4 August 1914, and Allcock was in
Winnipeg in January 1915 when, as the Hereford Times of 22 May 1915 put it, 'he
resolved to come back and do his bit for the Old Country.' On his return to
England in late January 1915 William Allcock offered his services to the War
Office and applied to join the Royal Flying Corps as a pilot. Incredibly, he was
advised that his application could not be entertained unless he On 22 September 1915, a few weeks before his 18th birthday, 2nd Lieutenant William Allcock joined No. 2 Squadron at Hesdigneul on the Western Front in France. By now he had completed the RFC Central Flying School course and had achieved 60 hours flying time. The squadron was mainly equipped with BE2C's, lumbering reconnaissance aircraft which had a top speed of only 75 mph at ground level. Indeed, the Army General Staff at the time considered the main task of the RFC to be reconnaissance on behalf of ground forces, and often one machine on a reconnaissance mission would be escorted by up to 10 other aircraft. Moreover, at this stage of the war aircraft were comparatively lightly armed and Major Lanoe Hawker, one of the early British aces who was a crack shot, achieved many successes by shooting enemy pilots through the head with a deer stalking rifle. In the early part of the Great War probably the greatest threat to aircraft was not from other machines but from anti-aircraft fire which the pilots called ‘Archie.’ After two weeks on the Squadron on his 13th patrol, Lieutenant Allcock described in his diary a particularly nasty experience. ‘5 October 1915. Artillery observation with Lieutenant
Brown. While so doing we were hit at eight thousand feet by shrapnel over
Hulluch. My engine gone dud. I turned for our lines, when just crossing them the
machine caught fire at 6,300 feet. I immediately put her nose down; the flames
burst out and spread along the fuselage behind the At the time of this incident which he describes in a
day-to-day diary of his flying, Lieutenant Allcock was still only 18 years old.
He clearly considered the war at this stage to But pressures began to build up and by 1916 the diary is more serious and factual. Patrols were flown virtually every day and most resulted in damage from 'Archie' (anti-aircraft fire) or aerial combat, and sometimes both. The following is a typical description of a morning patrol - in this case another sortie was flown in the afternoon. '11 November 1915. Escort to long reconnaissance machine. Observer 1AM Bowes District Valanciennes, Douai etc. Three machines crossed the line at eight thousand feet. Kept together until we turned to come back when we had a very strong head wind. My machine was slightly slower so I got left behind. Over Douai a Fokker attacked us over my tail; he dived at us and fired through his propeller. The first thing we heard was the rattle of the machine gun then the thud of bullets hitting. I managed to put in a drum from the back gun bracket as he crossed behind my machine. He then cleared off. In the meantime an Albatross attacked from underneath but at fairly long-range. My observer did some long potting and we kept him at a good distance under. We got to Lens when ‘Archie’ started shelling us and tore gaping holes in my planes. Fortunately, we arrived home safely, but much dilapidated.' He describes another sortie three weeks later in a similar vein: 'Bomb raid on Dou. Three squadrons, No 2, No 10, and No 16 rendezvous over No 2 at 7 000 feet carrying 2 one hundred pound bombs. Crossed the lines north of La Bassée. I went over a little in front of the others and was attacked as I was fixing my bomb sites. Thud, thud as the bullets hit. Getting my machine into the Hun line of fire, I poured into him a drum at 800 feet; he dived steeply apparently hit. After the excitement I surveyed the damage. His first burst had riddled the passenger's seat. Lucky no Observer as he would certainly have been killed. His second burst hit the wing and riddled it, while 2 glancing shots hit my cockpit two inches below my right arm. Having dropped my bombs with good effect I returned, getting Archied terribly but fortunately pulling through all right.’ Quite often the pilot got lost, particularly if the
weather was bad. By February 1916 William Allcock had been promoted to captain
and posted as a flight commander on No.16 Squadron. His first patrol was on 27
February which he describes as 'very misty'. On this occasion 'a great number of
pilots lost themselves and landed up North at Dunkirk. One pilot called
Lieutenant Thayne landed at Herne Bay, Kent - he thought it was Holland.' Often
too the bad weather caused crashes. On another patrol 'the clouds came up very
thick so I descended to 600 feet to find my way home. It came on thicker so I
came lower, not recognising the landmarks. I landed in a ploughed field. By mid-1916 Captain Allcock's diary becomes very brief. For example, '18 May - hostile aircraft patrol on Bristol Scout - one hour.' From the end of May to October 1916 he returned to England to act as a flying instructor. Returning again to France with No. 46 Squadron in late October the diary gives no details of his patrols stating only that he flew 45 hours in the next 21 days before, on 13 November 1916, he was 'shot down by Hun machine and crashed over aerodrome'. A week later Captain Allcock was evacuated to England with leg injuries where, after two months recuperation, he was re-posted as an instructor at the Central Flying School. The diary contains a list of his students at the School one of which was Second Lieutenant Charles Kingsford Smith, the famous Australian aviator who became the first pilot both to cross the Pacific Ocean and, subsequently, to circumnavigate the Globe by air. Here the diary ends. In May 1917 he returned to France, however, to join No. 40 Squadron flying Nieuport 17s. Only a week after his return, as the Hereford Times reported, he made the 'supreme sacrifice for his King and country.' In fact, on 5 June 1917 at 7.22pm Captain Allcock took off on a patrol in a Nieuport 17 (No.B1548) from which he never returned. He was posted missing in action and, 3 months later, his parents were informed that he had been killed in action. At this period of the Great War the life expectancy of a pilot arriving in France was less than 2 weeks. At this stage too the crews of RFC aircraft were forbidden by the Army High Command from carrying parachutes 'lest it should impair their nerve' and most carried revolvers so that they could commit suicide rather than be trapped in a burning aircraft. Captain William Allcock was only 19 when he died. He was not highly decorated although the Hereford Times reported that he had been 'mentioned in one of Sir Douglas Haig's dispatches.' He has no grave but his name is recorded on the Flying Services Memorial - part of the impressive and moving Arras Memorial in Northern France designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Captain Allcock's full diary can be found at http://www.wtla.airwar1.org.uk/ Guy Griffiths
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already
possessed a pilot's certificate and so, with his parents’ help,
arrangements were made for Allcock to do a flying course at Hendon, which he
started on 22 February 1915. The Hereford Times reported that he was ‘already
a master of the steering wheel car, in other words a good chauffeur’ and,
after 12 weeks, he received the British Empire Aviator's Certificate (serial
number 1241). The aircraft on which Allcock qualified was the 50 hp Beatty
Wright, a machine which, to the uninitiated, looks remarkably similar to the one
in which the Wright Brothers made the first ever powered flight.
pilot's seat. Brown threw the
ammunition overboard and climbed along back nearly into my cockpit as the whole
front of the machine was a blazing mass. In the meantime we were speeding to
earth at 120 mph. Brown was trying to keep the fire down from burning his
clothes while I kept my eye on the pitot tube, the ground and the flames,
pushing the joy stick further forward until we were nearly nose diving. Every
minute I thought would be the last for I expected the whole machine to collapse
from strain as a number of wires were broken. Eventually I saw the ground not
far below and found myself going straight at a village so I turned to the right
and spying a ploughed field decided to land there, cutting through telephone
wires and a tall hedge, missing a horse and plough by inches. A few feet from
the ground I levelled out and the machine took the ground at 70 mph. A perfect
landing but the undercarriage being burnt, the machine ran a few yards and
collapsed, digging her nose into the plough, and turned over. I was thrown right
out 10 yards ahead, putting out my hands saved me but I lay dazed a little, in
the meantime the tail came down and hit me on the head. Staggering round to find
Brown I found him hunting for me. He had fallen under the engine and just
managed to crawl out a few seconds before the bearings broke and the engine fell
on the spot. Looking on the wreckage we saw a mass of flame with every few
seconds shots going off from the revolvers. A huge crowd collected but putting a
sergeant in charge with some men, we left in a tender for our aerodrome and
reported to the officer commanding, Major Beck. From the wreckage we got a few
souvenirs - revolver, compass and a piece of the engine bed which had been
melted by the heat. (The Lieutenant Brown described here later became Sir Arthur
Whitten Brown who made the first non-stop flight of the Atlantic).
be very exciting despite the
incredible danger both he and the other pilots faced each day. He has time to
describe test flights and aerobatics. On 15 November Lieutenant Allcock
took 2AM (Air Mechanic) Aston up for a joy ride and apparently 'put the wind up
Aston by doing a steep spiral and tail sliding'. A few weeks later he describes
an air test with a new propeller - 'looped the loop twice. Very funny sensation
to fly upside down. On the second loop I stopped on top for the few seconds;
flying head down a peculiar haziness comes over you'.
Having
enquired my way we started off again but hitting a ditch we overturned. I was
thrown out into a ditch full of water and appeared the other side like a
drowning rat.' In the next fortnight he crashed two further times (both after
engine failure) but pilots were worked incredibly hard and were often required
to fly several missions in a day. On 13 March 1916 Captain Allcock flew 4
sorties totalling nine hours.