BOXART STORY

#8486

Text: Jan Bobek

Illustration: Adam Tooby

High sky collision

Canadian William Melville “Mel” Alexander

was one of the most famous aces in the

Royal Naval Air Service and the RAF. Of his

22 victories (23 are also given) he achieved

a total of 10 during 1917 in the Sopwith Triplane N5487 “Black Prince” as a member of

the Black Flight of No. 10 Naval Squadron. He

also took part in the air battle of July 6, 1917,

in which the commander of Jasta 11, Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, was severely

wounded.

When Alexander went on leave in mid-October, he had 12 victories to his credit, two

of them already on Camels. On his return in

late December, his unit was fully rearmed

with Camels.

Later Alexander would remember this type

as an excellent aircraft, but tricky one. Anyway, if a pilot passed the first 10 to 15 flying

hours unscathed, he usually had the plane

firmly in his hands.

It was in Camel B6289 that Alexander achieved his first victory after returning from

leave. It was marked with a white letter A,

which placed it in the unit’s A Flight, and an

individual color motif was painted on the

wheel discs. The aircraft itself already had

two victories to its credit, achieved in 1917

by Flt. Sub-Lieut. H. L. Nelson. It was later

turned over to No. 9 Naval Squadron and

crashed in June 1918.

When Alexander took off with B6289 from

Teteghem, near Dunkirk, on January 23,

1918, at 14.05 he was part of the High Offensive Patrol of ten machines of No. 10 Na-

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INFO Eduard

val Squadron. The formation headed over

the front at 7,000 feet. Five minutes ahead

of them, a formation of Camels from No. 3

Naval Squadron had taken off as well. Over

the Houthulst forest, they came into combat with four DFWs escorted by three fighters of a new type. They managed to shoot

down one of the two-seaters, but after the

fight the English Flt. Sub-Lieut. Herbert S. J.

E. Youens was missing. The German planes

were apparently Pfalz scouts from Jasta 7,

and Youens, who was captured, was then a

guest at that unit's airfield at Aertryke. The

commander of Jasta 7, who was Lt. d. R. Carl

Degelow, claimed in his memoirs, after the

war, that he had shot down Youens, but was

not credited with the victory. However, this is

probably a fabrication.

Victory over Youens was awarded to Lt. d. R.

Gustav Wandelt from Jasta 36, at 15.45 near

Staden. Then just five minutes later, also

near Staden, Jasta 36 clashed with the Camels of Naval 10. The Naval pilots with their

biplanes were just in the clouds chasing

three two-seaters escorted by one fighter.

These were soon joined by five Albatross

from Jasta 36. Flt. Lieut. W. A. Curtis first hit

a green-painted two-seater which broke up

in mid-air, and then dove to pursue another

two-seater with silver paint. Flt. Sub-Lieut. Nelson fired a burst at two Albatross in

succession during the chase in the clouds,

but to no avail. “Mel” Alexander chased one

Albatros above the cloud layer and managed

to hit it from below in the fuselage during

a turn, the German went into a spin. Alexander followed his adversary through the

clouds and lost contact when he had to focus

on another enemy machine. He was credited

with an “out of control” victory.

A painting by Adam Tooby shows just the

moment in the opening stages of the battle,

with Alexander flying close to an Albatros

with blue paint on the nose, the identifying

feature of the Jasta 36 machines.

This German fighter unit recorded in its

diary that it was attacked by six Sopwiths.

Wandelt was pursuing one Camel when

suddenly his machine was hit in the engine

and collided with another Camel. He did not

survive the crash. The unfortunate pilot who

collided with Wandelt’s Albatros was Canadian Flt. Sub-Lieut. Ross A. Blyth, who was

also killed. Blyth’s colleagues did not see the

collision, but both Alexander and Flt. Sub-Lieut. Manuel saw falling planes. The latter

stated in his report that the machines fell together in a spin then hit the ground together.

On the German side, both Wandelt’s victories

and the circumstances of his death were

witnessed by Lt. d. R. Heinrich Bongartz and

Max Naujock. The wreckage of Blyth’s Camel was photographed by the Germans with

a large group of soldiers, a common custom

at the time. The picture is characteristic in

that none of the onlookers look triumphant

or cheerful. The 25-year-old Canadian aviator is buried today in Perth cemetery, near

Leper (Ypres), Belgium. Wandelt’s final resting place is unknown.

January 2023