Reg Kingsford has been a survivor

Press, 2 June 1981, Page 21

Reg Kingsford has been a survivor

Shot down; torpedoed: now 90 years old

By

BARRY SIMPSON

Only the little, blue-red flames from the exhaust of the Beardmore engine and the twinkle of exploding bombs on Morhange aerodrome, 2000 ft below, relieved the darkness as the ageing FE2b turned for home.

It was then that a shrapnel shard shattered the oil sump and radiator of the engine. The two half-frozen occupants of the aircraft felt the jolt; and the pilot, watching the rapidly falling oil pressure on the gauge before him, realised with considerable apprehension that the sturdy little bomber would not get home that night. Sixty-three years later, almost to the day, Reg Kingsford (Albert Reginald Kingsford). his constant pipe in his mouth, relived for his interviewer the frightening events of that night in 1918 as the First World War was drawing to a close. He was the pilot of that plane. That he lived to take i part in other raids and — now aged 90 — to tell the story of his life in a bomber squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, is a tribute to the aircraft itself and to the skill of the man who flew it. When the FE2b was hit at 2000 ft over enemy-occupied territory it was 25 miles behind the lines. For perhaps five minutes the engine kept running, very rough, but running. Then it seized. Fortunately, says Mr Kingsford, the FE2b was a magnificent gliding . aeroplane. Silently, now, he flew towards his own lines, gradually losing height.

His observer, Lieutenant Bourne, half in and half out of the cockpit immediately in front of the pilot, was able to advise the imminent approach of the ground, but he did not see the slit trench running at right angles to the aircraft's landing path.

"We touched down and ran along quite well, then suddenly the. nose went down, the tail came up and we were thrown head over heels

out of the cockpit." says Mr Kingsford. No seat be’lts in those days. Lieutenant Bourne was thrown on to barbed-wire entanglements and was cut about fairly severely, but Mr Kingsford admitted to being quite unhurt. “But, where the hell were we — German or Allied lines? The trench we were in appeared deserted. We moved very cautiously around one bend and were half w T ay round the second when a revolver appeared, aimed straight at us, and a voice said: ‘Qui etes vous?’ (who are you). A French voice! Oh, god, what a relief.” This incident in the actionpacked young life of Reg Kingsford, told matter-of-factly in the warmth and comfort of the living room in Kent Cottage, Waimea Road,

Nelson, was by no means his first or only encounter with the dangers associated with the first years of combat Hying. While training in England, he and two other very green aviators were taken on a cross-country formation flight to Shoreham by their instructor. All went well, according to Mr Kingsford, until they began the descent through dense cloud to the aerodrome. “I lost touch with my leader. I was sure our rate 61 descent was going to take us into the ground, so I levelled out and kept on flying, still in dense cloud. When the cloud broke, there was nc land in sight, only a vast expanse of sea. My God, 1 was frightened,” he says. Overcoming his fears, he rightly surmised that if he reversed the compass bear-

ing he had been flying on 1 must strike land. But then was no aerodrome — just a ploughed field which seemec at the time a little piece oi heaven. He landed in line with the furrows, but came to ar abrupt halt when the outside furrows, running around the paddock, cut straight across the rest. The aircraff upended and he was tossec out.

“I can still see people who had been working in another field close by running towards me. They seemed quite disappointed that I wasn't dead.” Then there was a moment, in 1918, when “Bourney,” his observer, saw that one of the Cooper bombs slung beneath the wings had not released during the bombing run. It hung on the mount, very tentatively and very lethally. Recalling situations in which others had attempted to land with a fused bomb

dangling from the aircraft, and the disastrous outcome of at least one such attempt (four killed), "Bourney” de-' cided to free the bomb. As the aircraft burbled along at about 65 miles an hour, in darkness and 4000 ft above the battlefields, “Bourney.” left the safety of his cockpit. “He couldn't, get his hands to the bomb so yelled to me to pass him my stick,” Mr Kingsford says. He was referring to the stick he is holding in the

photograph on this' page. It was a swagger stick which he notched, like a flying gunslinger, after each completed operational flight. “The boys used to give me hell about taking that stick with me when I flew. It was my mascot. I took it on every flight. It came in handy that night,” he said. With it, while holding on to the rim of the cockpit, “Bourney” was able to put his foot in a step beneath the cockpit and lean under the wing and dislodge the bomb with the stick. The stick, when the war ended, had 33 notches. “Navigational aids? We had a compass, altimeter, inclinometer and petrol and oil gauges. In those open cockpits we bloody well near froze.

"The only navigational aids otherwise were a string of miniature lighthouses set 25 miles apart in France and about three miles from the Allied side of the front lines. These flashed letters in Morse so that on our maps we could work out our bearings on the way home.” How Reg Kingsford, Nelson photographer, won his wings early in 1917, is a story in itself.

He had been in Nelson only two years when war broke but. He . enlisted immediately. In 1915 he left New’ Zealand with the Sixth Reinforcement. After .- training in Cairo, Mr Kingsford embarked on the Marquette for Salonica. Twelve miles off shore, and only-a short time out of

Salonica, the vessel was torpedoed by a German submarine. She went to the bottom in 13 minutes, taking 159 persons with her. Ten of these were nurses.

"I was hanging on to a raft, bloody cold, for 15 hours before we were picked up,” he says.

About this time the air war was intensifying, and the Allied losses were severe, Mr Kingsford says. When the call went out for volunteers, Corporal Kingsford applied — not because he was enthusiastic about flying but because it offered new adventure.

His adjutant turned down his application because it was felt experienced n.c.o.s were too valuable to be permitted to leave for another branch of the service.

However, he did not give up that easily. When appointed to show the way to General Richardson, C.O. of the New Zealand Division, during an inspection of the division. Corporal Kingsford managed to let the general know of his aviation aspirations.

Within weeks he was being interviewed and on his to England to train.

He recalls that at that first interview he met another New Zealand volunteer — a Len Isitt, later to become Air Vice-Marshal Sir Leonard Isitt, whose contribution to military and civil aviation in-’:, New Zealand is well documented.

Corporal Kingsford arrived in - England on .Christmas Eve, 1916; and after gaining his commission and wings — in that order — remained in England for more specialised flying and air gunnery training. At that time trainees received their commissions first — a stupid idea, he felt — and later many dropped out when it was fond they had no aptitude for flying. It was not until February 10, 1918, that he was posted to an operational squadron — 100 Squadron, in France. The intervening period had been spent mainly in frustrated pursuit of the highflying Zeppelins which ‘flew over nightly from Heligoland to- bomb London. -

“We had no hope with the machines we had. We could get to only 16,000 ft, but the Zeps.came over at 20,000 ft. Any Zeppelins destroyed were always shot down over. London because they descended there to bomb with greater accuracy. We got terribly frustrated,” he says.

No. 100 Squadron, a bomber squadron, was based at Ochey, fairly, .close to Paris. •* ; ’ - ;; : ■ ' “Our targets were mainly in Alsace-Lorraine which was rich in minerals, and through which all "reinforcements and supplied from Germany to the Verdun front had to pass.’ Our - targets were the big electric power stations in the Saar and Moselle valleys, and the big railway marshalling yards at Metz.” The bomb load of an FE2b was eight 251 b Cooper bombs under the wings, and three

• ' <•- ' r ’ 1121 b bombs under the under--carriage, or one 230-pounder there. The leader, as pathfinder, also carried a 401 b phos- . phorous > parachute "’ bomb which was used to light up and pinpoint targets;.- . "/The aircraft,'..fillip laden, , was pushed .along -by a 160 h.p. Beardmore engine 10--, cated behind the pilot’s - seat.. The engine was water-cooled ■. and it leaked — against. the pilot’s back. . .” - ' ■ The pilot sat with the main petrol tank under his seat, and his observer/bomber sat in front of the pilot with a Lewis machine gun and three drums of ammunition. The cockpit-for both, open .to the elements, was freezing. Towards the latter part of 1918 the squadron also flew the twin-engined Handley Page bombers which could carry 18001 b of bombs.

The war over, Mr Kingsford and Charlotte, the ‘girl he had married while on leave from. France, were forced to wait nine .months . before they were able to sail .tAJNew- Zealand. \ /-The?-flying 'days of Reg Kingsford, however,’did not end. until 1959 when, as a foundation member of the ’ Nelson Aero Club, he won the veterans’ flying ’ award. " Mr Kingsford, predeceased by his wife, still enjoys excellent health and a sharp memory. He has a lot of memories, and these were .enlivened early last month, on the day of his 90th birthday. by two cablegrams he received from England. Both wished him well. They were from Bomber Command and his old No. 100 Squadron.