XIII Sqn History

XIII Squadron deployed to France on 19 Oct 1915 and were immediately drawn into action.

Its tasks were patrols, bombing, recce, artillery observation, and photography.he first combat patrol was flown on 22nd October with the first successful photos taken the following day. The 23rd also saw the Sqn take its first casualties with 1st Lieutenant Cecil Marks and 2nd/ Lieutenant William Lawrence being shot down and killed behind enemy lines whilst undertaking Recce Escort duties south of St Quentin. They were the second victims of Ltn Hans-Joachim Buddecke of FA23.

Lawrence was the younger brother of T E Lawrence or ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ as he is more famously known.

At 1.32pm on 23 October, Marks and Lawrence took off from Vert Galand aerodrome to act as escort to a reconnaissance but failed to return, becoming the first entries in the Squadron’s casualty book. Captain Cecil Robert Tidswell reported: ‘’We have lost one of our machines already. It went up the day before yesterday for a reconnaissance over the German lines and has not returned. As the German wireless reported yesterday that an English machine had been brought down in an air fight in this district and both pilot and observer had been killed, I’m afraid it must refer to ours. I didn’t know the pilot well, as he only joined us out here, but the observer was with us at Gosport, and was a particularly nice man.’’

By a curious coincidence, the arrival in the area of a party of high-ranking German officers and dignitaries on an inspection visit would turn the dying throes of BE2c 2017 into something of a macabre spectator event; and possibly this accounts for the dramatic account of the combat that would appear in the 1918 memoirs of Hans Joachim Buddecke, the German pilot who brought down the plane. Fifty metres away, with my head ducked in behind my machine-gun, aiming over the long black barrel, I began shooting. I made another bank and fired again until there was no machine-gun fire coming back from him. Then I realised that he was losing altitude. I followed him slowly and was able to smell him. I had time to smell the enemy plane. The BE type of plane had a special smell to it. The engine smell leaves a stench behind which is sweeter than from a perfumed handkerchief. Naturally I did not have the guests below in mind but the enemy plane which slowly went down as if looking for a good opportunity to escape. I did not want to shoot him up anymore. Thus, I stayed close by on his right. At a height of 200 metres he overflew a village and then an open field. We approached Roupy airdrome. 100 metres. The enemy ahead of us was struggling now. He made a dive, then ran flat into the ground. I was circling him in order to see any more movements. There was nothing.

Meanwhile they pulled a dead body from the plane and one dying person. Lawrence had brought his dead comrade back to earth with his last breaths. The other lost his life up in the air. High command had followed everything and once the bodies had been removed and taken away, they inspected the shot-up plane. She looked terrible with 212 hits by bullets. The fuselage was later exhibited to highlight our weaponry effects to good detail.

The wrecked BE2-C of Marks and Lawrence 2nd Lieutenant Lawrence Captain Marks