§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUMy Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can give any information to the House as to the start, flight, and landing of a certain F.E.2D. aeroplane which left Farnborough on 31st May and has not yet joined the squadrons at the Front; and whether any wireless message has been received in reference to it. In my opinion this incident is a serious one, and I should not have referred to it at all had I thought that anything I was going to say, or the mere reference to it, would be of any assistance to the enemy. Such an incident as this, though I am sorry I cannot say it is without precedent, is comparatively rare; but it is so serious that I think the House is entitled to have the answer which no doubt will be given by the noble Earl who presides over the Air Board. I trust we shall hear from His Majesty's Government that steps will be taken as far as possible to ensure that such an incident will not occur again.
On the morning of June 1 the aeroplane to which I have referred and which was fitted with a 250 horse-power engine (No. 7) left the Farnborough Aerodrome to fly to France. What I say can be of no possible use to the enemy, because they have the plane and the engine. It flew across the Channel, past our lines and over the German lines, and descended unhurt—pilot, observer and machine—in the German Aerodrome at Lille. There is a possibility of a mistake in approaching St. Omer and Lille from the air. Pilots very often are guided by two canals which are to a certain extent similar. But in this case there was no question of mistaking the two canals, because I am sorry to tell your Lordships that the pilot who flew this machine over had never flown in France before and had no knowledge whatever of the geography of the Front. That makes it a very serious incident. The pilot's name is Lieutenant Littlewood, originally of the North Lincolnshire Regiment, Special Reserve, and the observer 415 was Lieutenant Grant. I may mention that Lieutenant Littlewood was gazetted to the Royal Flying Corps as a flying officer only on June 8, some days after he was in the hands of the enemy.
It would, perhaps, be well if I read to the House from a letter which was written to me by one who happened to be down at Farnborough at this time. The officer when penning the letter did not, of course, know that it would be quoted, but I have his permission to read it. It commences—
The War Office sent down and asked for two F.E. pilots, the machines being F.E.'s in which the engines were placed, to fly them oversea—I may say that the F.E. is by no means an easy machine to fly—Owing to an error in the delivery of the message, it was understood that the pilots were to fly ordinary F.E.'s—This one in question was a special type of F.E.—with the result that in one ease an inexperienced pilot was sent. I was at Farnborough and saw the pilot "[the pilot who lost the machine]," who complained that he was not an experienced F.E. pilot, also that he had never been oversea and was not sure of the way. The authorities there, who heard all this, took no notice of his complaint, and told him to take the machine. Later a report came through that an F.E. had crossed the lines at Armentieres and had disappeared in the direction of Lille. That evening a German wireless communiqué stated that an F.E. had landed intact south-west of Lille, the pilot having lost his way—The somewhat sarcastic German wireless message was to this effect. While informing us that the officers and machine had landed unhurt at the German Aerodrome at Lille, they thanked us for the engine and plane, which, they said, would be "most useful" to them. But to continue the letter which I was reading—Thus it will be seen that within three hours of its being turned out of the factory our newest and latest machine was handed over intact to the Huns. I should think if you wrote and told—about this he would have somebody's blood, as it is the second time our beauties at the War Office have lost a brand-new machine in the same way. When the V.E.2E. had just come out, the fourth or fifth machine we sent over to France was also sent over by a chap who had only just got his wings and did not know the way, and he landed right on the Lille Aerodrome and handed the machine over to the Huns. To say it is nobody's fault is rot.I must add that I agree with the general conclusion to which the writer comes, and I would ask His Majesty's Government whether they will give serious consideration 416 to this most unfortunate incident. From a certain neutral source I have this information as given by the Germans with regard to the landing: "Reason of landing unknown, but pilot stated he did not know where he was and was not aware he had crossed the lines."There are three questions to which I hope the noble Earl will be able to reply, as I think we are entitled to an answer on them—(1) Who was responsible for sending this inexperienced pilot with one of outmost valuable and latest machines? (2) Is it a fact that other pilots inexperienced in the geography of the Western Front have been sent on previous occasions? (3) Will the Government take steps to ensure that such serious mistakes will not occur in the future? I think I have said enough to justify my asking these questions, and I have carefully omitted details which I have thought might be of use to the enemy.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (KARL CURZOX OF KEDLESTON)My Lords, to the question on the Paper I am quite ready to reply to the best of my ability, but with regard to the other questions which the noble Lord has just addressed to me across the floor of the House he must not mind if I cannot answer them as he would wish. As to the incident referred to, the noble Lord is obviously fully acquainted with all the details; indeed, it is clear that from the means of information at his disposal he knows more about it than I do, and I can only tell him so much as I have been able to find out from the knowledge available to us.
It is true that the aeroplane to which reference has been made left England on June 1. The German Wireless of the day after stated that a British biplane had landed near Lille, no date being mentioned. We now know that it was the missing machine to which the noble Lord has referred in his Question, and that the pilot and his passenger, from whom communications have been received, are prisoners in the hands of the Germans. The pilot after crossing the Channel appears to have lost his way and to have descended in the German lines. Such accidents, as the noble Lord knows perfectly well, have happened before and will happen again. They are not confined to one side rather than to the other; they have happened to German pilots just in the same way as they have happened to our own pilots.
417 I am not clear whether the noble Lord meant in this case to suggest any particular inference or to base upon what happened any particular charge. He made something of the fact that the pilot was probably an inexperienced man and had not flown across the Channel before. That, I believe, is true, but I doubt whether it would be wise to lay down a law that no machine should be taken across the Channel, even by a competent flyer, unless he had had experience of the particular route to be taken. No doubt in ordinary cases we should be only too glad to send with the machine a pilot who had done the same job before. But the noble Lord will realise, with the operations going on at the Front, that a pilot who has those qualifications might be much more valuable at the Front than employed in this country to take machines over to France. This is one of the risks of aerial warfare that have to be run. In the present case it resulted in the loss of the machine, and an accident, although fortunately not dangerous, to the pilot himself. I cannot give an undertaking that such incidents will never happen again.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI thank the noble Earl for his answer. I may mention, however, that there were two other pilots available on that particular morning—at any rate, that is my information from a very reliable source—and I should like to know why this particular man was chosen to fly over to France with the best machine we had of a special type. This is a very grave incident indeed, and one of which serious notice should be taken.