Roy Brown (RAF officer)

Captain Arthur Roy Brown DSC and bar RNAS (23 December 1893 – 9 March 1944) was a Canadian World War I flying ace. The Royal Air Force officially credited Brown with shooting down Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron", although later research has shown that it is highly unlikely that Brown fired the bullet that caused the death of Von Richthofen. [ [http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/comment/richt.htm Dr Geoffrey Miller, 1998, "The Death of Manfred von Richthofen: who fired the fatal shot?", in "Sabretache: Journal and Proceedings of the Military History Society of Australia", vol. XXXIX, no. 2] ] What is less well known, but perhaps much more impressive, is that Brown never lost a pilot in his flight in combat. This was due largely to his demands for a "breaking in" period in which new pilots flew over the fights just to see how they worked.

Early years

Brown was born to upper-middle class parents in Carleton Place, 30 miles (50 km) west of Ottawa. His family home still exists, located at 38 Mill Street, just down from the Town Hall. He was the middle of five children. He had two older sisters, Margaret and Bessie, and two younger brothers, Horace and Howard. His father had started business as a miller, but branched out into electrical generation when the first power grids were being set up around the turn of the century. His father eventually owned a power company in the town, so they were quite well off. Though Brown did well in high school, he transferred to a business school (to study accounting) in order to eventually take over the family business. Following this course, he wanted to continue to university to study business administration, but he needed his high school matriculation, which he technically didn't have. So at the invitation of Uncle Will and Aunt Blanche in Edmonton, he followed this with a course at the Victoria High School in Edmonton from 1913-15 to get his high-school diploma. There he befriended Wop May who also went to the same school. As a young man he was considered outgoing and intelligent.

Flight training

Brown decided to join the war effort as soon as he graduated, and enlisted in 1915 as an Officer Cadet at the Army Officers' Training Corps. He was fascinated by the new technology of flight. He and his friends looked into it as it seemed a better way to go to war than the horror that was unfolding in the trenches. Both the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were recruiting in Canada for young men who had a demonstrated aptitude in flying.

Basically they had to have completed an elementary flying course to show that they were capable of flying an airplane. He considered joining the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), but his father was alarmed by the RFC's casualty rates. In the end they reached a compromise, his father would allow him to join the Royal Naval Air Service instead of the RFC, as they were supposed to spend most of their time on anti-submarine patrols along the British, French and Belgian coasts.

As soon as he finished high school in Edmonton he returned to Carlton Place to meet up with his friends, in particular Stearne Tighe Edwards. The Royal Naval Air Service were recruiting in the area so four of them applied. Brown was surprised to find that in order to join the RNAS they would first need their pilot's certificates, the Aero Certificate. He found that the only school in Canada, in Toronto, was already full, so his father paid for his training at the Wright Brothers' school in Dayton, Ohio. The lessons were expensive, $250 for 240 minutes in the air, plus living expenses that could total $600 in 1915. Fortunately, his parents were well off and could afford it.

He received his license, Number 361, on 13 November 1915, and returned to Ottawa to enlist along with three friends. He got his certificate after only 6 hours in the air with an instructor. The only time they flew solo was for their licence exam. His 3 friends also achieved great successes as pilots - "Red" Mulock would rise to be the first ace in the RNAS and an Air Commodore in the Canadian Air Force prior to WWII; Stearne would become an "ace"; and Roy would be an ace and credited with killing Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron.

Wartime service

Appointed a Temporary Probationary Flight Sub-Lieutenant, Brown set sail for England on November 22, 1915 and upon his arrival underwent further training at Chingford. The four friends were nicknamed the "Hobo Quartet" while at Chingford. On 2 May 1916 Brown crashed his Avro 504 aircraft, emerging apparently unscathed. He climbed out of the wreckage and walked half a mile to the nearest telephone. The next morning he experienced severe back pain; an investigation showed that he had broken one of his vertebrae. He spent two months recuperating in hospital, and in September 1916 he was posted to Eastchurch Gunnery School. It seemed that Brown was not a natural shot, for it wasn't until January 1917 that he was sent to Cranwell to complete advanced training.

In March 1917 Brown was given a posting to No. 9 Naval Squadron flying coastal patrols off the Belgian coast in Sopwith Pups. In April part of the Squadron, B Flight, which included Brown, was reassigned to the RFC to assist during the Battle of Arras. Much to his dismay, but in retrospect perhaps fortunately for him, Brown had become ill at this point, and thus missed "Bloody April", a period when British casualties were very high (although not in Pup squadrons, this was one of the few Allied types at the time able to cope with the new German Albatros D.III fighters).

After recovering, in June Brown was posted to No. 11 Naval Squadron, primarily a training squadron. In July he was briefly posted to No. 4 Naval Squadron before he was moved back to No. 11 Naval Squadron later the same month. On 17 July he achieved his first "kill", one of the deadly D.III's, while flying his Pup. He was promoted to Flight Lieutenant, and gathered another three unconfirmed kills.

No. 11 was disbanded in mid-August 1917, and Brown returned once again to No. 9, now equipped with the famous Sopwith Camel. On 2 November 1917 Brown was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) in recognition of his aerial success and in particular for coming to the aid of a lone Allied pilot under fire from four German Albatrosses. Even though his own aircraft's guns had jammed he raced to the pilot's aid, forcing the German aircraft to scatter as he flew directly through them.

Ten days later he was put in charge of one of the flights in his squadron. It was in this role that Brown was to excel, as he built up a crew of pilots who understood the "better part of valor" was to always get the plane home. Famous for charging into swarms of German aircraft, Brown always managed to disengage his planes before the opposition could react.

No. 9 was posted to the Somme area in early 1918, where they had to retreat no less than six times as the German spring offensive made its rapid gains between 20 March and 29 March. The tempo of operations was maddening, the entire squadron typically flying two missions a day. Raymond Collishaw noted on an early April visit that Brown looked exhausted: he had lost 25 pounds, his hair was prematurely turning grey, and his eyes were bloodshot and sunken. To add to his woes, contaminated rabbit left him severely sickened with gastritis. Against Collishaw's suggestions, Brown refused to quit flying, and shot down another two aircraft on the 11th and 12 April.

On 1 April 1918 the RFC and RNAS were merged into the Royal Air Force. RNAS squadrons had the number 200 added to their names, thus Brown's No. 9 Squadron RNAS became No. 209 RAF. Another side effect was the change in rankings, making Brown a Captain (an army rank equivalent to his former Naval rank of Lieutenant. The modern equivalent air force rank is Flight Lieutenant).

Fighting Richthofen

On the morning of 21 April, No. 209 was involved in a combat patrol when they were set upon by planes of "Jagdstaffel 11", of the famous "flying circus" led by Manfred von Richthofen. A newcomer to No. 209, Brown's high-school friend, Wop May, was instructed to stay out of the fight and watch. After a few minutes May noticed another pilot doing the same thing, Manfred's cousin, Wolfram von Richthofen, who had been given the same instructions as May.

Disregarding orders, May attacked Wolfram and soon found himself in the midst of the main fight, spraying bullets everywhere until his guns jammed. May then dived out of combat, but not before Manfred saw what was happening and gave chase right down to ground level. Brown saw May in trouble and dived steeply in an attempt to help out. His attack was necessarily of fairly short duration, and he was obliged to climb steeply to avoid crashing into the ground, losing sight of both Richthofen and May. [Norman Franks and Alan Bennett (1997): "The Red Baron's Last Flight."]

What happened next remains controversial to this day, but it seems highly probable that Richthofen turned to avoid Brown's attack, and then instead of climbing out of reach of ground fire and heading for home (as would have been prudent) he remained at low altitude, and in fact resumed his pursuit of May, who was still zig-zagging in panic. It appears Richthofen had lost track of where he was at this point, because May and Richthofen's route now took them at low level right over some of the most heavily defended points of the Somme. Some have suggested he became lost as the winds that day were blowing the "wrong way", towards the west, and the fight had slowly drifted over to the Allied side. The front was also in a highly fluid state at the time, in contrast to the static trench lines more typical of the First World War, and landmarks can be confusing in very low level flight.

Others have suggested that Richthofen was not physically fit before his last sortie. In recent years, neurologists have suggested that it was possible Richthofen never fully recovered from brain injury sustained from a bullet wound to the head in June 1917, and that this caused Richthofen 's lack of judgement on his last flight, including target fixation. Richthofen had never chased an aircraft for so long, and at such a low level before, and always tried to remain above the fight. Foolhardiness can also be symptomatic of combat fatigue.

Whatever did occur, Australian Army machine gunners on the ground sent long bursts at Richthofen, who eventually crashed only a few hundred yards from the front lines near the Australian trenches. Upon viewing Richthofen's body on the following day Brown wrote that "there was a lump in my throat. If he had been my dearest friend, I could not have felt greater sorrow". His initial combat report was that the fight with Richthofen was "indecisive" - this was altered by his commanding officer to "decisive". [Norman Franks and Alan Bennett (1997): "The Red Baron's Last Flight."] In any case, Brown was officially credited with the kill, and received a Bar for his DSC, partly at least because of this.

In fact, modern research shows that von Richthofen was killed by a single bullet that caused such severe damage to his heart and lungs, that it must have produced a very speedy death. It is now considered most likely that this bullet was fired by an anti-aircraft (AA) machine gunner, probably Sergeant Cedric Popkin of the Australian 24th Machine Gun Company, based on the range from which the bullet was shot and the angle and velocity the bullet must have had.

Later years

Brown left the RAF in 1919 and returned to Canada where he took up work as an accountant. He also founded a small airline and worked for a while as editor of "Canadian Aviation". When World War II started, he attempted to enlist in the newly-formed Royal Canadian Air Force, but was refused. He instead entered politics, losing an election for the Ontario legislature in 1943. He later purchased a run-down farm near Stouffville, Ontario and worked with it to make a prosperous business.

He died on 9 March 1944, of a heart attack, in Stouffville, Ontario shortly after posing for a photograph with a current flying ace, George Beurling. He was 50.

References

* Norman Franks and Alan Bennett (1997): "The Red Baron's Last Flight." Grub Street, London. ISBN 1904943330