Lanoe Hawker
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Major Lanoe George Hawker, VC, DSO (December 30, 1890 – November 23, 1916) was a World War I English fighter pilot. He was the third pilot to receive the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was killed in a dog fight with the legendary German ace Manfred von Richthofen ("The Red Baron").
Originally an officer in the Royal Engineers, by 1915 Hawker was a Captain in No. 6 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps. On 22 April he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for attacking a German zeppelin shed at Gontrode by dropping hand grenades.
On 25 July 1915 when on patrol over Passchendaele, Captain Hawker attacked three German aircraft, with his very early production Bristol Scout C No. 1611, in succession. The first, after he had emptied a complete drum of bullets from his aircraft's single Lewis machine gun into it, went spinning down. The second was driven to the ground damaged, and the third-an Albatros C.I of FA 3, which he attacked at a height of about 10,000 feet, burst into flames and crashed. (Pilot Uebeacker and Observer Roser were both killed.) For this feat he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the first aviator ever to earn Britain's top award for valour. This particular sortie was just one of the many which Captain Hawker undertook during almost a year of constant operational flying and fighting. He later achieved the rank of Major and early in 1916 was placed in command of the RFC's first fighter squadron, Number 24.
On 23 November 1916, while flying an Airco DH-2 near Bapaume, France, he was killed in action following a lengthy dog fight with Manfred von Richthofen, becoming the German ace's 11th victim. Hawker had broken away from the combat and was attempting to return to Allied lines. The Red Baron's guns jammed 50 yards from the lines, but a bullet from his last burst had struck Hawker in the head, killing him instantly. His plane spun from 1,000 feet into a crater of mud, where his Lewis Gun was sucked in the retrevial and lost forever. His upper wing, meanwhile, had been pulled off in the crash. Hawker had by then achieved seven victories in aerial combat and is considered to be Britain's first air ace.
It has since been argued that shooting down three aircraft in one mission was a feat repeated several times by later pilots, and whether Hawker deserved his Victoria Cross has been questioned. However, in mid-1915 it was unusual to shoot down even one aircraft, and the VC was awarded on the basis that all the enemy planes were armed with machine guns. More significantly, later fighter pilots had machine guns that fired through the propellor by means of a "synchronizer gear" that prevented the bullets striking the propellor. Therefore, they could aim the whole aircraft, thus presenting a small target to the enemy while approaching from any angle, preferably from a blind spot where the enemy observer could not return fire. Hawker flew before Britain had a workable synchronizer gear, so his aircraft (Bristol Scout C, serial number 1611) had its machine gun mounted on the left side of the cockpit, firing forwards and sideways at a 45 degree angle to avoid the propeller. The only direction from which he could attack an enemy was from its right rear quarter - precisely the direction from which it was easiest for the observer to fire at him. Thus, in each of the three attacks, Hawker was directly exposed to the fire of an enemy machine gun. This should easily have qualified him for a Victoria Cross award.
Hawker's original VC was lost when the Hawker family belongings were left behind after the fall of France in 1940. On their return after World War II, they found that their possessions, including the VC, had been stolen. A replacement was issued to Hawker's brother on 3 February 1960, and is now is displayed at the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon.
[edit] References
- Monuments To Courage (David Harvey, 1999)
- The Register of the Victoria Cross (This England, 1997)
- The Sapper VCs (Gerald Napier, 1998)
- VCs of the First World War - Air VCs (P G Cooksley, 1999)
- Windsock Datafile No.44, Bristol Scouts (J M Bruce & Albatros Publications,1994)
- Barker, Ralph (2002). The Royal Flying Corps in World War I. Robinson. ISBN 1-84119-470-0.
