Will Spriggs and the Distinguished Flying Cross
October 1918
Will (b.1898) was a pilot in an observer biplane in World War I. After extensive training, he was assigned to the British 4th Army at the front line in France. His job was to take photos of enemy positions and relay the information to ground troops. Sometimes he found himself in difficult circumstances. On one occasion Will and his observer Oscar Berridge went below and beyond….
Recorded by his daughter Hilary Spriggs Hellum in 1986.
William Spriggs (1898-1986), DFC, A Flyer’s Tale
This is a transcript of the above tape-recorded conversation between Will and his daughter Hilary Spriggs Hellum about his World War I experience as a pilot. We are most grateful for the effort and skill Hilary applied to carrying out this interview so many years ago and for sharing it with us.
A special thank you to you William Spriggs for your remarkable recall, candour in the face of some difficult questions and notably, for your gallantry to advance a noble cause at any cost. We shall not forget. Nor must we forget the millions of souls who died in this, yet another senseless war.
Section 1
Dad, you were starting to tell me about your university and uh when you moved over from England.
Oh, well, I was never in university in England. I was only in high school.
Oh yeah.
Boarding school, high school. I hadn’t finished, properly speaking, my high school curriculum […]. However, the university was so short of students because of the war that they were willing take me on, on the condition that I made better marks than the average.
Well, that’s not very fair.
Not very fair, no. So, there was nothing I could about it. So I started working hard and getting along all right. It wasn’t too difficult, I found. Andthen there was a big drive for volunteers for the army at the university. And I and some those friends mine, we all joined up at a big meeting and went up and sat on the platform and everything. And uh, they allowed us to goon with our college work for the duration of the session and we drilled in the evenings. And, uh, as soon as the college session was over, we were given our year without examination.
Well, that was nice.
Well, I didn’t think it was any good […]. Then we were mobilized near Canso, Nova Scotia, and we spent the summer drilling there. That was ordinary drill…everlasting marching, right turn, left turn and all the rest of it. Anyway,I applied for a signalling course and uh, later on I became a signalling instructor.
Oh, was that Morse code?
Morse code and flags and lights. […] Three things. And then I became uh, we went over to England, we were sent over to England. And uh, my battalion was the 219 Nova Scotia Highland Battalion […] other battalions in a big division, handsome of us were sent over to France as they needed reinforcements.
How old were you then?
I was about uh 16…I was 17
Seventeen, yeah, yeah. That’s really young.
Seventeeh. No, I think I’m wrong, no I was 18.
Well, you joined up in what, 15?
Fifteen? Yeah I’d be about 17. That year I was too young to go overseas. A friend of mine andI got fed up seeing everyone else going along and us staying behind and u, we applied for commissions, officer’s commissions, in the flying corps. […] We didn’t think this thing would come to anything but…so you see we went through all the various stages in the local battalion and the interview with the commanding officer, well, first of all, with the Sergeant-Major, then the Commanding Officer of the battalion. And then, another interview with the Commanding Officer of the division.
My goodness.
Then after that, I was sent up to London for super-interviews in London. And after that I came back again, stuck around for quite long time, waiting for word from London. And finally word came through that uh, our applications had been accepted and that we were going be sent to, they wanted the battalion to send us to…to turn us over to the flying corps so that they could send us to um, the […] training course.
Ahh.
And then we went through a course of ordinary training just as if I’d never been in the army. And after that, Was sent to Oxford for um, flying training but not actual flying, but uh, theoretical training…
Theory, yeah.
Theory. Engines and planes and all those things.
Did you enjoy that?
Well […]it was a little bit boring, you see. It was very tricky because if you failed in that you were finished.
Oh my goodness.
If you failed intuit you would never get any further. So you all had to work very, very hard. I got through that all right. And then I went back to my unit for a while. Finally, word came that I was to report to Spittlegate, a base called Spittlegate, for flying training.
Ahhh.
And when I got to Spittlegate I was notified that my commission had been brought and I was now an officer.
Oh, that was nice.
Ah,so we started flying what were called Armstrong X, little X and big X, they were two different sizes. The ones that were fast were called Big X and the ones we learned to fly on were Little X, they were smaller. Single engine plane […]. First I went up with the instructor quite a few times. And then the instructor allowed me to fly the plane while he kept an eye on things.
And then finally the great day came when I was supposed to go up all by myself…ha, ha ha.
Were you nervous?
Oh yes, I was, very nervous.
I remember,I took off and got as much speed as I knew how. You had go very fast so you were sure to be taking off. And then I got in a straight line without turning at all, right on and on and on. I didn’t dare to turn until I got high enough up so that if anything went wrong I’d have time to recover.
Yeah.
And then I started making a turn, a turn like this all the way round, slowly, slowly, slowly. I did that once or twice then landed again. I
Section 2
I got a lot of practice standing for the instructor, you know.
And then we went on doing that for quite some time. I became quite expert after a time. I even managed to loop the loop. That’s quite a difficult thing to do, you know. I was never taught how to loop the loop. The first time I tried to loop the loop I made a mistake. I pulled the control stick in too hard, too fast, instead of going around like this [demonstrating], I went straight up like this, you know, and finally I hung on the top like that […] and different things fall out of the plane and we just came over woof.
Well, I knew what I had done wrong so I went right at it again which took some courage, and that time I didn’t pull it in so fast. You have to get in a good speed first woof like that [demonstrating] and you pull the stick in gently, you go around like this, you go around and around like this. You don’t tend to fall out at all because your centrifugal force is sufficient to hold you in your seat. You couldn’t even stand up. And after […] finally, I was passed as a pilot…to fly.
Then I had to go to Winchester. So we learned how to fight. I mean what to do with our machine guns, you know…what to do if we were attacked and things like that you know…all very important. And in fact that saved my life, I learned how to escape.
And finally, I was sent over to France, not to fight but to go through a series of practice work and training. They had a special course going on then for people who were flying observation planes. Nobody knew what type of plane they were going to eventually fly. Were they going to fly fighting planes or observation planes, they didn’t know. It just happened by the scarcity of pilots at the moment. I was appointed to an…um…observation squadron. I went up […] at first then I went up more and more. My training came in very useful.
I used to occasionally get attacked by German scouts. The German scouts machine would come at about 250 knots an hour, our[…] top speed was 80 miles an hour, our braking speed 60 miles an hour. So we were just […] for them, you know. And there were ways of getting around it, you know. Heh, heh,
I remember one time we were attacked by two German scouts. We were just flying along quietly doing our observation work, sending back messages by radio, assisting the position of ground troops in the work we were doing. And all of a sudden my observer leaned over and patted me on the back and pointed, and I looked up and there were two German scouts away up in the sky and, uh, I turned around and headed for home and of course I didn’t get very far before they came down on us.
And one of them started diving on us from behind and then stalling, and then diving and stalling and then diving and stalling […]from behind. The other one dove at us from the side […] and then he’s right underneath us, turned around and then came right underneath us again and kept flying back and forth shooting at this side, then turning around and shooting at the other side. So we were being shot at from three different sides, uh, directions at once.
Well now um, I fooled the fellow at the back by doing flat turns. If you kick rudder on or push rudder on without banking and just turn around the corner, it just twists in the air and goes straight on. In order to turn a plane around the corner you’ve got to have both banking and rudder. You just turn the rudder, it just goes like that [demonstrating]. But the fellow on behind didn’t know that. He had nothing to judge by, he couldn’t turn around and turn the corner and he was trying to banal over the place, so he aimed on one side and then when I went around the other way he aimed on the other side […] strip of fabric were trailing back in the wind, that’s how badly we were hit. Not a single bullet hit the fuselage. Well now that was him out the back.
Now out the side, I had to fool him somehow. I fooled him by slowing down. I went as slow as I could without actually stalling, almost stalling, and he didn’t know what I was doing,. He had no way of checking. So all his bullets went in front. And you could see where they were going because the Germans used a smoke tracer. And we used flame tracer. Every fifth bullet left a new trail of smoke so you could see his bullets cross in front of the plane. He realized they were going in front of course and he came closer and closer and closer. And finally, they hit the plane and they smashed into the plane and the minute they did that I turned off like this, really turned, dived away.
And um, one of the bullets hit a little pump for the gas tank. The gas tank is below the seat. The propeller doesn’t pump, and one of the bullets hit this pump and knocked it all to pieces and the engine started to fail. We had an emergency supply of gas in the top plane so I quickly switched that on.
In the meantime, of course, my fellow was a very good shot with his machine gun, was shooting at these fellows all the time, you see and um, just as we turned off like that he pounded me on the back again because I was turning, you know, and I looked up and there was one of them going away trailing smoke and the other one was going away too. They gave up. Both gave up, both guys.And the plane just managed to get backwash the gas we had. In fact the engine stopped running just as I was landing at the airport
End: 16:26
[Colour blindness discussion omitted]
Start:
Well, right around that particular time the weather was very very bad. Very bad. The British were held up at a certain spot because of a big German encampment. And they went around it but didn’t seem to be able to take it anywhere. And they uh, sent word to our flying squadron to send help with bombs.The weather was so bad that nobody wanted to go up. My observer and I said, oh we’ll take a chance on it and go up.
So we took off into the murk and fog and found our way. To our surprise the weather got better as we got along and it wasn’t too bad when we got to tis particular spot, but there was a question how anybody could get back again, find their way back. Anyway, we got to this place, we recognized it, we […], we got our bombs to the right places, all of them. Eight bombs, 4 under each wing […] You have to pull lever, the bomb falls off […]
How did you know you were in the right place, did you have to look out the side?
Oh yes, I looked out the side. Those planes had a little lens that you looked through and you were supposed to be able to look through ands the ground. It was always so covered in oil you couldn’t see through it, so you always looked over the side. It was always very windy, of course, but we were only going 60 miles an hour, you know. You know if you were going any faster, the plane would go to 80 miles an hour, but you couldn’t see the uh [carry out the photography well enough?] to make it worth while.
And, uh, the uh, we turned around to come back and uh, all of a sudden Joe pointed something out there because he stands on his feet the whole time there, you know. He never sits down.
Well, I had no idea…
Oh no, Joe never sits down. You see if he sits down, he couldn’t keep his eye on the sky, if he had sat down. Got to keep on his feet and keep turning around and around the whole time to watch the sky. […]. And then he uh, I couldn’t watch the sky because of course I was flying and I uh,I did everything, you know, I was the machine gun and always the photographs and everything. He just operated the machine gun, that’s all […].
And there was a German uh, observation plane, same as ours, much the same as ours, flying towards us but at a distance still. Well, there was nothing much I could do except fly on and fly very carefully so that my wing tip didn’t come in the way of my observer’s fire. It’s very easy to do, you know. And uh, so I had to keep watching my wingtip to make sure it wasn’t in his way. And he was firing at us and we were firing at him. He hit the plane, he hit our plane quite a few times and I thought our observer, it was getting too tough all together andI turned away. Just as I turned away, my observer shouted and yelled […] the other plane was going downing flames.
And then uh, the problem was to get home, I was lost, I didn’t know, you see in all this excitement, I, I was in strange territory. Our maps weren’t very much good because where they showed a road, there wasn’t a road left. Where it didn’t show any road, there was a road put in. And the woods were gone. The trees were all destroyed. Everything was different. But I knew that there was a canal.
And uh, my observer was wounded too. He got hit by machine gun fire from the ground, from the trenches, you know. It came right up here and got him in the shoulder. And uh, so I headed back towards where I knew this canal was. Finally I found the canal and once I got the canal my map was good. And I found our way home… And uh, I just landed in time because my plane was out [out of gas]. And that was that.
You were the only plane to have done that. You were the only ones that went out that day.
That’s right.
The others all, did they start out and turn back?
No. They didn’t leave at all.
Oh. So they figured that was worth the DFC.
Yeah. yeah. Well, I accomplished the mission.
Yeah, you sure had.
I shot a plane down
Yeah.
And then we got back again.
[End of Section 2]
Start Section 3:
Tell me about the time, you were flying solo and you decided to do nose dives […]. I remember you telling us that you were in a spin and you were coming closer and closer to the earth.
Oh yes, yes, I remember now, yes, yes, yes,. I was flying around, doing my training, solo training. I was by myself and uh, I was practicing doing quick turns, what we used to call vertical turns, we used to call split ass turns. Instead of turning around like this, you’d turn around like that [demonstrating]. You could turn much faster that way.The steeper the angle, the faster you’d turn.
And em, I turned one time so steeply that the plane got out of control. It started going down in a spin. It was going down like this, it was going down, it kept spinning, you know. And there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to stop it. I, I had been in spins before. We had been trained by the instructors, the training instructors, in how to get out of a spin. So I knew how to get out, I did all of those things. It didn’t help it, it didn’t make any difference. Well, down below we were going around and around apparently. They saw me coming closer and closer and closer.
Then I suddenly realized there was something different about this spin. In any spin I’d benign before…what was it? Ahh, the engine was still running on full strength. So I turned off the engine, made all the various movements to get out of the spin and came right out just clear of the trees…heh, heh, heh.
Were you nervous?
I was very nervous, yes.
But you thought you were able…you weren’t so panic stricken that you couldn’t think of what to do.
No, that’s right, yeah, yeah. It’s easy to see, you know, how people can get killed that way. Something unusual happens and they don’t realize it.
That’s right. You just gotta go think it through very carefully.
So I went right at it, did another turn, more gently this time and managed all right.
Oh good, you didn’t go into a spin again.
No, no.
What did you do after the war, when the war was over?
We uh stayed France for awhile and did mail deliveries to Germany.
Oh, for how ;long?
Oh, about 3 or 4 months. Then i was sent back to England and demobilized and came back to Canada. And as soon as I got back home I went to university again, started in where I left off, four years before. […] Instead of taking two years, it took three years. In those days, Acadia University didn’t give a complete engineering course, only the first two years. I had to go on to McGill to finish up for two years.
How did you reconcile the fact that Quakers are pacifists with joining the army?
Well, uh, first of all my cousin Eric Butler, whois the soon my uh, father’s sister, uh, joined the army and uh, we felt that we were resisting an antichrist in a way […].
You didn’t feel that, uh, the Quaker tradition of uh, not taking up arms against anybody…
Well, you see, my Quaker position had become modified a little bit, because there were no Quakers in Nova Scotia, and we went to the Anglican Church. That’s the one we attended, you see, so we were more or less Anglicans.
Ah, I see, yeah
In a sense.
If I had been continuously going Quaker meetings, it might have been different. I’m always a little hurt, you know, because my cousins parents, the Butlers, […] He was a Lieutenant.
They were Quakers too, of course.
Yeah
How did they feel about their son?
I didn’t see them.
Maybe they didn’t invite you because of what you did and maybe they […] rejected their own son.
Well, why…their own son had joined the army, why take it out on me?
Maybe they didn’t approve of their own son.
Oh, I think they did, I don’t know. Anyway, we were in a strange country, they might at least have been more friendly.
You would think so, yeah.
Well, that’s very interesting Dad. Thanks very much indeed.
[…]
Yeah, I hope I can do it again some time with you.
[…]. We used to have engine troubles once in a while, you know.
Yeah, that happened to you one time, didn’t?
Oh, more than once.
What do you do?
Well, you have to look around very quickly […]. You have to look around for a place to land, that’s all you can do.
What if you land behind enemy lines?
Oh well uh, you were usually high enough up so that you could uh, we never went over the line more than half a mile at most. They’re slow planes.
And then what did you do, you walked back?
You walked back […] it might be ten miles or more. You […] military […] and uh arranged for a telephone message uh telegraph […].
That happened with you, I remember, didn’t you…we have an old German cross from a plane
Yeah […]
Yeah, is that a plane you shot down?
Yeah. My observer and I, um, about a week or so afterwards, we, we heard the ground where this [lane had crashed and been captured […] so we hitch-hiked rides to it and found it. And I cut a cross off one side and he cut a cross off the other side. That boy’s helmet is upstairs in my bedroom now.
Is that right.? Yeah […]. Have you still got your flying helmet?
I don’t think I have, no, I’m not sure.
I remember playing with it when I was a kid.
I might have….[end of tape]