Andrew Ormerod

Second Lieutenant
59th Squadron, Royal Flying Corps
and Royal Horse and, Royal Field Artillery

Andrew Ormerod was a Second Lieutenant in 59 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, and also served with the Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery
He was the son of John and Jane Ormerod, of Colne Road, Burnley, and his ancestry can be traced back through the Ormerods of Foxstones.

Andrew can be found on the 1901 Census, living with his parents and siblings at 6 Murray St, Burnley. Their details are recorded as follows.

Andrew died on Friday 13 April 1917, age 28 - although the Commonwealth War Graves Debt of Honour Register has his age recorded as 27 at the time of his death.

There are two entries relating to Andrew in the Soldiers Died in the Great War Database - one showing him serving with the Royal Flying Corps (59 Squadron), and the other showing him serving with the Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery, but confirming that he was attached the Royal Flying Corps as a Temporary Second Lieutenant. Both entries confirm that Andrew was killed in action on 13 April 1917.

The following article appeared in the Burnley Express on 18 December 1915:

"ARTILLERYMAN'S SPLENDID RISE

As we announced a fortnight ago, Sergt.-Major Andrew Ormerod, of the 6th Lancashire Battery, 1/1st East Lancashire Brigade, R.F.A. (T.F.), has been awarded his commission in the Artillery. The new officer is the son of Mrs. Ormerod, of 328, Colne-road, Burnley, and is very well known and liked in the Burnley Lane district. He joined the Burnley Battery as a ranker, and rose step by step until he became the youngest sergeant-majot in the Territorial Force. He has always taken a keen and practical interest in his soldiering, and those who know his work are confident that the honour bestowed on him has been well deserved. For a time Secons-Lieut. Ormerod was attached to the 59th Battery, but he has now been transferred to the 130th (Howitzer) Battery, and it may not be long before he is on active service again somewhere in the Mediterranean area. He was in the fighting with the Turks at El Kantara."

Andrew has no known grave, and his name is engraved on the Arras Flying Services Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.

There is a reference to Andrew Ormerod in the London Gazette of 17 March 1916. On 7 November 1915 Andrew was promoted to Temporary Second Lieutenant, having been a Sergeant-Major in the East Lancashire Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.

A scanned copy of Andrew's temporary commission to Second Lieutenant can be seen in the Ormerod Certificates section of this site.

The picture of Andrew Ormerod which appears at the top of this page was kindly provided by David Ormerod Baxter.

59 Squadron, with which Andrew served, formed at Narborough in 1916 as a reconnaissance squadron. Equipped with R.E.8s it departed for France in 1917 only to be caught up in the bloody air war of April 1917, when it sustained very heavy losses - life expectancy was then no more than 23 days.

The first Commanding Officer was Lieutenant A.C. Horsbrugh, already a veteran of the Western Front, and 59 Squadron was the first squadron to actually form in West Norfolk.

R.E.8s and D.H.2s were introduced to the establishment, but not enough to go round according to one trainee pilot, who in letters home complained of "... few machines and no accommodation". He was also unhappy with the Officers' Mess, but grateful there were none of the "absurd rules" he had to endure while stationed at Thetford. He also outlined the perils of learning to fly, with frequent forced landings and crashes.

The R.E.8 served with the R.F.C.'s reconaissance squadrons from the spring of 1917 until the end of the war. Prone to catching fire, the "Harry Tate" was unpopular with its crews, who found it slow and vulnerable, as well as unreliable.

Andrew was an observer, and on 13 April 1917 he was in R.E.8 A3225, flown by Lt Arthur Horace Tanfield.
At this time 59 Squadron, formed part of 3 Brigade, 12 Corps Wing, based at Cagnicourt.

On the morning of 13 April 1917, 59 Squadron's flight of six R.E.8s was on a photo-reconnaissance mission near Douai when it encountered Jasta 11. All six R.E.8s were shot down within a matter of minutes, one of them becoming Manfred von Richthofen's forty first victory.

Prof. Dr George Wegener, a correspondent for Die Kölnische Zeitung, was at La Baryelle with Jasta 11 when the British R.E.8s were spotted. He wrote:
"All of a sudden - I myself saw not the slightest movement up in the clear blue - quickly he [Richthofen] turned to a bell hanging nearby and sounded the alarm. In an instant all of the mechanics ran to their machines; each pilot hurried to his own [aircraft], climbed into the seat, [as] the propellers thundered, [and] one after the other the small fast aeroplanes ran along a stretch of the ground, lifted up and quickly climbed up into the blue. The last one was Richthofen's machine.
The flyers remaining behind, the groundcrewmen, the orderlies and sentries - all followed with the greatest excitement the events in the sky. Now I recognised, first through the telescope and then without it, a squadron of British aircraft; at least six, perhaps more. I had to watch them very closely, otherwise I would lose them in the glimmering brightness.
The flyers [on the ground] saw other things. They recognised and named the various types and they shouted indignantly: "What nerve! They come over here at barely 2,000 metres! What do they think they are doing?"
Peter Kilduff in The Red Baron continues to describe how the object of attention was a flight of six R.E.8s from 59 Squadron en route to the Drocourt-Queant switch line. Two were photo-reconnaissance aircraft, the other four were escorts.
Just over Vitry, 8km southwest of the German airfield, fighters from Jastas 4 and 11 attacked the two-seaters. In a brief encounter, all six went down and were recorded as Rittm Manfred von Richthofen's 41st aerial victory, Ltn Kurt Wolff's tenth, Vzfw Sebastian Festner's ninth, Ltn Lothar von Richthofen's fourth and fifth, and the sixth victory of Ltn.d.Res Hans Klein of Jasta 4.
Richthofen later wrote how the sight of one of the aircraft crashing to the ground, burning like a rocket, has shocked the reporter on the ground.
Following this battle Richthofen's aircraft showed signs of damage. Wegener describes how "An enemy machine-gun burst hit the lower left wing and the fabric for about a metre and a half looked like it had been slashed open by the swipe of a big knife. And on the outer wooden covering close to the pilot's seat ran a second scar showing that another shot came close to taking his life."

In Bloody April Alan Morris provides an account of the events of the morning of April 13 1917 - as well as explaining the lack of fighter cover for the flight. He goes on to describe the reaction to the tragedy at 59 Squadron's home airfield.

"... the Jasta 11 commander, rarely an early bird, was aloft with five of his officers by 8.30 am in time to run across six RE 8s of 59 Squadron on photo reconnaissance along the Drocourt-Quéant switch line. The two parties clashed between Quiéry-en-Motte and Etains, not far from Douai aerodrome.

Four of the RE 8s were acting as escort for their comrades but OPs by three Spads and six FE 2ds of 9th Wing and Bristol Fighters of 13th Wing had been timed to provide them with top cover in this zone of maximum danger. As the red machines appeared shaken observers stared in vain for Allied roundels. Unbeknown to them The Spads had started 20 minutes late and the FEs, gallantly pushing on alone, lost formation - and two of their number - in cloud. The Brisfits never did find the REs.

The fight began at 8.58 am, and singling out A 3190 Richtofen swiftly sent it spinning from 6000 ft into high-tension wires by the canal between Brebières and Vitry. The machine burned to ashes, and in a message dropped over the lines a few days later the victor could identify the occupants only as 'Lieut. M. A. Woat and Steward [Thomas]' - actually Captain James Stuart of Coleraine and Lieut. M. H. Wood of Stansted, Essex. No REs survived and 10 crewmen died.

A German High Command officer who witnessed the combat through a telescope thought it should have been 'far more dramatic'.

Trenchard's reaction was different. When the news reached him he was visiting Major Baldwin’s DH 4 Squadron and took off immediately in his RE 8 for Bellevue. There, to his astonishment - although he must have known about Recording Officers and telephones - he discovered the crestfallen CO, Major R. Egerton, and a line of grim-visaged crews drawn up beside 59 Squadron’s remaining machines.

'Who arranged this parade?' he snarled. 'I want my lunch. And so do you.'

Although Trenchard and Baring made light conversation the meal was punctuated by spells of embarrassed silence and fidgeting. Eventually the CO and his uninvited guests left the hail and the pilots burst into angry voice about the quality of their planes. The door was jerked open. Trenchard stood on the threshold.

'I’ve been watching you,' he grated. 'Now go to work properly. And give the Hun hell in your RE 8s!'

No reference was made to the morning’s tragedy, none further to the incipient revolt. Trenchard knew when to be tough with his young men. But a far greater problem for him was the tactical blunder which had left the REs unprotected. For the haphazard nature of the fighter detail, with groups of machines trying to make contact with six others over a wide and partly shrouded area, had been not only difficult of operation but unnecessary. A strong escort could have been obtained from No. 1 (Naval) Squadron which, in the absence of more urgent work, during that period had 15 Sopwith Triplanes on line patrol around Arras."

Further details about the doomed flight can be found in Under the Guns of the Red Baron, by Norman Franks, Hal Giblin and Nigel McCrery.

They describe how: "On this morning, six crews of 59 were assigned a photo job to Etaing, 15 kilometres east of Arras. As they took off from their base at La Bellevue, situated 12 kilometres north-east of Doullens on the straight Doullens-Arras road, one carried a camera - A3203 - crewed by two Scotsmen, Lieutenant Philip Bentick Boyd (Gordon Highlanders & RFC) and Second Lieutenant Philip Oliphant Ray (6th Cameron Highlanders & RFC). The other five machines would provide escort ...

Having taken off at between 0810 and 0815, it was 36 kilometres (in a straight line) to Etaing, but they must have either drifted further north or been chased in that direction to have been shot down north of their objective. Vitry and Brebières, where Richthofen's victim came down, is six kilometres due north, by the Scarpe River.

The other RE8s - all downed by Jasta 11 - fell to Lothar von Richthofen (two, victories four and five) at north-east of Biache-St-Vaast and at Pelves; Festner got one down north of Dury (his ninth kill) while Wolff brought his down north of Vitry, to bring his score to ten. Biache and Pelves further to the south-west are also along the Scarpe, which indicates that the surviving REs followed the river westwards and were picked off as they did so.

Only Dury is south of Etaing, Festner gaining his first kill, either near the REs' objective or he chased one south while the others headed north. The sixth RE8 was shot down by a Jasta 4 pilot, who joined in the mayhem - Leutnant Hans Klein, his sixth victory - which crashed between Biache and Hamblain-les-Près,"

59 Squadron's Work Record Book details the patrols and observations made by Andrew after his arrival in France in February 1917.

Please click on Excerpts from 59 Squadron's Work Record Book to see details of these flights.

The destruction of 59 Squadron's flight of R.E.8's is also described by Manfred von Richthofen in his book Der Rote Kampfflieger, Chapter 11 - My Record Day.

Andrew's death was reported in the Burnley Express on 20 October 1917, and the following details given:

"1909, joined the TF RHA-RFA & was the youngest Sgt/Major in England, commissioned Dec 1915 and att to 59 Bty & transfered to the 130 Howizers & was on active service Egypt, Gallipoli & Salonika & qualified as Ob/Pilot March 1917. Missing with 2/Lt Arthur Horace Tanfield in 2 seater Biplane No RE8-23225-WF. Attended St Andrews Church & School a choir boy, Boys Bdg, Freemans & local Conservative politician. Brother Pte Harry Ormerod RAMC serving in F&F. Mother a confectioners shop. Parents John & Jane."