Allan F. Bonnalie, first lieutenant, Air Service, attached to Royal Air Forces, British Army - awarded DSC On August 13, 1918, this officer led two other machines on a long photographic reconnaissance. In spite of the presence of numerous enemy aircraft they were able to take all the photographs required, but were attacked by six Fokker biplanes. During the combat Lieut. Bonnalie saw that one of his accompanying machines was in difficulty and that an enemy airplane was nearly on its tail. He at once broke off combat with the enemy with whom he was engaged and dived to the assistance of the machine in trouble. He drove off the enemy plane, regardless of the bullets which were ripping up his own machine. Eventually, however, his tail planes and his elevator wires were shut; away and his machine began to fall in side slips. Lieut. Bonnalie managed to keep his machine facing toward the British lines by means of the rudder control, while his observer and the third machine drove off the enemy aircraft, which was still attacking. In its damaged condition Lieut. Bonnalie' 8 machine was tail heavy, and he therefore had his observer leave his cockpit and lie out along the cowl in front of the pilot. In this manner he recrossed the British trenches at a low altitude and righted his machine sufficiently to avoid a fatal crash. Had it not been for the gallantry of Lieut. Bonnalie the injured machine to whose assistance he went would have fallen into enemy territory, as pilot had been wounded and its observer killed. Lieut. Bonnalie' s own machine was riddled with bullets and it was a marvelous performance to bring it safely to the ground. Residence at appointment - 2521 Mission Street, San Francisco, Calif.
On 14 August 1918, 1Lt A F Bonnalie was flying DH 9 D1701 'V' of No 211 Sqn RAF, with 2Lt T B Dodwell as observer. They left Petite Synthe aerodrome on a reconnaissance mission at 14:35, and were shot down between Forthem and Loo, south east of Furnes, after combat with six Fokker D.VIIs. Both airmen survived the encounter. D1701 was sent to the Reception Park at No 1 Aircraft Supply Depot on 14 August before being struck off on 27 August. Gareth
Hi, I've just become a member having come across this thread: I am very interested in this story as my grandfather was 2Lt T B Dodwell. I have a copy of his flight log book from that period, but would dearly love to get hold of or have an opportunity to read Allan F Bonnalie's 'A Lifetime in Aviation' which includes several chapters about his WW1 experiences.
Hi BD and welcome ! I imagine you already have this information ... but I'll post just in case !! http://users.cyberone.com.au/clardo/world_war_i.html Allan F. Bonnalie is in the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame !! The University of Wyoming American Heritage Center - has his Collections and I wonder if an email there asking them for information would be benificial to you ?? .... it's worth a shot !! http://digital.uwyo.edu/webarchive/ahc1999-2004/guides/transportation columnlowres.pdf Annie
Thank you for the above- I'd come across most of it and am now running out of sources. However I had a real stroke of luck last night. I chanced upon a Google email address along with Bonnalie's book. Long story short I have now recieved extracts from Bonnalie's book that relate to a very particular event which resulted in the DSO and a rare American DSC for my grandfather: Hope you don't mind but here is the account by Bonnalie We were going to run into enemy aircraft for the anti-aircraft bursts were merely signalling our position by sending up shells at a few-second intervals to show where we were. We met several German groups of fighters, none of which were too troublesome, but a little later when we were at a very high altitude, somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000 feet, a half-dozen FokkerD-7s came along with the 185 HP BMW engine, which we recognized from their performance, and proceeded to give us a bad time. We fought our way back from the area of Bruges, which is where Varseneir was until we were over the neighborhood of Thourout where, by this time, both my companions had been put out of action. In one airplane the pilot was wounded and the observer killed. In the other both guns were knocked out by direct hits. It was up to me and my airplane, which was the one being escorted, to take on the four remaining enemy aircraft. We fought our way along for a considerable time. I dove on an enemy airplane that was on the tail of the one that had the wounded pilot. It was losing altitude rapidly, but my tail plane had been shot up so badly that the horizontal stabilizer failed and I lost all longitudinal control of the airplane. The others were shooting me up at the same time, which accounted for most of the damage. I had to shut off power because we couldn't maintain any kind of position and were losing altitude at a rate of about 2,000 feet a minute from an altitude of more than 12,000 feet at a point somewhere between Thourout and the front lines. This descent was too fast, so upon my raising the question, my observer, Lt. T. B. Dodwell of the RAF moved out of his cockpit, climbed over mine, and got up in front of the fuselage in front of my windshield. That lowered the nose enough so we increased speed sufficiently to cut down the rate of descent to about 1000 feet a minute. This I felt to be sufficient as to insure that we would not be killed upon impact. In the meantime, the German airplanes seemed to have gone home with the exception of one. I never knew if any had been shot down in the battle, but this one came up very close to us and was in a position to attack. Dodwell climbed back into his cockpit and as the German was getting closer tried to find ammunition. He found a partial Lewis drum at the bottom of the cockpit and installed it in the gun just in time and fired. He was close enough by then that we could see the bullets hitting the side of the fuselage, and the German airplane rolled over and went down. We don't know what the result was, but he no longer bothered us. We were nearing a stall again, and Dodwell went forward once more. Great stuff I think. Thanks again. Tim
Hi Tim ! That is great stuff ! ... good for you for finding it !! And thanks for sharing it !! I was going to say I'll be close by the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame in the next few weeks ... I'd be glad to stop in and see if there is anything of interest there for you ... if you think there might be !! Annie
Hi Annie Glad you enjoyed the extract from Mr Bonnalie's book. The kind American (Wayne) who sent me the docs also sent a picture of the damaged plane. Thank you for the kind offer re Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame. My guess is that there ism't much more now that I can find out; Wayne tells me that Bonnalie was much more interested in aeronautics than combat, and if he'd written any more about his time with my grandfather then he would have sent the docs. Still, you never know. I would like to find out more about Wynne-Eyton with whom he flew before being shot down over the Channel, losing his arm and then, for him 'ze War vos over'. Thanks again. Tim
