William Earl Johns - author of the famous Biggles series of adventure novels

This man was an adventure himself ... wasn't he ??

When WW1 began, 21-year-old William Earl Johns had already been in the Territorial British Army for over a year and he fought at Gallipoli in 1915 as a private in the King’s Own Royal Regiment (Norfolk Yeomanry). He survived the disastrous campaign un-scathed and his unit was evacuated in December. The following year he transferred to the Machine-Gun-Corps and was stationed on the Macedonian Front in Greece where he contracted Malaria and had to be hospitalised.

He joined the RFC in September 1917 and completed his pilot-training at Reading before being posted to No 25 Flying Training School in Norfolk where he worked as a flying instructor to cadets operating Farman MF-11 Shorthorns. Accidental crashes were frequent and Johns wrote off three Shorthorns himself in three successive days, crashing into the sea, onto a beach and then into the back-door of a fellow pilot’s house. On another flight, he became lost in thick fog and nearly flew into a cliff. He had a further two brushes with death whilst practice-firing with live ammunition in flight when the synchronisation-gear on his forward-facing machine-guns failed, causing him to shoot off his own propeller on two separate occasions. Somehow, he survived through all this un-scathed and he was transferred to the Western Front for combat duty in August 1918. He flew DH4s on bombing sorties over German Territory for six weeks before his plane was shot down on September 16th by a Fokker DVII. His observer, Lieutenant A.E Amey, was killed but Johns survived to become a POW which he remained so until the end of the war.

He stayed in the RAF until 1927.

http://www.wejohns.com/

 

http://www.wejohns.com/Biography/Biography2/

 

2Lt W E Johns of No 55 Sqn RAF, Independent Force, was flying DH 4 F5712, with 2Lt Alfred Amey as observer, on a bombing raid to Mannheim when he was shot down near Alt-Ekendorf at 13:30 on 16 September 1918. Ltn Georg Weimer of Jasta 3 was credited with a 'de Havilland'; it was the 7th of his eventual 9 victories.

When Johns rejoined the RAF in 1920, his rank would have been Flight Lieutenant.

Gareth

 

Where was he a POW ? ... do you know Gareth ?

 

I'll have a look.

Gareth

 

According to Keith Rennles' Independent Force, 2Lt Johns was held in Strasbourg gaol, from where he attempted to escape. He was then moved to Karlsruhe before going to Landshut, where he again attempted to escape, and then Ingolstadt punishment camp, where he arrived on 7 November.

Gareth