Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The original Great War pilot’s flying log book, journal and photographic archive appertaining to 2nd Lieutenant H. B. Hewat, Royal Air Force, late Royal Flying Corps, who flew operationally in No. 41 Squadron until shot down by German ace Josef Jacobs of Jasta 7 in September 1918, comprising Pilot’s Flying Log Book (Army 425 Type, white covers), with entries covering the period December 1917 until September 1918; Army Book 136 journal, with extensive entries describing his final combat and subsequent treatment as a prisoner (28 September to mid-December 1918); contemporary photograph albums (3), all with highly impressive, largely captioned content, the earliest with some pre-war family and school scenes (Edinburgh Academy 1916-17), but thereafter many of R.F.C. interest and ending in images taken at the R.A.F. Central Hospital, Finchley in 1919 (approximately 200 images), the later albums of larger format, the first entitled ‘Central R.A.F. Hospital 1919-1920’ (approximately 250 images), and the other one dated August 1920, with further scenes from Finchley, together with the Tyneside Orthopaedic Centre and the Special Surgical Hospital, Shepherd’s Bush, as well as family subject matter (approximately 200 images), together with nine pages taken from another album, again of R.F.C. & R.A.F. interest (approximately 35 images); his original handwritten training notes, with drawings, contained in ‘The Ideal Royal Flying Corps Loose Leaf Album’, the inside cover ink inscribed, ‘No. 91999 Cadet H. B. Hewat’ and dated 7 September 1917; and wartime map of Lens region for ‘official use only’, linen backed, generally in good condition and a most interesting archive (Lot) £500-600

Harry Hewat commenced pilot training with No. 14 Training Squadron, R.F.C. in December 1917 and, having gained experience in S.E.5As at the Central Flying School, was posted to No. 41 Squadron out in France in August 1918, which unit was commanded by Major G. H. “Beery” Bowman, D.S.O., M.C. and Bar, a highly successful ace who raised his score to over 30 victories by the time he was ordered off operations a few weeks before the War’s end. Indeed it was Bowman who briefed Hewat the morning of his final sortie on 28 September, but not before the latter had flown around 15 missions of the eventful kind - thus damage from A.A. fire and a crash landing on returning from another patrol.

Of events on 28 September, assorted references confirm that 41 Squadron lost no less than five aircraft, Hewat falling to the guns of top German ace Josef Jacobs of 7 Jasta, recently a winner of the “Blue Max”. In his own account of events that morning, Hewat describes how he attacked enemy transport and troops amidst ‘very hot’ A.A. fire, but ‘managed to get through with only a few pieces through my wings’ - until that is he turned for home:

‘I was quite lost by this time and it was taking me all my time to get the machine steadied to get the compass to keep West. When I was surprised to hear a machine-gun firing quite close to me and when I saw the tracers flying past my head, I guessed that by paying too much attention to my machine and not looking around, I had allowed a Hun to get on my tail. I was taken completely by surprise because I had not expected to find a Hun in the air.

I looked round and found a Fokker Biplane and also a Triplane sitting close, both firing hard about 50 yards behind me. I opened my engine full out and turned into a small cloud hoping to dodge one at least, and when I came out I congratulated myself as I could only see the Biplane following. He opened fire again and then we started circling for position. I could not get on his tail, but by some slip on his part, I got him broadside on and opened fire. I had not got a burst in when my Vickers jammed and before I had time to get my Lewis loaded, I was hit through the left thigh from underneath, my leg crumbling up .... I went down in a spin and when only a few feet from the ground I managed to get my right foot under the rudder bar and straighten her out of the spin ... my wheels touched the ground while I must have been going at well over 100 m.p.h. and the machine turned a complete summersault and landed upside down. Immediately about a dozen Huns came dashing to the machine with revolvers shouting “Kamerad” - they seemed to think that I might fire on them, although I was on my head under the machine ... when the Huns found that I could not shoot, then they lifted the machine, which was broken in two, off me, and got me out, and carried me in a sitting position, which was rather painful, into a Belgian cottage, where the woman made me a bowl of coffee. I was laid on a wooden bed with sacking on it, till a Hun came and cut my sidcot suit and breeches off and put my leg in a sort of splint ... I had the sidcot suit, helmet, goggles, gloves and boots all pinched here.’

And confirmation that he was indeed a victim of top ace Josef Jacobs, who flew a Triplane, is to be found in his account of a discussion with the enemy Biplane pilot who visited him in hospital:

‘The pilot of the Fokker Biplane was there and said he came to see how I was - he claimed me as his 7th victim. He told me the pilot of the Triplane had shot down 36 of our machines, and I rather think he was the one who got me - as I was hit from underneath, and anyway I was not in a position to be fired at by the Biplane when I was hit. However, I was not in the mood for arguing as I just wanted to be quiet and there was no harm in letting him claim me.’

Hewat’s journal goes on to describe his subsequent moves and medical treatment, including the following entry dated 3 October 1918:

‘This morning I was put into a motor ambulance and moved to another place where I was put in a small room. Here they dressed me for a second time and they gave me an anesthetic again. I was then put in a cellar along with about seven Bosch. That night an ordinary Bosch orderly came round with a syringe to give us all injections. He had a big syringe and just gave each man a dig with it. I refused and when in the morning five of the others were dead, I was very pleased that I had refused.’

Eventually moved to a hospital in Cologne, where his leg and shattered thigh became sceptic, the long-suffering Hewat was evacuated back to the U.K. in mid-December, and, as evidenced by the above photographic archive, he was still receiving treatment as late as 1921.