They didn't issue parachutes
WWI Pilot Frederick Cudmore Andrews
Frederick Cudmore Andrews (1895 – 1975), son of Walter Frederick Andrews and Violet Mary Cudmore, was born in 1895 in Perth, Western Australia. He was a first cousin of my paternal grandmother Kathleen Symes nee Cudmore (1908 – 2013).
On 21 February 1916 at Blackboy Hill, Western Australia, Andrews enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force with service number 2313. His enlistment papers describe him as 20 years old and 5’ 7” tall, unmarried, and an articled law clerk of Narrogin. (Narrogin is a town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, southeast of Perth.) Andrews was assigned to the 10th Light Horse Regiment.
On 16 May 1916 the 16th reinforcements of the 10th Light Horse, Trooper Andrews one of them, embarked at Fremantle on A52 Surada. In Egypt on 17 June he was taken on the strength of the 3rd Light Horse Training Regiment at Tel-el-Kebir near Cairo.
Royal Flying Corps
In November 1916 Trooper Andrews was transferred to the Imperial School of Instruction at Zeitoun, near Cairo. The school’s role was to train officers in all branches of warfare. In addition to the usual courses for officers and non-commissioned officers, the School held machine-gun, Lewis gun, signal and telephone, artillery, Stokes gun, and grenadier classes.
On 15 January 1917 Andrews marched out from the Imperial School, transferred to R.F.C. Aboukir, near Alexandria, as a cadet attached to No. 3 School of Military Aeronautics. The Royal Flying Corps set up a school there
In March 1917 Trooper Andrews was selected for the Royal Flying Corps (Special Reserve) and discharged from the Australian Imperial Force.
On 3 March 1917 he joined the British Army, commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Flying Corps (Special Reserve) and on 15 May was appointed Flying Officer (Pilot). Andrews was initially attached to 1 Aircraft Depot in UK – HE (Home Establishment)
On 1 June 1917 he was posted to 17 Reserve Squadron for training (Croydon, Port Meadow). From 23 July 1917 he was with 55 Training Sq (Yatesbury, Gosport). From 17 August he flew with No. 32 squadron based at Droglandt near Ypres in Belgium.
At 32 squadron Andrews flew D.H.5s, single-seat biplane fighters equipped with Vickers machine guns, forward-firing through the propeller and contolled by a Constantinesco hydraulic gun synchronizer.
On 25 September 1917, landing after a patrol, Andrews overran the aerodrome and upturned his D.H.5 A9430 on rough ground. He was uninjured. The machine, though, which had flown only 13 hours 45 minutes, was badly damaged: “All main planes damaged; main spar of inner plane broken; both bottom longerons split; undercarriage smashed; engine bearer plates bent; cowling damaged; propeller broken.” It was recommended that it “be returned to No. 1/AD. for repairs”.
Battle of Polygon Wood
The next day, 26 September 1917, flying D.H.5 A9194 in support of an R.E.8 biplane reconnaissance and bomber, Andrews was shot down over Menin Road, possibly by a British shell.
A pilot from No. 60 squadron reported the pilot fell out at about 500 feet. This seems unlikely, for he survived the fall.
(The R.E.8 Andrews was escorting was shot down by the German Ace Walter von Bülow-Bothkamp of Jasta 36; 21st of the 28 aerial victories of von Bülow-Bothkamp.
Although Andrews was believed killed, in fact he had been captured and made a Prisoner of War. This was not known until 29 October; his parents in the meantime had been informed of his death.
The Battle of Polygon Wood took place near Ypres in Belgium from 26 September. “The War in the Air“, the official history of the Royal Flying Corps / Royal Air Force published in 1922, describes the contribution of the air arm to the Third Battle of Ypres:
As the infantry clambered from their trenches at 26 Sept. 5.50 a.m. on the 26th, the clouds were low and made difficult the work of the co-operating aircraft. Nevertheless, the contact-patrol and artillery observers were able to report the progress of the battle, while the low-flying fighting pilots, from an average height of 300 feet, attacked troops and batteries. During the day 193 active German batteries were reported to the artillery by zone call, while thirty-nine other batteries were engaged, with aeroplane observation, for destruction, and twenty-eight for neutralization.
Once again the infantry achieved a tactical success. Australian troops carried the remainder of Polygon Wood with the German trench line to the east of it, and established themselves along their objectives beyond the Becelaere-Zonnebeke road. On the left of the Australians English troops captured a long line of strong-points. South of Polygon Wood the struggle was long and fierce, but most of the fortified farms and other strong-points were taken, although the line of objectives in this locality was not completely won until the evening of the next day.
The feature of the day's fighting was the defeat of the numerous enemy counter-attacks, due, in part, to the warnings given by the air observers.On 26 September nine airmen of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and one of the Royal Naval Air Serve (RNAS) were killed and at least six airmen of the RFC (including Andrews) and two of the RNAS were taken prisoner.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission site shows 2725 people died that day in Belgium.
Andrews did not have a parachute
Parachutes were not available to pilots of heavier-than-air craft in the Royal Flying Corps during most of World War 1, and were officially adopted just by the Royal Air Force only as the war was coming to an end. They were used earlier by artillery observers on tethered observation balloons.
At that time aeroplane cockpits were too small to accommodate a pilot and a parachute, since a seat that would fit a pilot wearing a parachute would be too large for a pilot without one. Parachutes were heavy, reduced the offensive range, and got in the way. German airmen had parachutes, but these were stowed in the fuselage and not worn as a matter of course.
It has been suggested that pilots were not issued with parachutes because it was thought the practice would “encourage cowardice”. There is no evidence for this suggestion.
The life expectancy of a WWI aviator
Frederick Cudmore Andrews joined No. 32 squadron on 17 August 1917. Forty one days later, one day short of six weeks, he was shot down and taken prisoner of war.
The life expectancy of an aviator during World War 1 varied at different stages of the war:
The life expectancy of a WWI aviator averaged six weeks according to WHY FLYERS FLEW – National WWI Museum
In April 1917, the average life expectancy for a new British pilot was somewhere between only 11 days and three weeks
British combat pilots on the Western Front suffered a 50 percent casualty rate during Bloody April as the Germans shot down 150 fighter planes. The average life expectancy of an Allied fighter pilot was then three weeks, resulting from aerial dogfights and accidents.
Andrews’s 41 days with the 32nd squadron was roughly the average survival time for pilots of the period.
Prisoner of war
On his capture Andrews was first imprisoned at Soltau, the largest German prisoner-of-war camp of the First World War. He was then transferred to Karlsruhe, where he spent 2 months in hospital. His granddaughter mentions that German surgeons inserted a metal plate in his damaged cranium. By all accounts, the operation was successful, though his head injuries, it is said, left him with psychological disorders.
Sunday Times (Perth, WA ) 4 November 1917
Mr. W. F. Andrews, of Narrogin, has received a cable from the secretary of the War Office, London, stating that his son, 2nd Lieut. Frederick Cudmore Andrews, of 32nd Squadron Royal Flying Corps, previously reported missing as from September 26 last, is a prisoner of war in Germany. Lieutenant Andrews left W.A. originally with the 10th Light Horse (16th Reinforcements), and has been in the Royal Flying Corps just twelve months.
The Red Cross cards noted that on 4 December 1917 Cox and Co., 16 Charing Cross London, bankers to many Army and Royal Flying Corps officers, received the message
Address Gefangenenlager [prisoner-of-war camp] Karlsruhe Baden Cable parents completely better Cudmore Andrews RFC
On 12 Feb 1918 Andrews was transferred from Karlsruhe to Saarbrücken, then on 12 May 1918, he was transferred to Holzminden. At Holzminden he was imprisoned with quite a few Royal Flying Corps pilots. One was his first cousin once removed, Ernest Osmond Cudmore.
The second index card shows one of Andrews’s contacts as Mrs M.E. Cudmore, his great aunt, Martha Earle (McCracken) Cudmore (1855 – 1938), who was also the contact for Ernest Cudmore.
The stamp “Négatif envoyé” shown on the second Index Card indicates that Frederick Cudmore Andrews was not registered at the time as a prisoner with the International Prisoners-of-War Agency and a “negative response” was returned on 20 October 1917.
His Royal Air Force record states he escaped POW internment during the Armistice and was repatriated in December 1918, arriving at Dover, England, on 6 December. Lieutenant Andrews was demobilised in Australia 10 July 1919 after a period of leave.
After the war
After the war Andrews became a pearler at Broome in northern Western Australia, where he owned two pearling luggers: the Dona Frances and the Intombi.
Frederick married Estelle Doreen Patten in 1921 in Perth, Western Australia. They had a son born in 1924. They were divorced in 1925; at this period, it seems Frederick was a heavy drinker.
Frederick returned to England and married a second time to Freda Needleman (1904 – 1991), the daughter of a tailor.
In the 1939 register Frederick C Andrews (age 44), Clerk (Officer Royal Air Force Reserve), was recorded as Lambeth, London, England. He enlisted as a pilot officer during World War 2 on 17 March 1940.
Frederick and Freda had three children and also had grandchildren. One of his granddaughters recalls:
My understanding is that when my grandfather was shot down he had a brain injury, and the Germans operated on him, inserting a metal plate. By all accounts, the operation was performed very well, though he was left with cognitive issues. Sadly, I remember him as being psychologically damaged from the trauma of his wartime experiences and he could be hard to communicate with, though with moments of lucidity. He was a bit of a black sheep in the Andrews/Cudmore families, but needless to say, I’m very proud of him – he was a brave man!
Frederick Cudmore Andrews died in England in 1975 aged 79.
Related posts and further reading
They took away his wooden leg: Frederick’s first cousin once removed was also in the Royal Flying Corps and also imprisoned at Holzminden
War Flying: The Letters of “Theta” to his Home People Written in Training and in War by Lessel Finer Hutcheon (1897 – 1962)
Wikitree: Frederick Cudmore Andrews (1895 – 1975)
Acknowledgements:
I am very grateful for the assistance I have received in researching the life of Frederick Andrews from:
Frederick’s grandaughter
Andrew Pentland of http://www.airhistory.org.uk/
Contributers at https://www.greatwarforum.org/
Australian airmen of the Great War database maintained by the Australian Society of WW1 Aero Historians
This post was first published at https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/2024/12/03/they-didnt-issue-parachutes/
The details along with the photos make this story come to life, Anne!