However,
on 06 Nov he crash landed whilst flying SE5 (Scout Experimental 5) B 567.
Lying unconscious, he was taken for dead and laid out with other dead in
a morgue at Etaples, France. After
coming to, he kept banging on the closed morgue door but the frightened
attendant did not open the door until well after he had stopped shouting in his
school boy French. After
recuperating and a further stint of training in England he joined 40 sqn at
Bryas in France under Major AW Keene MC. Flying
SE 5As again he became a protégé to George McElroy and soon claimed his first
victory, a Hannover scout on 06 Jul 1918. Steadily
increasing his score, several times shooting down two machines on the same
patrol he had been credited with a confirmed nine kills in 13 days by 19 Jul.
But by the time his award of the DFC was gazzetted on 10 Sep, he was dead.
On the 22 Jul at 0830 he had climbed with the dawn patrol when the flight
was attacked by four Fokker D VIIs. Even
as two of the attackers were shot down, Roy was seen flaming downwards over
Carvin in German territory. He
was buried in the Levil cemetery near Lens.
He thus became the first Indian to win the DFC and also the only Indian
to claim nine kills so far. His
example has remained a shining light for all Indians and indeed his nephew,
Subroto Mukerjee was amongst the first batch of pilots to be commissioned in the
fledgling IAF from Cranfield in 1933 and became the first Indian Chief of Air
Staff.
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IL
Roy (later RFC) (rear right) is seen with his brother PL Roy (rear left)
of the Honorable Artillery Company (HAC) on 20 Dec 1914 at OTC. PL
Roy survived the war.
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This is the Lindberg 1/48 SE 5A
re issue of the unremarkable 1958 kit. The kit is pretty basic with an oversized
foster mount on the upper main plane (although Wolsley geared Hispano Suiza
engine SE 5 s had theirs raised by 3 ½ inches to clear the prop arc) including
an oversized Lewis gun. Both had to
be pared down and a trigger wire added from the trigger to the cockpit.
An Aldis sight was also fitted and a new acetate windscreen to resemble
the Avro windscreen fitted. The standard scheme of PC 10 Khaki over all upper surfaces
and fabric wrapped centre struts was achieved by using WW II Braun violet.
There are a least 20 books out there on what PC 10 (pigmented Cellulose
spec 10) looked like, but they varied in broad terms, amongst five individual
preparations and I felt that braun violet came closest to the Khaki..
The undersides were painted a yellowish cream to represent the clear
dope. The individual markings were
hand painted and decals from the spares box were used for the roughly hand
painted fin serials. Rigging was
silk pulled through pre drilled holes which were later filled with super glue
and paint. The four bladed 200hp
airscrew was modified to resemble the two bladed version.
The figures are white metal from Airwaves and painted to represent the
RFC Khaki green cavalry uniform with early RFC wings. The base is my son’s Burrago car base for his BMW Z8
covered with some railway scenic grass sheet.
Polly
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SE
5 B 189 of 40 sqn. Roy sent down a Hannover, his first kill on 06
Jul and another on 08 Jul in this aircraft. On that date he shared
another Hannover and also sent down a Fokker D VII. 40 sqn carried
special markings on their ac such as the white stripes on the elevators
and the ac’s individual letter was transferred from the fuselage to the
fin top. The zigzag marking on the rear fuselage can also be seen.
The ‘painted over’ letter ‘S’ on the fuselage can still be seen. |
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