Brad Hansen, in *WWI in Plastic,* writes: "[The] DH-10 is one of those
kits I've never quite understood the logic of releasing. It was
obviously necessary for Aurora to make a twin-engine British
counterpart to the Gotha, but why the DH-10? It was never really used
in the war."
Recently, I was reading *A Stillness Heard Round the World* by Stanley
Weintraub about the last days of WWI -an excellent book by the way -
and on page 185 there is a brief mention of this obscure aircraft in
operational use:
"At the Azelot aerodrome, Captain Ewart Garland's 104th Squadron
was grounded by fog. The day before [November 10th], he had patrolled
their sector of the empty sky in aprecious new DeHavilland-10 bomber,
the only one of the new craft in combat service. Then he went off on
his own at sunset to bomb an airfield at Sarrebourg. On the way back,
having dropped his explosives, Garland was pounced upon by four planes
and his observer, Bottrill, 'let off a few bursts from his
doubled-barreled Lewis.' Only then did they see that the pursuers were
French-flown Spads. Other squadrons had not known of an operational
DH-10, and 'mistook it for a Hun bomber.' With no German machines in
the air, they were risking each other's lives on what Garland noted in
his diary had to be 'the last day of the war.'
Unfortunately, Weintraub's source notes indicate that information on
the 104th Squadron are from Captain Ewart Garland's diary in the
Imperial War Museum, and from letters to the author by Garland in 1979
and 1980.
I probably should post this to the WWI mailing list but does anybody
have any other information about the DH-10 in operational use?
- Tom