Electronic Precinct - March 1996

Student victims of the Red Baron

Too late Walter Kember realises that the approaching Triplanes are the enemy.

In his history of the University of Liverpool, 'For Advancement of Learning', Professor Thomas Kelly records that more than 200 members of the University died serving their country in the First World War.

Two of those deaths are illuminated in a new book* about the German fighter ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen.

William Harold Trant Williams of 5 Dingle Hill, Liverpool, wanted to be a doctor, like his father, and had just begun his second year of an MB course at The University of Liverpool when he volunteered to fight for King and Country. After pilot training, he was awarded his 'Wings' in the early summer of 1917 and built up his flying hours with 28 Squadron in England before being set to 29 Squadron at the Front. Returning from an operation on 14 August, he executed a poor landing and, in the process, crashed and completely wrecked his aircraft. His good fortune in walking away from the crash unhurt ended abruptly barely two days later when he fell under the guns of von Richthofen. Picked out of the wreckage by German troops, he was carried to a nearby Military Hospital but his wounds were extremely severe and he died six days later on 22 August 1917. He was 19.

Walter Kember was the son of a Birkdale dentist, and was studying for a Licentiate in Dental Surgery when war came. Volunteering immediately, he left his studies to join his local Territorial Battalion, the 7th King's Liverpool Regiment, as a private soldier, and was wounded in the legs on the first day of the Battle of Festuburt, on 16 May 1915. After recovering in a London hospital, he was selected for officer cadet training and was eventually gazetted as Second Lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. Transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in July 1917, he had been with 6 Squadron only a matter of days when he was killed. He was 26.

In his combat report, von Richthofen wrote: 'Flying my Triplane for the first time, I attacked, together with four of my gentlemen, a very boldly flown artillery-reconnaissance aircraft. I approached and fired 20 shots from a distance of 50 metres, whereupon the adversary fell out of control and crashed this side, near Zonnebeke. Apparently the opponent had taken me for an English Triplane, because the observer in the machine stood upright without making a move for his machine gun.' The moment is captured by artist Chris Smith in one of a number of colour paintings with which the book is illustrated.

Second Lieutenants Kember and Williams are buried in Harlebeke New British Cemetery, Belgium.

*Under the Guns of the Red Baron. Norman Franks, Hal Giblin and Nigel McCrery. Grub Street Publications £ 20.00.

March 1996 Index