WW1 - all pages

W ING C OMMANDER L OUIS S TRANGE , D.S.O., O.B.E., M.C., D.F.C., B RONZE S TAR M EDAL (U.S.) Louis Strange (O.S.E.) was one of the best known pilots of the Great War. Prior to the war he was a cross-country racing and stunt pilot and was once alleged to have flown his by-plane between the School’s Chapel tower and the Main Buildings! When war broke out he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Dorsetshire Regiment on attachment to the Royal Flying Corps, with whom he served throughout the war. In August 1914, despite horrendous weather, he flew his Farman aircraft to Mauberge in France with No. 5 Squadron, the first such operational British unit of the war. He was not only a very capable pilot but also an innovator of both the mounting of machine guns and of bombing techniques which soon became standard in the R.F.C. In May 1915 Strange had an extraordinary escape (shown above) which became national news. By the end of the war he had many ‘kills’ to his credit and was a Lieutenant-Colonel. His younger pilot brother Gilbert (also O.S.E.) was shot down and killed in 1918.