Thursday 3 January 1918 We Lost 352

by greatwarliveslost

Leonard George Colbeck

Anti-aircraft guns at home score a “success”.  The victim is an FE2b of 38th Squadron on a cross country training flight from Stamford.  The pilot, Second Lieutenant E F Wilson, strays into the outer London defenses, forgets the night recognition colors and is promptly fired on by the Roding guns.  The aircraft is hit and then wrecked in a forced landing.  Fortunately Wilson is unhurt.

Captain Henry Hollingdrake Maddocks scores his fifth victory, the first victory in a Sopwith Camel for 54th Squadron east of St Quentin. He will achieve two more victories before the end of the Great War. Shortly thereafter Second Lieutenant Andrew Frederick Weatherby Beauchamp-Proctor (Royal Flying Corps) scores the first of his fifty-four victories also east of St Quentin.

British air losses are six aircraft down.  Four pilots are killed, two taken prisoner.  Those killed include

  • Lieutenant Cecil William Pearson (Northumberland Fusiliers attached Royal Flying Corps) killed at age 21 on a mission southwest of Gheluvelt. He is the son of the late Reverend C W Pearson (Vicar of Walton, Aylesbury).
  • Second Lieutenant Edmund Sharington Davenport (Royal Flying Corps) is killed in action at age 21. He is the grandson of the Reverend E S Davenport.

Today’s losses include:

  • The son of a member of the clergy
  • The grandson of a member of the clergy
  • The son of an Alderman and Justice of the Peace
  • A professional cricket player
  • A man whose brother was killed on the first day of the battle of the Somme

Today’s highlighted casualties include:

  • Captain William Henry Bloor (Royal Field Artillery) is killed at age 26. He is the son of Alderman Henry Bloor JP.
  • Second Lieutenant Leonard George Colbeck (Royal Field Artillery) dies at sea on board HMS Ormonde returning home at age 34. He is a professional cricket player for Middlesex, Marylebone and Europe versus India after playing for Cambridge University.
  • Private Henry W Crabb (Middlesex Regiment) is killed at age 26. His brother was killed on the first day of the battle of the Somme.