RAF SE5a B129

This is an SE5a aircraft of Capt L.H. Holden of 6 Training Squadron Australian Flying Corps in late 1918. This scheme is taken from a pair of photographs which appear in Arthur Cobby's "High Adventure". The aircraft apparently caused many knowing nods and whispers in the Cotswolds that, as local Jack Sollars said;

"There was one aircraft we saw often which we were told that was the captured Fokker belonging to the infamous 'Red Baron' Richthofen."

Holdens SE5a was notorious amongst the local youth, Butterow local Percy Hodges at age 9 and his younger brother Arthur walked the 7 miles to Michinhampton to watch the aircraft at the aerodrome. Percy later wrote,

"We sat on the stone wall and watched the aeroplanes go up and down like flies. We were near enough to see some of them starting the engines by swinging on their propellers. Sometimes they would wave to us - I remember one red fighter, we called it the 'Red Devil'".

The Kangaroo insignia depicted on the side of this aircraft was common on the training aircraft, and most training aircraft bore a depiction of an Australian insignia of some sort, be it Kangaroo, Emu, Boomerang or Kookaburra. Oswald Watt who commanded the Training Wing in 1918 had while with the French L'Aeronautique Militaire painted Australian motifs on his aircraft. It is believed the Australian insignia's eminated from his influence.

Leslie Holden earned the nickname "Lucky Len" and "Homing Pigeon" with 2 AFC during the Battle of Cambrai. His DH5 often being so full of bullet holes it was either a write off or required 12 hours of labour on it to bring it to flying condition again. In March of 1918 during the offensive, Holden averaged one SE5a a day until his luck ran out and he was wounded. After convalescence the four victory scout pilot was posted as an Instructor to the AFC Training schools in Michinhampton. The Flight Commanders at the training school often painting their aircraft in lurid schemes for recognition in the air.

Quote by Jack Sollars and Percy Hodges appears in "ANZACS over England - The Australian Flying Corps in Gloucestershire 1918-1919" by David Goodland and Alan Vaughan.