RAF RE8 B5853

The RE8 B5853 was one of ten RE8 aircraft that served with 1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps. This particular aircraft was struck off from strength after an unusual accident involving the aircrew Lieutenant Ted P. Kenny and Lieutenant Fred Hancock. Joe Bull recorded the incident in his diary for December 3rd 1917;

No.5853 ended her career this evening just after dark. She was coming in from a recco a bit late and he forgot about the telephone lines which are near the aerodrome and struck a telegraph pole and made a fearful crash. The engine broke away from the machine. I was almost afraid to go over to them as I expected to find a tangled mass but strange to say neither the pilot, Lieutenant Kenny or the observer Lieutenant Hancock were hurt though the machine was in ruins and was facing the way he came in having done a sort of somersault.

Les Sutherland remembered the story much later in his book, "Aces and Kings" slightly differently;

Ted Kenny was returning late from a reconnaisance. He was flying a 'Harry Tate' and gliding in nicely when about ten feet above the ground, the pilot felt a terrific bump. That's one slight fault in an aeroplane: when anything goes wrong, you cannot stop and investigate. Well, Ted knew something drastic had happened, but, at that moment, there was no oppurtunity to investigate. The pilot went on an landed. Then his first glance revealed the extraordinary result of the bump - the plane, and its 140 hp RAF engine had parted company.

How? The Royal Engineers provided wrathful explanation. But what they said was a spring scented zephyr compared with what Ted Kenny had to say. You see, the engineers had just run up a new telephone line across one end of the aerodrome. Quite an imposing work with twenty wires supported on posts. But Kenny was unaware of the show, and he had poked the nose of his "Harry Tate" smack into the wires. The impact tore out the engine by the roots, and the broken wires were unpleasantly festooned about the posts. Imagine how you would fare if, without your knowledge, a wire was stretched across your door, and, face first, you walked into it.