Nickname(s) Bert Rank Lieutenant Battles and wars World War I Years of service 1915 - 1917 | Service/branch Aviation Died 1917 Allegiance United Kingdom Name Walter Wood | |
Buried at Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England Unit No. 29 Squadron RAF, No. 44 Squadron RAF | ||
Place of burial Grimsby, United Kingdom | ||
Lieutenant Walter Bertram Wood (25 October 1898 – 11 November 1917) was a British World War I flying ace credited with thirteen confirmed aerial victories.
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Early life and background
Wood was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, the younger son of Walter James Wood, a magistrate, and his wife Annie Jane. He was educated St James' School, Grimsby and at Hull Technical School where he studied Engineering. At the age of ten he was the first Boy Scout to be registered in Grimsby and he helped form a local troop, he later became a Scoutmaster. He began serving England in an unusual way; he organised a patrol of scouts as coast watchers until he could enlist.
Combat career
He then went through the Officers Training Corps of the Artists Rifles, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Hampshire Regiment on 4 June 1916. On 3 March 1917 he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps, and appointed a flying officer the same day. He was promptly assigned to 29 Squadron on 23 April 1917.
Wood used his Nieuport 17 fighter to drive down one German Albatros D.III on 11 May 1917, and another on 5 June. On 18 June, he set an Albatros reconnaissance aircraft on fire; he described the combat in an article he wrote for a scouting magazine. His aggressive personality, that of a man capable of shooting at the enemy with a pistol if need be, shows in this excerpt:
...I make straight for the leader of their patrol.... I hear a faint pop, pop, pop and at the same time a number of small holes appear in my bottom planes. Jolly good shooting for he is still a 100 yards off.... I start turning, spinning, and diving away until I am behind him.... I get him in my sights.. Pop, pop, pop. About 20 rounds I fire at him.... A small light appears in his machine. Hurrah! he's on fire. I have hit his petrol tank. Now the whole machine is a mass of flames. Down it crashes and flaming pieces fall off during the descent. Poor beggar! I hope a bullet hit him first: but it can't be helped.... I watch him hit the ground, and turn to look for more Boche, but there is not a plane in the sky; so I point my machine home and am greeted by hand shakes and cheers. "Oh yes we saw the beggar go down in flames, so we came home." "Anyone missing?" I ask. "Oh yes, poor old C--- went down out of control." "Ah well, I'm glad now that I got that blighter in flames," I reply....Wood won four more times in June, bringing his tally to seven. He was promoted from second lieutenant to temporary lieutenant on 1 July 1917. He scored five more triumphs in that month. His thirteenth, and last, victory came on 9 August 1917, while he was on a final "joy ride". He was rotated home to No. 44 Squadron in England two days later.
Wood's final tally was one German aircraft set afire in midair, five more destroyed, and seven driven down out of control. Not counted in this total are five claims in which he drove down enemy aircraft.
Death and legacy
On 11 November 1917, he took off in one of two Sopwith Camels tasked to practice dogfighting; Wood was still suffering from influenza contracted in France. His Camel dove into the ground for no apparent reason, killing him; it is surmised he fainted at the controls.
Wood and his brother Second Lieutenant Edwin Leonard Wood (KIA 26 September 1917) were the subject of a memoir, Two Soldier Boys.