Lot Essay
2nd Lieutenant Beavan Carleton-Smith died of injuries sustained in a flying accident with No. 100 Squadron on 6.2.1919. Lieutenant Roy Shillinghaw, a fellow Squadron member, refers to this incident in an article published in the Cross and Cockade many years later:
'About five days after the Armistice, we moved from Xaffevillers up to Ligescourt in Normandy. On 6 February 1919, Carleton-Smith, who had been a friend and room-mate, and Leonard S. Hewett, were killed in an aeroplane accident near Cologne. They were flying in a surrendered
German Gotha and crashed in flames on take-off. Hewett was killed in the crash and Carleton-Smith died five days later. They said the controls had been reversed!'
'About five days after the Armistice, we moved from Xaffevillers up to Ligescourt in Normandy. On 6 February 1919, Carleton-Smith, who had been a friend and room-mate, and Leonard S. Hewett, were killed in an aeroplane accident near Cologne. They were flying in a surrendered
German Gotha and crashed in flames on take-off. Hewett was killed in the crash and Carleton-Smith died five days later. They said the controls had been reversed!'