Lot Essay
INDENTLieutenant John Frederick Lascelles, M.C. born 1895, London, educated at Winchester and Sandhurst, was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, Rifle Brigade December 1914 and proceeded to France on the 20th of that month attached to the Royal Flying Corps as an Observer. On 15 April, 1915 he brought down a German aeroplane with shots from a rifle (Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the M.C. - London Gazette 23.6.1915)
Early Combats - Western Front (War in the Air - Vol.III - H.A.Jones)
"'...If we saw an enemy machine nearby, we would fly over towards it, and fire at it some half-a-dozen rounds. We scarcely expected to shoot the enemy down; but it was a pleasant break in the monotony of reconnaissance and artillery observation. I remember being surprised one day to hear that an Observer of another squadron (his name, Lascelles, sticks in my memory to this day, though I never met him), had shot down a German machine in our lines with a rifle.'
The aeroplane here referred to was an Aviatik which fell to Captain R.M. Vaughan and Second Lieutenant J.F. Lascelles on a B.E.2c of No. 4 Squadron on the 15th of April. The officers were on their way to reconnoitre as far as Bruges when they met their enemy. The Observer fired twenty-four shots from an average range of eighty yards, and the Aviatik fell in the French lines near Elverdinghe. The German Pilot was found to be dead, but the Observer, unwounded, was made prisoner. Vaughan waited over the area long enough to watch the German aeroplane crash, and then went to Bruges."
Lieutenant Lascelles was later killed in action when his aircraft was shot down 31 July 1915; he is buried in Beauval Communal Cemetery, France
Early Combats - Western Front (War in the Air - Vol.III - H.A.Jones)
"'...If we saw an enemy machine nearby, we would fly over towards it, and fire at it some half-a-dozen rounds. We scarcely expected to shoot the enemy down; but it was a pleasant break in the monotony of reconnaissance and artillery observation. I remember being surprised one day to hear that an Observer of another squadron (his name, Lascelles, sticks in my memory to this day, though I never met him), had shot down a German machine in our lines with a rifle.'
The aeroplane here referred to was an Aviatik which fell to Captain R.M. Vaughan and Second Lieutenant J.F. Lascelles on a B.E.2c of No. 4 Squadron on the 15th of April. The officers were on their way to reconnoitre as far as Bruges when they met their enemy. The Observer fired twenty-four shots from an average range of eighty yards, and the Aviatik fell in the French lines near Elverdinghe. The German Pilot was found to be dead, but the Observer, unwounded, was made prisoner. Vaughan waited over the area long enough to watch the German aeroplane crash, and then went to Bruges."
Lieutenant Lascelles was later killed in action when his aircraft was shot down 31 July 1915; he is buried in Beauval Communal Cemetery, France