“Main spar[37] right-hand top plane broken.
“Rear right-hand under-carriage strut badly damaged.
“Twenty-eight holes in fuselage[38] and ten in the planes--two or three missing the pilot’s seat by less than an inch.”
During the 3rd Corps’ attack on August 19, 1917, Lieuts. Jenkins, Steele, Thompson, Rutherford, and Sergt. Bancroft did good work shooting up infantry in trenches and by harassing the troops assembling for counter-attacks.
On September 7, 1917, the squadron was moved up to the XI Wing to help in the battles for the Passchendale Ridge, which were already in full swing. Leaving the comfortable Filescamp station and the hard tennis-court with great regret, they were moved into tents on Marie Capelle aerodrome, near Cassel, where 20 Squadron was already stationed. The 2nd and 5th Armies were then attacking almost every day, and 60, in addition to their ordinary work of offensive patrols, wireless interception, etc., co-operated by low flying and firing at troops and transport on the ground. Twenty-five-pound Cooper bombs were carried at this time and dropped on suitable targets.
Capt. Chidlaw-Roberts, Lieuts. Rutherford, Whiting, and I. Macgregor were now prominent, while Patrick, himself a brilliant fighter, was always ready to give his squadron a lead.
Chidlaw-Roberts got a lot of Huns during September, and Caldwell and W. Jenkins continued their successes of the summer, while J. Crompton, Young, Capt. Hammersley, Lieut. W. Sherwood, and 2/Lieut. Carter were others who were conspicuous during the October fighting.
It was in September that Capt. J. K. Law, one of the sons of Mr. Bonar Law (another of whose sons had already been killed in Mesopotamia), joined at Marie Capelle. He was a tiger to fight, and, had he come through his first month, would probably have made a great name for himself. He did several “shows” over the line, and his machine was shot about badly in every one of them. On September 21, a patrol operating in the neighbourhood of Roulers, led by Hammersley and including Whiting and Macgregor and Law, saw twenty-four hostile machines and engaged eight of them. A general engagement took place, in the course of which Law was shot down and killed. He had absolutely refused to stay any longer at home, where he was doing most useful work training pilots, but insisted on being sent to France.