Louis Strange

Louis Arbon Strange, DSO, OBE, MC, DFC & Bar (27 July 1891 – 15 November 1966) was an English aviator, who served in both the First and Second World Wars.

Louis Strange was born in Tarrant Keyneston, Dorset, and was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford, joining the school's contingent of the Dorset Yeomanry. Strange spent his childhood at Tarrant Keynstone Mill on the River Stour. His family farmed 600 acres (2.4 km²) at Spetisbury in Dorset.

He had seen military aircraft and the airship Beta flying over Dorset during the summer manoeuvres of 1912 when serving with the Dorsetshire Yeomanry and determined in May 1913 to become a pilot. He joined the Ewen School of flying at Hendon Aerodrome in July and gained his Royal Aero Club Aviators' Certificate, No. 575, on 5 August. On 8 October 1913 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant (on probation) in the Royal Flying Corps (Special Reserve).

Just after obtaining his licence he won his first cross-country race and then won the Hendon March Meeting 17-mile (27 km) race, beating his old instructor into second place. In the latter part of 1913 and early 1914, Strange flew many hours from Hendon, instructing trainee pilots. On 4 April 1914 he appeared in Flight magazine as one of five pilots who had recently joined the "Upside Down Club" by performing a loop.

His posting to the sixth course of instruction at the RFC's Central Flying School at Upavon, Wiltshire, came in May 1914. There he was retrained to fly B.E.2b and B.E.8 military aircraft. On 20 June he took part in a Hendon–Birmingham–Manchester and return air race at the controls of an 80 hp (60 kW) Gnome powered Bleriot monoplane, being first to arrive at Trafford Park Aerodrome, Manchester, where the Lord Mayor greeted him. To reach Strange's hand, the man stood on a bracing wire to the landing gear, damaging it. On take-off to return south, the wire snapped, smashing the Bleriot's propeller and the machine was damaged, putting him out of the race.

On 30 July 1914 Strange was formally commissioned for service in the Regular Army as a second lieutenant in the Dorsetshire Regiment, but remained on attachment to the Royal Flying Corps, in which he was appointed a flying officer the same day. In August 1914 he was despatched to join his first operational unit, No. 5 Squadron RFC, based at Gosport, Hampshire. On 15/16 August – despite severe weather and a damaged longeron – he flew his Farman aircraft via Dover and over the English Channel to Amiens and then to the unit's new base at Maubeuge, France, being the last of the squadron to arrive.

Strange soon adapted his Farman to carry a Lewis machine gun, improvising a mounting to the top of the observer's nacelle. His first armed encounter with the enemy came on 22 August when six enemy aircraft appeared at 5,000 feet over the airfield at Maubeuge. He took off in his Farman with Lieutenant L. Penn-Gaskell as gunner in the front cockpit to intercept the patrolling Germans, but with inconclusive results as the laden aircraft would not climb above 3,500 feet (1,100 m). The next few days saw a general Allied retreat and the squadron had to move base several times, whilst Strange and his fellow pilots continued their observation and light bombing sorties. Less than two weeks after arriving in France Strange's inventive brain designed home-made petrol bombs that on 28 August he and his observer dropped by hand from their Henry Farman biplane onto the convoys of German troops and transport north of St. Quentin; the results "sent us home very well pleased with ourselves".

In October 1914 Strange invented a safety strap allowing the observer of his Avro 504 to "stand up and fire all round over top of plane and behind". He also designed and fitted a machine gun mounting to the 504, consisting of a crossbar between the central struts over which was slung a rope, allowing the Lewis to be pulled up into a position from which the observer, seating in the front cockpit, could fire backwards over Strange's head. On 22 November 1914 it was with this arrangement that Strange claimed his first victory; with Lieutenant F. Small as gunner, he attacked an Aviatik two-seater and forced it down from over Armentières to make a bumpy landing in a ploughed field just behind the British lines.