What's your favorite funny story from WWI?

My favorite funny story so far is about (guess who?) Raymond Collishaw. Seems that during his early flight training all didn't go smoothly...
"He was posted to the naval air station at Redcar for what passed as flight training. Despite problems with landings
Collishaw soloed with only 8.5 hours of flying time. Collishaw made some serious mistakes. Once while attempting
to deliver a note from a mate to a local girl he crashed into a row of outhouses, covering himself in excrement and
toilet paper and destroying the plane. The girl was not impressed. "
(Miles Constable, "Raymond Collishaw, WWI Fighter Ace")
Can you guys top this? I'd like to see you try! hehe...
)
Melinda

[Reinout]

How about this ,Melinda!

Jean Navarre was always a funlover and a man who found trouble where there wasn't any. In 1915 or 1916 he and his observer went duck hunting in their airplane! Jean chased them until he turned too sharply and crashed his plane into the ground. The other man was wounded and Jean for the first time in his life bowed his head in shame when his CO reprimanded him.

I'll have some more later!

Kind regards,

Reinout

[Billy_Bishop]

My favorite story doesn't come from WWI, but from WWII.

My dad was in the field artillery, 752 FA Battalion,(105mm) 3rd US Army. While in France, he and a friend had, um..made the acquaintance of a couple of French girls. One night they "requisitioned" a truck and took the girls out into the woods. Getting down to "business" as it were, everything was going fine until they heard "clomp, clomp, clomp" on the road nearby. They poked their heads out to see what was making the noise only to see a German patrol going by.

The remained very quiet as it would have been most embarrasing to get caught under the circumstances. It was only later that they figured out, had they been caught by the Germans, they could have been shot as spies as they were COMPLETELY out of uniform.

Al Lowe
"Variety may be the spice of Life, But I'm diabetic, and the spice is sugar to me."
--Al Lowe

THE AIRPLANES OF THIS TIME [DID NOT USE REGLUAR OIL, AT THIS TIME THERE CHOOSE {CASTER OIL} TO USED THE BUT {CASTER OIL WAS USE FOR WHATEVER YOU HAD ,IT CUTE YOU OR KILL YOU ONE THE TWO . WENT I THINK OF PLOT GOING A LONG PATOL, HE BETTER HAVE THE FELLOWING ITEMS 1 A GAS MASK 2 OR TOLIET PAPER . THE ENGINE AMIT SMOKE THAT WOULD MAKE HIM SICK .PS HA HA

[Darryl]

W E Johns tells the story of a French captain who put out an urgent zone call (basically a call for every gun of every calibre within range to paste a certain grid reference.).
The artillery duly obliged.
Later it was admitted that the call was on an archie battery which had been getting a little too acurate for our gallant captain's liking. He was court marshalled!!

Regards

Darryl

[Reinout]

This is about Louis strange. He was very enthusiastic upon being given a Martynside Scout with an overwing Lewis, early in the war. He took it up in search of some German a/c. he found one and emptied his drum without so much as hitting the enemy plane. Then he wanted to change the drum, but it was stuck. Eventually he stood up in the aircraft, pulling wildly at the drum. Suddenly the plane rolled over and went into inverted flight, with Strange clinging on to the drum. He was praying it would not let loose with even more vigour than he had cursed at it for not letting go a few moments ago. Some improvised gymnastics (don't ask me how) gave him a hand on the control column and he pushed the plane into normal flight. Relieved as he was he dropped himself into his seat. With such force however that the seat went halfway through the airplane, jamming the controls forward. The plane went into a steep dive....
Strange was vehemently kicking at the dislodged seat until he finally managed to kick it through the plane! He could now level out and return to base. The Germans who had been attacked had watched most of it in amazement but had left the scene before Strange levelled out and they probably had a fine story for the mess that evening, not knowing of Stranges recovery. On the other side of the lines, Strange had a hard time explaining to his CO why he hadn't shot down the German plane and had a hole in his aircraft!

A fine story indeed....

Kind regards,

Reinout

I think we have found out who Jorge is. Two entries up. He's improved some!

[Vigilant]

How's this Melinda?

'McScotch', a squadron mate of Mick Mannock in 40 Squadron recounts how one day he found a pair of lady's undies in his coat pocket -- placed there by some other member of the unit he hastens to add. Remembering that Mick was currently using stockings for his wing-tip streamers, he persuaded Mick to attach the undies to his rudder as the third streamer, to complete the ensemble, so to speak. Wanting to avoid getting court martialled for so decorating one of His Majesty's planes, Mannock did a quick flight round the aerodrome to see if they would be visible from the ground:

"What did it look like?" he asked on landing.
Sergeant Smart stifled the prospect of our 'following' a pair of 'ladies' panties into battle, by saying: "It looked exactly as if you had hung the washing out on your machine, Sir."

Regards all,

Vigilant.

Reinout,from what I can remember,Louis Strange,by a virtually impossible feat of acrobatics,managed to get his legs into the cockpit and righted the aircraft by kicking at the stick!Regards.Mukund.

Sorry,I forgot to add.Yup.Would have had to be his legs.If it had been his hands,it would have been like that Tarzan and Jane joke(shame on all you guys for thinking what I think you're thinking!!).