Viper SE B 331

[Marian]

Reading the Pilot's Flying Log Book of my great uncle, Lt. Parr Hooper, I find some entries that puzzle me. He indicates that in late May and early June 1918 he flew "Viper SE B 331." (And he does leave a space between the letter and the number, which he doesn't do with other aircraft numbers.)

Bruce Robertson's British Military Aircraft Serials lists B331 as an Airco DH5, which is also what comes up in the Aircraft of WWI database here at the aerodrome.

Parr is very clear that he was flying an SE5(a). The best solution I've come up with so far is that the serial number was actually "B8331," which, according to Robertson, was an SE5a.

Parr was pretty meticulous about his log book. Would there be a reason he would have left off the '8'--if that is what he did? Or is there something else entirely going on?

Thanks for any help you can give!

[ONEALM]

Greetings Marian -

Thanks for sharing that snippet with us.

Does the logbook mentioned where he was at the time ? That would help narrow the search a bit.

B'8331 spent at least some of it's operational life with #92 Squadron, but unfortunately, there's not much more than this published regarding that airplane.

Does he mention any other serial numbers that are close to "B 331" ? It might provide a clue to the actual serial.

The "Viper" bit is certainly that the airplane was a 200 HP Wolseley Viper powered aircraft and that might be useful at some point to verify the serial.

Not much to go on here, but the people on this forum are remarkably resourceful..... Suspect someone will clarify this for you if I cannot.

Mike

[Marian]

Hello, Mike, thanks for the quick response.

Looking more carefully at the log book, I see Parr flew B 331 only on May 31, 1918. He was with no. 32 squadron at Beauvois. He and Alvin Andrew Callender went "joy riding to A.S.D. to see deserter Hun D.W.F. [sic]" at St. Andre. They then flew over Le Touquet and back to Beauvois "escorting Hun and seeing the coast" (which implies that the German plane was operational.)

The plane Parr usually flew with 32 was B170, but it was having its engine replaced. Hudson lists B1-200 as SE5as, so no problem there. On June 1, he borrowed Walter Alexander Tyrrell's B8374 (Tyrrell being on leave), but was back with B170 at the end of the day. On June 9, he started flying Sturley Philip Simpson's C9626 (which is, I presume, the plane Parr was flying when he was shot down and killed on June 10).

So: as the Germans say "lange Rede, kurzer Sinn": the other plane serial numbers are interesting, but not much help.

How do you know about B8331 being with 92 squadron? (I thought I'd looked for it without any luck at the Aircraft section of this site, but maybe I missed it. I've certainly tried all kinds of google searches to no avail.)

On a related topic: Am I missing something about navigating the list of planes at the Aircraft section? If I sort by serial number or by type of aircraft and what I want is towards the middle of the list, it takes ages to page through to that point. Yes, I can just search for "C9626" for example--but that only brings up the one plane, and I'd like to be able to see it in the context of the list. ... The list is a fabulous resource, but either it is not easy to navigate or (more likely) I'm missing a navigation tool.

Cheers,
--Marian

[RAF56_Ball]

Not sure this will help but may be a useful rescourse. Do not recall who showed this one to me:
UK Serials
It was not revealing, at least to me. It did confirm the DH-5 as B331, so looked for B_331, but none were SE.5's.
B1331 was an F2B
B2331 a Camel
B3331 an Armstrong Whitworth FK.8
B4331 an Avro 504
B5331 A Sopwith Pup
B6331 Camel
B7331 Camel
B8331 an SE.5a
B9331 a DH.4