Winged Victory

cspellman · 15 June 2003, 09:11 PM

After a 5 year quest, I have finally nabbed my copy of

Winged Victory by VM Yeates. *I must say that 3/4 into the *book I find it sobering, humorous, vivid and hard to put down. *I can now see why so many praised it as the definitive novel on war flying of the period. *

Perhaps someone knows how closely the events described in this book were taken from Yeates' own experiences. *Is Tom Cundall actually Yeates and this just a retelling of Yeates' war experience under a assumed name?

alex_revell · 16 June 2003, 08:49 AM

Congrats! You are having a great read. I envy you your first time. The book will really give you a feel for the ambience of the times. Many pilots I met told me that the book really told it how it was for the ordinary bloke, apart from the aces. Yes, many of the incidents are directly related to Yeates' own experiences and can be check out with the 46 Squadron records. I did quite a lot on it, purely for interest, and it makes quite a fascinating research project.

Richard_Schrader · 16 June 2003, 12:38 PM

Thanks guys, now you have got me on the chase for a copy! >

Richard Schrader

DavidErrol · 16 June 2003, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Perhaps someone knows how closely the events described in this book were taken from Yeates' own experiences. *Is Tom Cundall actually Yeates and this just a retelling of Yeates' war experience under a assumed name?

See OTF Vol. 6, No. 4 pages 379-381.

DE

cspellman · 16 June 2003, 08:57 PM

Richard:

I saw three used copies on sale at Amazon.com, all for under $20.

Quote:

*Thanks guys, now you have got me on the chase for a copy! >

* * * * Richard Schrader

Richard_Schrader · 17 June 2003, 07:06 AM

cspellman;
Thanks a lot!

Richard Schrader

EARTHLING · 17 June 2003, 09:29 AM

Alex

In your research did you find out who Beal actually was. You remember that he was the C flight leader who unfortunately was fearless and Cundall felt duty bound to follow closely. Cundall's point being that the only fault he found with Beal was his desire to win the war on his own. He (Cundall) thought that he probably was being braver than Beal. Can you be brave if you are without fear?
If it gives details in OTF my apologies but I can only afford C&C.
Regards
Peter S

alex_revell · 19 June 2003, 09:52 AM

Seven or eight years ago I went through

Winged Victory and did some detective work, just for fun. I’ve dug it out and refreshed my memory on my conclusions. To answer your question about Beale. This appears to have been Captain

Sydney Philip Smith, who was shot down on April 6 1918 by von Richthofen for his 76th victory. I’ve had a preliminary look at the letter in OTF Vol 6 No.4 about Yeates. I’ll dig a little deeper over the next few days but initial points I’ve seen are these. Yeates appears to have left 46 Squadron for HE on 30 August 1918. I have a copy of his logbook and the last entry is on this date. As far as I can tell from his logbook he joined on 17 Feb 1918, so if he left in August this would give him with the squadron for about six months, which is about the usual time for a tour. Unlike most pilots he doesn’t actually state in his logbook when he joined and when he left the squadron, but I think it can be taken that these dates shown in his logbook are when he joined and when he left. In WV Yeates relates the death of the CO in a collision and George Evans makes much of this in his letter to OTF, but the CO in question was Major A H O’Hara Wood, who collided with LL Saunders on October 4 1918, which was after Yeates had left 46. I suspect that someone from 46 visited Yeates in England, either at the end of the war or just after, and told him about the collision, which Yeates then used in WV. He obviously didn’t like O’Hara Wood!
By my notes in my copy, Yeates seems to have been out on some of his dates. Everything is OK and chronological until he gets to ‘on the next day, the Sunday before Easter’. Up to this date the days are OK and this day should follow as 24 March, but Easter Sunday in 1918 was actually on 24 March, not the Sunday before. So things get slight out of sync by a week. This is rectified later. I’ll go through the notes in more detail when I get time and you can then work out for yourself the sequence of events. I’ll try to clarify anything that you aren’t sure about.
What a lot of aviation buffs seem to overlook is that Yeates was a magnificent writer, quite apart from the subject matter. His death was a great loss to English literature

Tom_Cervo · 19 June 2003, 05:49 PM

Victor Yeates is one of the authors profiled by Hugh Cecil in "The Flower of Battle: British Fiction Writers of the First World War", published in Britain by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd. in 1995. The US version had a different subtitle: "How Britain Wrote The Great War", and was published by Steerforth Press, Vermont in 1996. PP 55-89 deal with Yeates and his book. Its focus is literary and biographical. It reports on the "forgotten" authors of the Great War. It's well worth seeking out.
Though Yeates died young, he did not seem to think of himself as a tragic figure. He had a loving wife, adored his children, faced his illness bravely and with humor.

cspellman · 27 June 2003, 09:22 PM

Well I finally finished the book tonight and I must say, I felt just awful about how it ended. *All I had hoped was that Williamson would make it another two days and him and Cundall would be out of the war and off to Spain. *How absolutely tragic. *:'(

So, question is, who was Williamson supposed to be? *The book seems to be modelled very closely after Yeate's own experiences. *Did he really lose his closest friend near the end like this?

And, how the heck do I get ahold of a copy of Yeate's logbook???

Chris