Unknown pilot no longer unknown

Regulus · 14 February 2008, 07:30 AM

In 1997 I ran into an unknown gravestone of the RFC at Bovekerke churchyard, West-Flanders, the man in question died 15 September 1917.

It was something that intrigued me and it was curious that an RFC member who died on that day could not be identified. Soon it would become a goal to be able to put on a name on this grave.

Although not having plans to publish any further on the matter when we probably solved the mystery in November 2005, I recently was confronted with the fact that someone else used my material which was on the Dutch WW I forum, and tried to convince the press that he had done the job leading to the probable identification of the pilot. He even had the guts to mention the forum as a source !

As the Dutch WW I forum contains the name of the pilot and the moment in 2005 we came to this conclusion, it was not hard for us to show that we had come to that conclusion much earlier, and we also got confirmation that a new article on the matter will be published on the websites and newspaper who published the original article with the wrong information.

In order not to be confronted with other persons or the same one claiming the same matter again, we decided to go public on the matter, although the work is not yet completely finished.

After having asked the question on a number of specialised forums such as the Aerodrome, The Great War Forum, and having received the precious help of many members, also Trevor Henshaw took a further look on the matter, but we came to the conclusion at the time that we could not identify the pilot on that moment.

We decided to look at the possibility of another nationality and meanwhile started the search also on the Dutch WW I forum at Forum Eerste Wereldoorlog :: Index

A number of possibilities came forward which we all invested one by one, and in which especially Jean-Pierre Lauwers from Brugge was active and extremely helpful.

Finally there lasted on possibility, a pilot who died of wounds. Having done quite some research on this, we had to come again to the conclusion that it was a dead end…

Locally no information was found, and we continued the search.

What about a pilot who was MIA ? On first look we didn’t find anyone MIA in that period. We even went back one month, without result.

However, meanwhile, we had also found out that Bovekerke church seemed to have been used as a reserve lazarett/fieldhospital.

So a wounded man became very evident. But who ?

We went back to Mr. Henshaw’s excellent

The Sky Their Battlefield. And by searching on the CWGC site we found a pilot who had been shot down a few days earlier, his gunner was found and buried, but the pilot’s grave remained unknown, and he was listed on the Arras Flying Services Memorial.

On the 11th of September they left their airfield and one of the planes of the Squadron had a meeting with a DFW C-type, which is mentioned also in the RFC Communiqué of the day : 2nd Lt's J Binnie & Tuffield, 48 Squadron, shot down a DFW two-seater out of control near Dixmude.
They ran indeed into a plane of probably Flieger Abteilung (A)224 at 10.15
Target that day probably was Bruges. At around 11.10 (all hours are British time) a plane of the same unit, 48 Squadron ran into a pilot of the I Marine Feldjasta with the name of Lt. Friedrich von Götz, who was about to take his first aerial victory, not that it would bring him much luck, as he was killed the same evening near the coast.

His claim was above Wijnendale, on a plane going in the direction of it’s own lines, so towards Diksmuide, which was no longer that far away. The plane was a Bristol F2b, the crew, pilot Sgt WH Roebuck and the gunner 2nd Lt HT Batson.
According to the RFC they were both KIA. And here we found something curious, ok both KIA but only one of the two had a known grave at Larch Wood Cemetery in the Ypres area…

If you go from Wijnendale towards the Diksmuide area, you will pass the area of Bovekerke, Werken, etc.
So the plane certainly crashed in the area. Body not found ? It leaves us with two possibilities :
First, and the most probable one, he is found badly injured, taken to the Bovekerke fieldhospital which is very close by and died of his wounds on the 15th of September.
Second, he fell out of the plane before it crashed and his body was only recovered on the 15th. Very doubtful, as this area is quite populated with German soldiers and local population. And it would not give an exact date on his grave.
So option 1 is the most obvious one.

The only other possibility is a loss one month earlier at Vladslo, but as there was another field hospital there, there’s no chance at all that they would have taken a wounded man to Bovekerke instead and that he only died a month later of his wounds is making the odds even unbelievable small.

The name of the gunner buried at Larch Wood cemetery is 2nd Lt. Henry Thomas Batson who originally served with The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment) and was 28 years old.

The pilot of his plane had at least two confirmed victories
The first one on 17 august 1917 in BF2b A7115 above Oostende at 10.25, recorded as destroyed and the second one on 4 september 1917 also above Oostende at 19.00, in BF2b A7217 recorded as Out of control. Both claims were Albatros DV planes and were made together with 2nd Air Mechanis William Walker, who would total 5 victories and receive the DCM.

Anyway, on the 23rd november 2005 Jean-Pierre Lauwers and I agreed that the unknown gravestone at Bovekerke church yard most probably belonged to Sergeant William Harold Roebuck, service number 5788, member of 48th Squadron RFC.

And this, this is the most important thing of this whole story, with just a little luck, we have been able to identify a grave of a WW I soldier, that had the mark unknown on it for 88 years. That is what we do it for, not personal honour. Lest we forget !

Doc · 14 February 2008, 10:09 AM

Fantastic! Great work. Doc

Kilian · 15 February 2008, 11:48 AM

Thats really impressive work Regulus.

Do you think its possible to find descendants or relatives of Sergeant Roebuck?

rammjaeger · 15 February 2008, 11:54 AM

Congratulation to your and your supporters good work, Regulus!

Regulus · 17 February 2008, 01:09 PM

Thanks gentlemen !

Killian, we now took contact with the MOD to see if they can help us further with the identification and the rest of the procedure.
So we might find some relatives in this case...

I already have a second case of an identification of an RNAS officer who is one of two unknown graves on another West-Flanders cemetary, and for the other unknown grave we still have two possible candidates. It might come to a solution at the end of this month whan I will receive new material from Berlin, or it may remain a mystery...

It would be nice if we could identify the second grave also.