Blogger’s Return – Two Christmases

Please excuse my absence from the blogosphere. The day job caught up with me during the last semester and cut back my aviation rambling activity in no uncertain terms. I taught three history courses including (amazing to relate) Britain Since 1688, which was thoroughly enjoyable. The prep work was a slog, but then, most prep work is a slog.

What do you think about at Christmas? Apart from the usual family festivities I was considering the prospect of yet more course prep, and whether or not to try to submit a paper for the Spring 2025 meeting of the Kansas Association of Historians which is meeting at Pittsburg State University in March. It won’t happen this time, but one day I would dearly love to present something about the life and career of a remarkable individual, and a specific incident which occurred 110 years ago, on Christmas Day 1914.

110 years ago, a Friedrichshafen FF.29 seaplane of the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) flying from Naval Air Station Flanders I (Seeflugstation Flandern I) at Zeebrugge carried out a reconnaissance sortie along the Thames and Medway. These aircraft were brand new. Two had been delivered to Zeebrugge in November, and their operational debut had been a reconnaissance over Dunkirk on December 14th.

This reconnaissance did not go unnoticed. 2nd Lt M. R. Chidson, Royal Garrison Artillery, (Pilot) and Corporal Martin (Gunner) took off in a Vickers FB.5 ‘Gunbus’ to pursue the intruding FF.29. The ‘Gunbus’ shot at the seaplane, which jettisoned its bombs in a field close to Cliffe railway station in North Kent. (The Wikipedia article on the FF29 says the bombs were dropped on Sheerness). The seaplane may have been damaged, and the Vickers gun in the ‘Gunbus’ froze. Corporal Martin, the unfortunate gunner, was probably as frozen as his weapon in the damp December air,  and resorted to taking potshots at the seaplane with a carbine. The ‘Gunbus’ landed at Eastchurch, Kent when its engine began to give trouble.

The Wikipedia article on the FF.29 says, interestingly, that engine problems also forced the German crew to make an emergency landing in the Thames Estuary. Did Corporal Martin hit anything? The crew was able to take off once again, but were forced to land yet again and in some way damaged the aircraft’s floats. The FF.29 taxied across the North Sea for hours before drifting ashore near Wenduine, Belgium, after its fuel was exhausted.

Montagu Reaney Chidson was born on the 13^th April 1893 in Acton, London. Educated at Clifton College near Bristol and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, it was clear that he was intended for a career as a professional soldier. The RMA Woolwich, which closed in 1939, educated officers for the Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery. The ‘other’ RMA at Sandhurst provided officers for the infantry and cavalry regiments of His Majesty’s Army. In July 1912, Chidson was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery.  Significantly, for this blog, Chidson must have caught the flying bug, for in 1913 he was issued pilot’s certificate No. 471 by the Royal Aero Club. 

The Army List records that on October 19^th, 1914, Chidson was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps.  When he and Corporal Martin took off from Joyce Green on Christmas Day 1914 to intercept the raiding German seaplane he had been a member of the RFC for just over two months, although a pilot for a little more than eighteen.

On completing his training, Chidson was sent across the channel.  He joined the newly-formed 16 Squadron, an artillery observation unit working principally with the the Canadian Corps and flying a mixture of aircraft including the R.E.5, BE2c, Bleriot XI, and the Vickers FB.5.  16 Squadron’s first commander was Major (later Air Vice Marshal) Felton Holt. Although it’s not quite relevant to my narrative, it’s interesting to note that Holt’s replacement in July 1915 was a certain Major Hugh C.T. Dowding (better known as Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding of Bentley Priory, chief of Fighter Command during  the Battle of Britain). 

On February 28, 1915 Chidson and Lieutenant William Sanders were airborne in ‘Gunbus’ No. 1621 and were forced to land in Werwik, Belgium as a result either of enemy ground fire or an engine fault. No. 1621, which according to some sources was the first ‘Gunbus’ in France, landed practically intact and Chidson and Sanders became POWs. Chidson’s operational career had lasted a couple of months.

This is, however, only the beginning of Montagu Chidson’s story. I originally assumed he had perished in the carnage of World War 1, so I was pleasantly surprised that the first article I retrieved from a Google search was the announcement in Flight of his marriage to Marie Josephine de Bruijn at the English Church, The Hague, on January 9^th, 1919.  The next few articles were, to me, astounding.  I’m still researching his years as a POW, and what happened to him after the First World War. Let’s just say that eventually it will be quite a story. I hope I can do it justice.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the readership.

Robert