There is no feeling of fear like one seems to expect, but just a feeling of joy & exhilaration. When the engine is started you go shooting over the bumpy ground at about 50 miles an hour, then the elevator is raised a little & all bumping & vibration cease, this being the only thing to tell you mother earth is left behind & you are skimming above its surface. Then up goes the elevator a little more & you slide smoothly on a soft cushion of air. After flying a short distance, the engine is shut off & you glide quietly back to earth... It is beautiful going at such a speed through the pure air, seeing all nature laid out below & having such a glorious feeling of freedom.

(Harold Butterworth describes his first flight. This he took in England on 12 June 1915 with Felix Ruffy of Hendon’s Ruffy-Baumann flying school).

Harold Winstone Butterworth was born on the 12^th July 1895 to Eliza Ann Butterworth (nee Winstone) and Benjamin Harold Milliman, it was his parents second marriage, and Harold’s two older stepbrother Henry Benjamin and Charles Herbert Butterworth also served during the First World War.

The significance of Harold Butterworth’s diary

In 1915 Harold Butterworth travelled to England, determined to train as a military pilot and serve with the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). Many New Zealanders were keen to fly in the First World War. New Zealand’s two flying schools trained over 250 men.[1]  Others headed directly to Britain and a few to Australia, Canada or the United States and learned to fly there. In total ‘more than 800 New Zealanders served as air or ground crew’[2] with the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Air Force. Sixty more joined the Australian Flying Corps. Of these numbers ‘only about 250 of the air and ground crew actually saw service with operational squadrons.’[3]  Harold was one. 

Once he arrived in England, Harold applied to the War Office for entry into the RFC. Competition for entry was intense but as Harold had travelled all the way from New Zealand, the RFC could see he had just the sort of determination and focus they required. Within a short time, Harold was accepted for flying training and joined No. 2 Reserve Aeroplane Squadron at Brooklands, on the outskirts of London. At Brooklands, Harold and his fellow trainee pilots found themselves at the fore of a young but rapidly growing military aviation scene. Harold’s diary, kept almost daily, records the new technologies and the innovative methods they trialled, that would change the shape of war.

You can find a typescript of Harold Butterworth's diary below.

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• Last updated on: 30 Jun 2021 | File Size: 91 kB

Fixing the ‘flying bird’

Harold’s passion for flight was ignited before the war, at home in Auckland. At the end of each workday, he signed off from his job on a building site, jumped on his bicycle and rode to Avondale racecourse where Billy Miller and Esk Sandford were repairing and improving a famous biplane formerly known as the Manurewa (or ‘Flying bird’). This machine, of British-design, had been imported by an Auckland aviation syndicate in kitset form and assembled by the Walsh brothers, Leo and Vivian. Vivian flew it in 1911 with limited success – just straight flights of up to 400 metres – before the syndicate’s financiers took control of the machine and stored it away in Dominion Road. Billy and Esk sought to bring it back to life. Harold placed ‘his natural bent for mechanical work’[4]  at Billy and Esk’s disposal.

In Auckland – as in other parts of the world – the spectacle of flight attracted great crowds. On several occasions when Billy and Esk announced to the public their intention to fly, several hundred Aucklanders took the train to Avondale racecourse to watch the Sandford-Miller biplane take to the air. It’s easy to imagine how a young man such as Harold might be caught up in this excitement. [5]

Learning to fly

On the 9th of July, at Brooklands, Harold made his first solo flight. Of this he wrote in his diary,

It seemed rather strange going up alone for the first time but, once I was up there, there was no time to think about that, what with watching four sets of instruments keeping the machine level and looking out for other machines and when I wanted to come down attending to the engine and choosing a landing...

The very next day Harold took his ‘ticket’ (the Royal Aero Club aviator’s certificate) – an examined series of solo flights to earn his licence to fly. Without this, he could not enter the RFC as a commissioned pilot. In his diary he described how he sat ready in the cockpit while the mechanic swung the propeller then sucked a charge of petrol into the engine. The mechanic yelled ‘contact’, swung the propeller again, and Harold was off. He rose to 500 feet and performed five sets of figure eights. When the examining observer on the ground waved him down, he ‘glided to earth landing just where the observer was standing and running about 90 yards past, the observer tearing across the field to get out of the way.’ Harold passed the test and was able to continue with his training.

From how to fly to how to fight

To be a pilot with the RFC, Harold also had to learn the mechanics of an aircraft engine. Technical faults could occur on the ground and mid-air, and Harold had to know what to do. No doubt he drew on his prior experience assisting Esk Sandford and Billy Miller back at the Avondale racecourse.

Harold was not only required to pilot and carry out minor repairs, he had to undertake numerous tasks while flying – tasks that changed as military aircraft evolved.

When the First World began, military aviation was in its infancy.[6]  Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, to scout out the position and movement of men and arms. Reconnaissance was crucial, especially on the Western Front. While men on the ground were ‘locked in the bitter relentless struggle of trench warfare, only observers in aeroplanes and tethered balloons could effectively see and record what was happening.’ [7] As artillery range increased, men on the ground could no longer target or see the effects of their own fire, or where the enemy batteries were located. The aeroplane now became the Army’s eyes through reconnaissance, photography and acting as ‘spotters’ to direct its artillery. [8]

Reconnaissance was usually performed in a two-seater biplane (such as the BE.2c), which could carry a pilot and an observer. ‘While the pilot concentrated on flying the aircraft, the observer gathered information.’[9]  Early on the observer did so by sketching (often no easy task in a noisy, vibrating machine which was also subject to turbulence). 

Soon cameras were introduced for this aerial work. Surveying the landscape by camera, taking photographs that could be pieced together to form a single and complete mosaic, while moving through the air, required skill and determination. Harold Butterworth learned how to simultaneously fly and photograph. ‘It is fairly hard to pilot a machine and change the plates in a camera at the same time,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘but one soon gets used to it.’ [10]

Artillery spotting involved observing where shells fell then assisting artillery to calibrate their fire. Through the course of his training, Harold studied Morse code so that he could operate a wireless transmitter while in flight, ‘to communicate target coordinates’ to the gunners on the ground ‘who then directed their fire accordingly.’ [11]

Early military aircraft deployed for reconnaissance and artillery spotting were unarmed. Observers did sometimes carry rifles; pilots, revolvers, but these soon gave way to the installation of a machine gun for operation by the observer. Needless to say, all of this surveillance activity, not to mention bombing, was most unwelcome to the opposing forces on the ground. It was only a matter of time, therefore, before a counter-measure was devised: it came in the form of the scout (as the fighter aircraft was then known).

Flying over the Somme

From 1 July through 18 November 1916, either side of the River Somme in northern France, the Allies fought the Central Powers in one of the largest, deadliest battles the world had ever known. Of the 15,000 New Zealanders who served in the Somme, 6000 were wounded and 2000 were killed. [12]

While men fought on the ground, unprecedented action took place in the air. The 27 squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps played a crucial role. Pilots undertook photographic reconnaissance missions over and behind the lines to locate the positions of enemy forces, and then used wireless to assist artillery to direct their fire on enemy targets. They dropped 10 and 20-pound bombs on railway stations, train tracks, trenches and stockpiles of ammunition, and they shot down enemy aircraft, all while manhandling their planes. In RFC reports there are numerous descriptions of planes spinning out of control and nose-diving toward earth. By mid-July 1916 the RFC had lost 24 aircraft. 39 members of its aircrew were killed or reported missing. [13]

Harold was one of those who were killed during the Battle of Somme, on the 16^th July, days after his 21^st Birthday. He had been appointed as a second lieutenant in July 1915 and was serving with the No. 18 Squadron in France and was heavily involved in the preparations for and during the battle itself. Harold was shot down over France, by German infantry machine-gun fire which damaged the propeller of the plane, Harold was hit by rifle or machine gun fire as the plane crashed, his observer Capt. John Helias Finnie McEwen was injured and captured as a prisoner of war. [14]

Of the three Butterworth brothers who served overseas, only Charles Herbert Butterworth returned home. Henry Benjamin Butterworth who served with the Auckland Infantry Regiment, died of wounds received at Messines in Belgium on the 9^th June 1917, just shy of a year after Harold. Charles Herbert Butterworth also served with the Auckland Infantry Regiment, he was wounded at Gallipoli but returned to his Battalion, in 1918, he was discharged from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force as he was no longer fit for service.

Harold was initially believed to have been captured as a Prisoner of War, but a message dropped by Germans stated that he had died and was buried in Carvin Communal Cemetery German Extension, he was later re-interred at the Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, in Souchez near Arras in France.