Lieutenant Walter Bertram Wood (25 October 1898 – 11 November 1917) was a British World War I

flying ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied, but is usually co ...

credited with thirteen confirmed aerial victories.

Early life and background

Wood was born in

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

, Lincolnshire, the younger son of Walter James Wood, a magistrate, and his wife Annie Jane. He was educated

St James School, Grimsby St James School is a coeducational Independent school (UK), independent day and boarding school located in Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, England. It comprises a Nursery School, Preparatory School, Senior School and Sixth Form. The school is ...

and at Hull Technical School where he studied engineering. At the age of ten he was the first Boy Scout to be registered in Grimsby and he helped form a local troop; he later became a Scoutmaster. He began serving England in an unusual way; he organised a patrol of scouts as coast watchers until he could enlist.

Combat career

He then went through the Officers Training Corps of the

Artists Rifles The 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), historically known as The Artists Rifles is a regiment of the Army Reserve. Its name is abbreviated to 21 SAS(R). Raised in London in 1859 as a volunteer light infantry unit, the regimen ...

and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the

Hampshire Regiment The Hampshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 37th (North Hampshire) Regiment of Foot and the 67th (South Hampshire) Regiment of Foot. The regi ...

on 4 June 1916. On 3 March 1917 he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps, and appointed a flying officer the same day. He was promptly assigned to No. 29 Squadron RFC on 23 April 1917. Wood used his

Nieuport 17 The Nieuport 17 C.1 (or Nieuport XVII C.1 in contemporary sources) was a French sesquiplane fighter designed and manufactured by the Nieuport company during World War I. An improvement over the Nieuport 11, it was a little larger than earlier N ...

fighter to drive down one German

Albatros D.III The Albatros D.III was a biplane fighter aircraft used by the Imperial German Army Air Service (''Luftstreitkräfte'') during World War I. A modified licence model was built by Oeffag for the Austro-Hungarian Air Service ( ''Luftfahrtruppen''). T ...

on 11 May 1917, and another on 5 June. On 18 June, he set an Albatros reconnaissance aircraft on fire; he described the combat in an article he wrote for a scouting magazine. His aggressive personality, that of a man capable of shooting at the enemy with a pistol if need be, shows in this excerpt: :...I make straight for the leader of their patrol.... I hear a faint pop, pop, pop and at the same time a number of small holes appear in my bottom planes. Jolly good shooting for he is still a 100 yards off.... I start turning, spinning, and diving away until I am behind him.... I get him in my sights.. Pop, pop, pop. About 20 rounds I fire at him.... A small light appears in his machine. Hurrah! he's on fire. I have hit his petrol tank. :Now the whole machine is a mass of flames. Down it crashes and flaming pieces fall off during the descent. Poor beggar! I hope a bullet hit him first: but it can't be helped.... :I watch him hit the ground, and turn to look for more Boche, but there is not a plane in the sky; so I point my machine home and am greeted by hand shakes and cheers. "Oh yes we saw the beggar go down in flames, so we came home." :"Anyone missing?" I ask. :"Oh yes, poor old C--- went down out of control." :"Ah well, I'm glad now that I got that blighter in flames," I reply.... Wood won four more times in June, bringing his tally to seven. He was promoted from second lieutenant to temporary lieutenant on 1 July 1917. He scored five more triumphs in that month. His thirteenth, and last, victory came on 9 August 1917, while he was on a final "joy ride". He was rotated home to No. 44 Squadron RFC in England two days later. Wood's final tally was one German aircraft set afire in midair, five more destroyed, and seven driven down out of control. Not counted in this total are five claims in which he drove down enemy aircraft.

List of aerial victories

Death and legacy

On 11 November 1917, he took off in one of two

Sopwith Camel The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the b ...

s tasked to practice dogfighting; Wood was still suffering from

influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptoms ...

contracted in France. His Camel dived into the ground for no apparent reason, killing him; it is surmised he fainted at the controls. Wood and his brother Second Lieutenant Edwin Leonard Wood (

KIA Kia Corporation, commonly known as Kia (, ; formerly known as Kyungsung Precision Industry and Kia Motors Corporation), is a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It is South Korea's second lar ...

26 September 1917) were the subject of a memoir, ''Two Soldier Boys''.

Honours and awards

;Military Cross :2nd Lt. Walter Bertram Wood, Hamp. R. and R.F.C. ::"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on many occasions, when engaged with hostile aircraft, during which he has shown a fine offensive spirit and the utmost fearlessness. He has had no less than twenty-three combats, in the course of which he has destroyed and driven down numerous enemy machines, frequently attacking several single-handed, and on one occasion fighting with his revolver when he had run short of gun ammunition." ;Bar to Military Cross :2nd Lt. Walter Bertram Wood, MC, Hamps. R. and R.F.C. ::"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in attacking enemy aircraft. On several occasions he has shown admirable dash and determination in attacking hostile machines single handed, destroying some and driving others down out of control. He has also displayed great daring in attacking enemy infantry and transport with machine-gun fire at very low altitudes, in spite of attacks by hostile aircraft whilst so engaged."

References