As the Dardanelles campaign drew to a controversial — and, for the Allies, ignominious — conclusion, a newly fledged Royal Naval Air Service pilot, Flt Sub-Lt Francis Donald Holden Bremner, went to war for the first time. Nicknamed ‘Bunnie’ after the way he wrinkled his nose, the Cambridge mathematics graduate had been interested in aviation since he was at school, and put his name forward to serve as aircrew. Following basic training at Chingford, Essex, he was posted to No 2 Wing, RNAS, stationed on the south-eastern corner of the Greek administered island of Imbros, in the north of the Aegean. It operated many different aircraft types, and it was in a Voisin, on only his seventh sortie, that Bremner came face-to-face with the dangers. On 8 January 1916, spotting for HMS Earl of Peterborough’s guns during naval attacks on Turkish forces prior to the Allied evacuation, he was shot down by a Fokker ‘Eindecker’. There was no option but to land on the Dardanelles peninsula itself, where the Turks fired high-explosive shells at the stricken machine. ‘Bunnie’ escaped unscathed, taking the penultimate boat engaged in the evacuation and returning to his unit.
Having spent 10 days off flying, on the 18th…
