Great War ace aviation pioneer Pilot Dudley Travers handwritten letter 1936 from Cairo regarding his travels. ...

Great War ace aviation pioneer Pilot Dudley Travers handwritten letter 1936 from Cairo regarding his travels. Captain Frederick Dudley Travers DFC was an English World War I flying ace credited with nine aerial victories. His later life saw his continued service to his nation in both the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and in civil aviation. He pioneered air routes into Africa, the Middle East, and India. Travers was almost an ace twice over in the first world war and has the impressive claim to fame of being the only ace flying the Bristol M1C monoplane, it was this fact which drew my attention to his story, as the Bristol was something of an underdog during the conflict, but all may not have been as it seemed. Born in York on the 15th of February 1897, Travers became interested, like so many do, in aviation during his school days peering through the fence at Hedon at the early aircraft of the time. Travers started his personal journey towards the air when he joined the Hertfordshire Yeomanry, part of the territorial force. On the first of January 1916, he graduated from the officer training corps with the rank of Second Lieutenant. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1917, and on the 17th of April he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. Flight training was carried out in Egypt and Travers went solo in just two and half hours! It is highly likely that Travers' training would have been carried out at the RFC training station of Aboukir, which was established in November 1916, this base was responsible not only for training British pilots, but also local cadets, gunners and observers. Photographs from Aboukir and the surrounding bases from the period show BE2 and Avro 504 aircraft as being commonplace so it is likely Travers would have trained on these. His first posting would be to 17 Squadron in Macedonia, part of No. 6 wing, which incorporated 17, 47 and 150 Squadrons. Here he initially flew the BE12, a single seat fighter version of the earlier BE2 observation aircraft, fitted with the same engine as the RE8. Travers' first victory came on the 19th of December 1917, flying a BE12, he forced an Albatros D. III out of control until it crashed. By May 1918 Travers had moved over to 150 squadron and the much improved RAF SE5a and, after months had passed since the first, he notched up two further kills that month, on the 15th and 18th respectively, the aircraft downed were an Albatros D. V and a DFW Reconnaissance aircraft. Both of these May Victories were shared. The D. V, shared with Gerald Gordon Bell and the DFW, with Ascheson Goulding. Ending the war with an impressive tally of 9 kills, Travers was given the temporary rank of flying officer on the 5th of December 1919, before moving onto an RAF reserve rank in 1922. He remained in this reserve role until 1940 achieving the rank of Flight Lieutenant. During the winter war years Travers kept flying in the Civilian world, becoming an air taxi pilot and on the 20th of February 1924 he was welcomed as a member of the Royal Aero Club. In 1926 he joined Imperial Airways, piloting their flying boats and pioneering their service to Egypt In the same year. As World War II arrived Travers continued with his Flying Boat career flying to and from West Africa and India, achieving 2 million air miles by 1942. In 1945 Travers performed the impressive task of ferrying a Shorts Sunderland down to Buenos Aires. On the 24th of March 1947 Travers carried out his last passenger carrying flight, arriving at Poole Harbour in the Shorts S. 26 Golden Hind flying boat, at the time the largest of its kind. It is fitting that this final flight, much like Travers first, began in Egypt. Good condition. All autographs come with a Certificate of Authenticity. We combine postage on multiple winning lots and can ship worldwide. UK postage from £5.99, EU from £7.99, Rest of World from £9.99