Walter Kember

At the outbreak of WWI, Walter was at the University of Liverpool studying for a Licentiate in Dental Surgery, but he immediately volunteered and joined his local Territorial Battalion, the 7th King's Liverpool Regiment. He was sent to France 08/03/1915 and suffered flesh wounds to his legs on the first day of the Battle of Festubert on 16/05/1915. He recovered in a London hospital and was then selected for officer cadet training, eventually being gazetted as a second lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in July 1917, and had been with number 6 Squadron, which was operating out of Abeele, only a matter of days when he was killed. He was flying as a gunner/observer with Second Lieutenant John Bristo Culley Madge the pilot, in an RE8 (known as a Harry Tate), number B782. They took off at 5.30am on 01/09/1917 to fly a sortie to Polygon Woods, east of Ypres and were shot down at about 7.50am, the weather was low cloud and rain with bright intervals. Observers on the ground saw their plane being attacked and begin its long spin to the ground at Zonnebeke, near Polygon Wood. A crew of no 4 Squadron also reported seeing this attack and watched the plane go down in a spin before losing it to ground mist. Madge was shot in the back and lost consciousness, waking up several days later in a German hospital. Walter was killed, becoming the Red baron's 60th victim. Von Richthofen was flying a Fokker F1 No 102/17; it was not red. In his combat report he wrote: ‘Flying my triplane for the first time, I attacked, together with four of my gentlemen, a very boldly flown artillery-reconnaissance aircraft. I approached and fired 20 shots from a distance of 50 metres, whereupon the adversary fell out of control and crashed this side, near Zonnebecke. Apparently the opponent had taken me for an English triplane, because the observer in the machine stood upright without making a move for his machine gun'. The only aircraft at the time known to have three wings, was the British Navy Sopwith Tri; Walter had no knowledge of the new Fokker Tri prototype. Von Richthofen was on his first mission with his new aircraft (delivered on 21st August), leading four of his ‘gentlemen' of Jasta 11. When Walter stood up to wave, one of Richthofen's 20 shots killed him, making him the Red Baron's 60th victim. Richthofen had a history of collecting 2" high silver trophies for his victories with 4" high ones for every tenth victory, these were made by a Berlin jeweller which detailed the number of the victory, the aircraft model, number of occupants and the date. Walter's was the last such trophy he had made due to a lack of precious metals. This account of Walter's death was confirmed by the report of the interview when Madge was released from the PoW camp in 1919 Inscription: Royal Flying Corps

• Updated from Find A Grave Memorial via brother Guy Kember by SmartCopy: Mar 22 2015, 20:38:57 UTC