The
man believed to be the last fighter pilot from World War I has
died in Toronto, Canada, aged 106.
As a 20-year-old bank clerk, Henry Botterell joined the Royal
Naval Air Service in 1916.
Botterell crashed on his second flight in 1917 after engine failure.
Discharged because of his injuries, he re-enlisted six months
later and joined No. 208 Squadron, RAF.
He served in France from May to November in 1918. Flying a Sopwith
Camel, he shot down a German observation balloon near Arras on
August 29, 1918.
The ex-Flight Lieutenant returned from the war with a souvenir
fence post he had caught in his wing on a low-level sortie. He
flew Sopwiths (Pup, Camel and Snipe), an RE8, SE5, a Grahame White
and a Maurice Farman.
