DVD containing 162 high resolution scans ( 1200 Dpi ) , produced from an original WWI photograph album . In addition I have also scanned those album pages which have captions .

Album belonged to Australian Royal Flying Corps pilot Lt. George Thomas Burkett MC .Who served with 20 Squadron RFC & later RAF .

Within the album there are circa 80 photos of aircraft and plenty of the men , several of whom are identified by name , including ace Captain H.C. Satchell .

There are nice photos of the men at Exeter College , Oxford University . Skating on a frozen Port Meadow Oxford . Circa 80 photos of planes , at different  airfields and lots of photos of uniformed men .

Planes include Quite a few of Fe2d's , Airco DH4's , DH9's , Bristol scouts , BE12 , Handley Page bombers , Be2 , Sopwith camels ..scarce photo of Vickers E.S.1 ( only 3 ever built ) .

One photo shows a plane in very fancy camoflage .

Condition of photos is generally good , there are many excellent images , but please bear in mind these are now over 100 years old and therefore some are far from perfect . This is a collection of photos which will appeal to the serious WWI avaition enthusiast .

 listing images are very low resolution .

Please note .Discs to not work in TV DVD players ..They work in PCs & Laptops . For those without the means to play discs I can also do wetransfer .

Some background information .

George Thomas W. “Tom” Burkett, Lewis’s pilot in the momentous action of 27 July 1917, was gazetted for his M.C. on the very same day as his gallant Observer:

‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. With his patrol he engaged a superior force of enemy machines, and although wounded early in the engagement, continued to fight. He brought down two hostile machines and drove off two more whilst returning to our lines with his own machine badly damaged. In spite of this, however, he succeeded in making a good landing. He displayed splendid dash and coolness under very trying circumstances.’

From Lewis’s correspondence it is possible to chart Burkett’s path of recovery from a base hospital in France back to London Hospital No. 3 at Wandsworth - ‘Burkett seems to be doing well, his wound was quite slight really’. As stated above, at some point during his hospitalisation he was visited by Lewis’s sister, Charlotte, a meeting that led to their marriage. Burkett died in Cumberland in 1952.

In mid-July Lewis “paired up” with an Australian pilot, 2nd Lieutenant “Tom” Burkett, and on the 20th of the month they were forced to return early from their patrol ‘owing to being affected by an A.A. gas shell’.

Then on 27 July 1917, having lured a force of Albatros DVs into action over Menin, Burkett and Lewis achieved two confirmed victories, but not without cost, their own aircraft being damaged and both men wounded, Lewis severely. As recounted in his M.C. citation, he had displayed extraordinary bravery, continuing to fire his gun while lying down on his back. So, too, Burkett, who managed to ward off the attention of two more enemy scouts and bring home their crippled aircraft to an emergency landing at No. 1 Squadron’s aerodrome, where it was seen to be ‘badly shot about’. So was Lewis, who was fortunate to be attended to by a Doctor within two hours - ‘There’s no phosphorous in the wound now, the Doc. got it all out while it was smoking’.

Lewis wrote to his mother two days later to tell her that he had ‘got a Blighty one in the left leg in what was probably the great air battle of the war’. But as it transpired, his condition was far worse than his reported ‘I am going on alright’, even though he had written to her in resolute terms on 2 August:

‘It is in the left leg on the inside of the knee, the bones are not broken but are chipped a bit and being in a joint it will be a difficult and slow job to heal, and it is unlikely that I shall be able to bend the leg properly again, so shall always have a stiff leg I suppose. Well that is better than having no leg ... ’

Tragically, however, as revealed by an official telegram home on 24 September, he was indeed about to suffer the loss of his infected leg: ‘Regret amputation considered necessary. Doctor hopeful’. On the following day it was reported that his operation had been completed successfully and his condition was ‘favourable’, while some three weeks later he was still ‘seriously ill but improved’, but by 24 October he was well enough to be evacuated home in the hospital ship St. George, aboard which he endured ‘a very rough passage’. Packed-off to Lady Northcliffe’s Hospital in Grosvenor Crescent, London, he wrote to his mother on the 27th:

‘Dear old Lord French came here yesterday and shook hands with us all. He was very concerned and sympathetic about my leg but I assured him it didn’t worry me at all, as the false limbs are so good nowadays and they had saved my life in taking it off ...’

In the interim, of course, Lewis had discovered that he was to be awarded the M.C. - ‘I was awfully surprised and really don’t see what we did more than anyone else would have done ... I am supposed to be addressed “M.C.” after my name on letters’ - news that clearly thrilled his family and friends, but ‘I wish people didn’t make such a fuss about an M.C. Really, I shall soon be too nervous to come home if I’ve got to face what they say in their letters’. Later still, he reflected upon the injustices of the honours system: