PROLOGUE
When Captain Thomas Colvill Jones opened fire from his Bristol Fighter plane on his first German opponent and brought him down, a legend was born in British aviation history and in the Argentine Republic.
The memory of his exploits survived the passage of time. A wooden box kept this well-guarded history in a home in Hurlingham, Buenos Aires: the letters sent from the war front by Tommy Colvill Jones and his brother Robert.
On reading these pages, I immediately felt the magic of the story, the adrenalin of combat, the loneliness on high, flying above the clouds in arctic winds, the incipient mystery of flight, the brotherhood of pilots making hand signals whenever they detected an enemy plane, flying down from the sun, attempting to bring down one of them, Tommy’s excited breathing on looking back and seeing his gunner with his body hanging out of the plane 2000 meters above ground, opening fire on an enemy prey, the pain on seeing a fellow pilot falling in a flaming dervish dance lasting only a few seconds, his thoughts in the face of these tragedies, imagining that this would not happen to him, or fearing he would be the next…
During the air battles of the Great War the first Argentine Ace came into being: Thomas Colvill Jones. Like him, there were many other courageous Argentines: Alexander Beck, Augusto Lezica Hutchinson, Bertram Smith, Eduardo Olivero, Tommy Traill, Vicente Almonacid, and others who were forgotten in the mists of time, after receiving the honours awarded to them when they returned to Argentina.
Tommy and Robert Colvill Jones were forgotten. Across the decades, only their immediate family kept alive the small flame of their heroic deeds, not allowing it to be extinguished.
An Argentine veteran of the RAF in WWII made a comment which I will never forget: ‘In life there are two types of people, those who fight for freedom or for an ideal, and those who enjoy the freedom and the fruits of that ideal.’
This story brings to life and documents in unique fashion the courage of those young Argentine heroes who gave their lives as knights of the air, pioneers in aviation and air combat as told by the author – a great-niece of the Colvill Jones brothers.
My hope is that this book will be enjoyed by all those who love military aviation history and those who wish to learn the story of those young men who stood out for their bravery. Their exploits merit a place in history. Lorraine Colvill Jones delved into the lives of her forebears and conveys us with them above the trenches and into the dangerous skies of the Great War.
Claudio Gustavo Meunier, Bahía Blanca, Argentina