A Fine Collection of Awards to the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force (Part II) 456
An outstanding Great War ace’s D.S.C. group of three awarded to Captain C. B. Ridley, Royal Air Force, late Royal Naval Air Service, who completed in excess of 200 operational sorties in Sopwith Triplanes and Camels of No. 1 Naval Squadron and No. 201 Squadron, a remarkable record that included at least 40 air-to-air combats and undoubtedly more “kills” than his official total of 11: moreover, he was renowned for his low-level strafing activities, once dropping to 10 feet to support our advancing troops - they waved and cheered him and the enemy fled in a ‘complete panic’
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1917, unnamed as issued; BRITISHWAR AND VICTORYMEDALS (Capt. C. B. Ridley, R.A.F.), good very fine (3)
£8000-10000 D.S.C. London Gazette 17 April 1918:
‘For distinguished services as a pilot and for courage in low-flying expeditions during which he attacked enemy trenches with machine-gun fire from a height of 30 feet. On 9 March 1918, he attacked a formation of enemy scouts, selecting one which was attacking one of our machines. The enemy aircraft dived down with a quantity of smoke issuing from it, but it appeared to flatten out at 2,000 feet and disappeared in the mist. He has previously destroyed several enemy machines, and has at all times led his flight with great skill and courage.’
Cyril Burfield Ridley, who was born in Esher, Surrey, in January 1895, was living in Toronto, Canada, at the time of the outbreak of hostilities. Subsequently commissioned as a Sub. Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service in June 1916, after qualifying for his aviator’s certificate (No. 2474) at Hendon earlier in the year, he was posted to Dover and thence to No. 1 Naval Squadron at Dunkirk, where he completed a number of fighter patrols and bomber escort sorties before the year’s end.
But it was not until April 1917 that he opened his account with a shared Albatros DIII over Villers les Cagnicourt on 29th and, as confirmed by accompanying extracts from squadron records, he was thereafter regularly engaged in combats, sharing in an Albatros DV east of Messines on 17 July, and claiming solo ‘kills’ of another Albatros DV near Ypres on 14 August, after ‘a very hot engagement with six enemy scouts’, and a DFW over Zillibeke on 10 September. Of this action, he wrote in his report:
‘One two-seater observed approaching our formation over Zillibeke at 16,000 feet at 5.05 p.m. On being observed it immediately dived east and I fired a short burst into it, whereupon it dived vertically and turned west, eventually appearing to flatten out at 1,000 feet over Ypres. I followed it down firing continuously at it from point-blank range until my gun jammed over the enemy trenches. The E.A. was last seen going down low over the trenches with puffs of smoke emitting from its engine. Following signal received from 1st Anzac Ground Observers: two-seater was driven down out of control by triplane.’
And as had been the case back in June, he fought many more inconclusive combats, including driving down an enemy scout to 900 feet over Wyschaete on 3 September, strikes being seen entering the fuselage and wings. Three days later, north of Lille, he shot-up an enemy kite balloon from point blank range with Buckingham ammunition, the enemy Observer taking to his parachute and Ridley being lucky to clear ‘very intense A.A. fire’ while climbing away from the target. Even so, the relevant combat report states only that ‘the balloon appeared to be hit (looked flabby) but did not catch fire’, though the true result of the combat might be reflected in an intriguing margin note: ‘Balls’.
Ridley was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and continued to add to his score on the unit converting to Camels, namely an Albatros DV near Passchendaele on 6 December, which plunged down vertically from 18,000 feet. He then returned to Dover, where he carried out home defence duties until mid-February 1918, including a night patrol over London. And back in France he shared an enemy kite balloon over Ypres on 12 March 1918 which, on coming down near Kemmel, was observed to be a decoy-balloon with a straw Observer.
His unit then having been re-titled No. 201 Squadron, R.A.F., that April, he added another balloon to his tally east of Boyelles on the 8th, this time the real thing with the enemy Observer taking to his parachute, followed by four further enemy aircraft in the period leading up to his appointment as a Flight Commander, these comprising a Pfalz DIII near Villers Brettoneaux, two Fokker Dr. Is over Albert and Pozieres in May, and finally a Fokker DVII over Foucaucourt on 4 July, which was seen to go down ‘completely out of control’.
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