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As the Nieuport 17 is coming along well, I thought I might try and build a third kit for this GB, the HR Model Nieuport 10, in the "France and Early RNAS" boxing. The name of the boxing is something of a misnomer, as it includes only one RNAS option amid a sea of French (and one American) markings. The RNAS 'plane, 3964, is distinguished by its retention of the French wing roundels, with British-style ones on the fuselage only. The aircraft I'll be building earned a measure of fame (and a DSO for the pilot, Flight Commander Lt. Reginald Bone) on March 19, 1916, when it forced down a Friedrichshaffen FF33 seaplane that had bombed Deal as part of a larger raid of six seaplanes which killed four children driving to a Sunday School class, along with ten adult civilians. The damaged seaplane, along with its injured crew was later towed by the Germans back to Zeebrugge. Writing after the war, Bone commented: "[T]his was the first time that any British aircraft had made contact with a raiding German aircraft...the authorities were so glad to have a Communique [at the time, the Coalition government was under heavy pressure from the right-wing MP and founder of Supermarine Noel Pemberton Billing over their conduct of the air war] that they awarded me an immediate DSO, which I probably did not deserve." Bone was something of a public hero after this, and his photograph made the front page of the Daily Mirror. In his subsequent career, he served as a test pilot, in the Aegean, and, transferring to the newly formed RAF as a Wing Commander, in Russia first leading the RAF contingent on HMS Nairana, and then the RAF portion of Syrenforce, the British mission in Murmansk. In the interwar period, Bone had several run-ins with T.E. "Of Arabia" Lawrence, first when Lawrence tried to enlist under an assumed name, and latterly when Lawrence served under him as an enlisted man at the RAF depot at Dringh Road in India. It is safe to say the two men did not get on, with Lawrence writing to his friend Air-Vice Marshall Geoffrey Salmond, then AOC-India about Bone in unflattering terms; depending on who one chooses to believe, Bone did or did not deserve this. In any case, Bone managed to rise to Group Captaincy regardless, becoming Air Attache in Paris (and identifying the bodies in the wreckage of R101) in 1930. He retired from the RAF in 1934. From 1939-1941, he was station commander at RAF Pembroke Dock, the large flying boat base; appropriate, as he had first served on flying boats in 1914 onboard HMS Empress. After 1941, he retired to Birmingham, serving as RAF Liaison to Civil Defence and marrying the widow of an ARP Warden. Postwar, he worked for Lucas Engineering on jet propulsion, and died in 1972. I'll try and get some pictures up tonight.
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