225939 Capt. Edwin Stuart Travis Cole RFC No.1 Sqn from:Bristol Edwin Stuart Travis Cole, the son of Reuben and Jessie Cole, was from Bristol and trained as a mechanical engineer. After taking flying lessons privately at Hendon and obtaining his pilot’s licence he joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 as 2nd Lieutenant and was posted to 60 Squadron. He scored his first victory flying a Nieuport scout, but was then transferred to 1 Squadron.
On the morning of the 17th May he was part of a patrol of 4 Nieuport scouts of 1 Squadron when, at 12,000 feet somewhere east of Ypres they attacked a formation of 4 German Albatross scouts.
Cole wrote in a letter to his parents:
“The day before yesterday ... I did a long patrol before breakfast & nothing special happened, at 9.45 we had a long reconnaissance & at the end of this as we were crossing the lines I spotted a brilliantly red coloured machine with three other machines with him on our side of the trenches, all of us dived on them & a general scrap followed. The Capt. Brought one down but he managed to get back to hunland before crashing, in turn Capt was shot down by one of the hun, shots going right through his petrol tank. He came down in a spin but managed to right her before hitting the ground. Two more of our patrol were shot down & it left another pilot and myself to do our best, the other fellow was splendid & put up a splendid show. However after scrapping for some time two of the huns managed to get away & it left me with one fellow. He had a wonderful machine & the finest flyer I have been up against. We each tried to better the other from 12,000 to 800 ft & when we got near the ground I managed to get in some good shots & down he came, burst into flames just before hitting the ground & the machine went vertically into a pond. I landed in a field next to him & rushed over, thousands of tommies & people were watching & a cheer went up from all of them. However we got the poor fellow out the doctor found him with 5 shots through the heart so there was no chance for him It was all frightfully exciting. Fortunately I did not have a shot in my machine. The hun machine has been brought to the aerodrome & it belongs to their crack squadron & is the very latest type and most beautifully fitted up.†(Source: 'Airfields and Airmen: Ypres' By Michael O'Connor, Casemate Publishers, 23 Dec 2008]
Cole’s victim was Alexander Kutscher of Jasper 28.
Cole scored six more victories with 1 Squadron in only 6 weeks during the period known as Bloody April when the Germans had air superiority with more advanced aircraft. On 1 May 1917, he and fellow pilot Frank Sharpe captured a German Albatros D.III fighter at Roulers-Elverdinghe, and he received promotion to lieutenant the same day. Following this, Cole was withdrawn from action and returned to England as an instructor. In July 1918 he was promoted to the rank of Captain. At the close of hostilities he resigned from the RAF, but served again in World War 2.
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