LEST WE FORGET
Lieutenant Charles Henry MARTIN
Service No: 6144
Born: Port Melbourne VIC, 1 April 1894
Enlisted in the Army: 7 February 1916
Unit: No. 4 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps
Died: Air Operations, France, 17 February 1918, Aged 23 Years
Buried: Unrecovered
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Charles Henry and Louisa Rose Martin, of 271 Graham Street, Port Melbourne, Victoria
Place of Association: Port Melbourne VIC
Remembered: Arras Flying Services Memorial, Pas de Calais, France
Remembered: Panel 188, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
On February 17th patrols from No. 4 Squadron, led by O’Hara Wood and Flockart (1), met small enemy formations near Lille in short fights. In the engagement of Flockart’s formation Lieutenant F. S. Woolhouse fired a hundred rounds from both his guns at point-blank range into a German two-seater, which went down out of control. Lieutenant C.H. Martin was lost; his machine (2), while flying unmolested, was seen suddenly to break in pieces in the air, probably hit full by a shell. Such a mishap was sufficiently rare to mark as extraordinary the fact that, not two hours previously in the same afternoon, a similar fate befell a machine (3) of No. 3 Squadron over the Messines Ridge (Lieutenants Henry Streeter and Francis Joseph Tarrant).
(1) Captain. Derwent Pearce Flockart; Electrical Engineer; of Melbourne; born Casterton VIC, 3 September 1894
(2) Sopwith Camel aircraft B5207
(3) RE8 aircraft C5043
Extract from Cutlack, F.M. (Frederic Morley) The Australian Flying Corps in the Western and Eastern Theatres of War 1914-8, Angus and Robertson Ltd Sydney, 1941 – Page 217
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record B2455, MARTIN C H
National Archives RAF Casualty Book AIR 1/969 page 2, 183293
Bibliography:
Richards, E.J. (Edward John) Australian Airmen: History of the 4th Squadron, publisher unknown, c1919