Ben Travers

I have just had a listen to the Desert Island Discs programme from BBC Radio 4’s DID Archive. He is of course a well known British playwright from the 20th Century, and particularly for his wonderful farces.

But I was most interested to hear him say he was an aircrew member in the Royal Navy Air Service during the First World War. And he was responsible for dropping the first ever torpedo from a land-based aeroplane. He and his pilot also tried to attack the first Zeppelin that raided London in 1915, he was armed with only a rifle and they could not climb as high as the airship. The flight ended in them crashing, his worst of eight crashes in his flying career.

I looked up Wikipedia and it stayes he was a pilot in the RNAS and continued to serve in the Royal Air Force as a Major, and after WWI was sent to Russia when the British were involved in their intervention into the Russian Civil War. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1920.

Rather interesting to discover this history. I have enjoyed many times listening to a BBC Radio adaptation of Mischief over the years but never knew much about Travers till now.