The Battle Below: Being the History of No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps
By H. N. Wrigley, DFC, AFC. Edited by Peter Chapman. Australian Society of WW1 Aero Historians, 2026.
First published in Sydney in 1935 and out of print for most of the years since, The Battle Below is Wing Commander H. N. Wrigley's history of No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, on the Western Front. The Australian Society of WW1 Aero Historians has now reset the text, with corrections, and reissued it in paperback and hardback.
The squadron
No. 3 Squadron AFC arrived in France in September 1917. It flew the Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 in the corps-reconnaissance role: artillery observation, photography, contact patrols with the infantry, and counter-battery work. The job meant flying low and slow over the lines, in an aircraft built for endurance and stability rather than fight, while German scouts hunted from above.
Among the episodes the book covers:
- The events of 21 April 1918 near Vaux-sur-Somme, when Manfred von Richthofen's Fokker Dr.I came down in the squadron's area. No. 3 Squadron recovered the body and the aircraft, identified Richthofen, and gave him a full military funeral. Wrigley records the squadron's part in the recovery; the question of who fired the fatal round – Captain Roy Brown of 209 Squadron RAF or Australian ground gunners – he leaves where the evidence leaves it.
- The squadron's work at the Battle of Hamel on 4 July 1918, including low flying over the start line to mask the noise of the advancing tanks.
- Trials in mid-1918 of dropping ammunition by parachute to forward infantry, an early experiment in aerial resupply.
- Combats in which R.E.8 crews – outclassed on paper – held their own against Albatros and Halberstadt scouts. In June 1918 a squadron crew forced a Halberstadt down inside Australian lines.
The author
Henry Neilson Wrigley flew with No. 3 Squadron AFC and commanded it on the Western Front. After the war he made the first trans-Australian flight, in 1919, and went on to a long career in the Royal Australian Air Force, retiring as Air Vice-Marshal. His later writing on army co-operation flying drew directly on the squadron's work in 1917–1918, and shaped early RAAF doctrine on the use of aircraft with land forces.
For aviation historians and students of the AFC, The Battle Below is a primary source written by a participant who was also a careful record-keeper.
What the book contains
The text follows the squadron from formation, through training in England, to operations in France and Belgium, and on to demobilisation. Alongside the narrative, Wrigley's appendices record:
- Nominal rolls of officers and other ranks
- Casualty lists, decorations, and honours
- Aerodromes occupied
- Hours flown, photographs taken, area mapped, rounds fired, bombs dropped
- Enemy aircraft accounted for, and the squadron's own losses
- Maps of the Somme, Flanders, and the Hindenburg Line, and photographs taken on the squadron's own cameras, are reproduced from the 1935 edition.
About this edition
The text has been reset, with only minor corrections to the original — primarily to spelling errors and names where appropriate, in light of more recent research. The original appendices, maps, and photographs are retained.
The Society is indebted to Gordon Clarke for many of these corrections, and for additional names of men who served with the squadron, drawn from his ongoing research into No. 3 Squadron.
Edited by Peter Chapman. Members of the Society who assisted with the revision include the late Gordon Lasslett, Gordon Clarke, Bernard de Broglio, Des Sheehan, and Gareth Morgan.
Order
Available from Lulu Press in two formats: