"Rock Star" Harry Butler

ruwoltjon
Apr 4
3 min read

Captain Harry Butler, AFC, was a national hero in the early 1920s ; Harry Butler was even a "rock star" of his time, a magnificent man in his flying machine, a pioneering aviator who changed SA forever.

Hailed as a top aviator, his legacy continues to this day, yet he has been largely forgotten.

Harry Butler returned from war with two aircraft and dreams of starting an industry. With his little crimson monoplane, Red Devil, Captain Butler inspired many thousands as he performed aerial shows in support of Peace Loan efforts. He made the first airmail crossing over a significant body of water in the Southern Hemisphere.

Below: Business partner Engineer H.A. (Harry) Kauper and Captain Harry Butler in front of the Bristol monoplane the 'Red Devil'

Harry Butler showed his enthusiasm and aptitude for mechanics by building models of primitive aircraft while still at school in Koolywurtie (York Peninsula); he later accorded farm-work a lower priority than collaboration with a neighbour and lifelong mentor S. C. Crawford in building and flying one of Australia's early aeroplanes.

Among the February 1915 candidates, Butler alone gained entrance as an aeromechanic to the Australian Flying School at Point Cook, Victoria.

Harry financed his own way to England.

There his skills in the air, and as a mechanic and leader, were quickly recognised and he soon found himself training young pilots for their inevitable dogfights.

Bristol F.2B biplane piloted by pioneering Australian aviator Captain Harry Butler while on an anti-submarine patrol off the coast of Scotland in late 1917 or 1918

Harry at War

Commissioned three weeks after joining the Royal Flying Corps in 1916, he became fighting-instructor at Turnberry, Scotland, in 1917, and chief fighting-instructor at No. 2 Yorkshire School of Aerial Fighting in 1918.

“The trainers were extremely important because they were losing so many people,” Navy Captain Les Parsons said. “Of the 14,000 airmen killed, 8500 died in training, so it was pretty important to get the right training.”

Harry became a fight instructor at the School of Aerial Gunnery, Turnberry, Scotland (where he did the first airmail from Glasgow to Turnberry), and Chief Fighting Instructor at the Yorkshire School of Aerial Fighting, training around 2,700 pilots with the Royal Flying Corps.

He also helped to protect the UK through home defence sorties, chasing German planes that dropped bombs on Ramsgate and German zeppelins that had made their way over the English Channel.

Captain Harry Butler with a R.F.C. FE2b aircraft at Turnberry, Scotland; note the dark "pusher" propellor behind the pilot's cockpit (is that snow?) Captain Butler was fighting-instructor at the Royal Flying Corps School of Aerial Gunnery and Fighting at Turnberry. — Captain Harry Butler with a R.F.C. FE2b aircraft at Turnberry, Scotland; note the dark "pusher" propellor behind the pilot's cockpit (is that snow?) Captain Butler was *fighting-instructor* at the Royal Flying Corps School of Aerial Gunnery and Fighting at Turnberry.

He was mentioned in despatches for his operational service (linked to his part in capturing a German submarine) and received the Air Force Cross for his contribution to pilot training and the war effort.

He alternated teaching with studying German aerial combat tactics over France, and he received the Air Force Cross in 1918.

''What is the secret of a successful air fighter? Tell me that."

'Luck, pluck, and ability. You've got to have all three or something happens. You got into a tight corner, but, if your turn hasn't come, Providence brings you out safely. That's all about it.

I always say the whole thing is controlled by Providence — He does the guiding.

You want some sort of feeling like that when you are up from 15,000 to 18,000 ft., and some times as high as 20,000 ft.— because these were the altitudes we began fighting in about the middle of 1917— and a mob of Huns catches sight of you.

The Germans never attacked if they saw the odds were against them, but a British flier would go up single-handed and tackle a heap of them.