Rising from the Flanders Mud

A champion motorcyclist in British and overseas Endurance Trials at the outbreak of WW1, it was only natural that Graham Price would volunteer as a despatch rider in the British Army. Arriving in France with the British Expeditionary Force in October 1914, against all odds he survived all manner of dangers on the Western Front during the battles of Mons and Marne and later on the Flanders Fields at Ploegsteert and Hill 60. After months spent in trying to persuade his commanding officer to release him from his motorcycle duties, Graham was eventually offered a commission in the Royal Flying Corps and posted to 6 Squadron as an observer. In a few short months he not only mastered the art of aerial telegraphy used in artillery observation missions, he also became a crack shot with the Lewis machine gun and was promoted to the position of senior observer. Just weeks before he was due to return to England for pilot training, Graham Price's amazing career was cut short by a fateful encounter with an enemy Fokker scout. This is Graham Price's story - as told by him.