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W
ING
C
OMMANDER
L
OUIS
S
TRANGE
, D.S.O., O.B.E., M.C., D.F.C., B
RONZE
S
TAR
M
EDAL
(U.S.)
Louis Strange (O.S.E.) was one of the best known pilots of the Great War. Prior to the war he was a cross-country racing and stunt pilot and was once
alleged
to have flown
his by-plane between the School’s Chapel tower and the Main Buildings! When war broke out he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Dorsetshire Regiment on
attachment to the Royal Flying Corps, with whom he served throughout the war. In August 1914, despite horrendous weather, he flew his Farman aircraft to Mauberge in
France with No. 5 Squadron, the first such operational British unit of the war. He was not only a very capable pilot but also an innovator of both the mounting of machine
guns and of bombing techniques which soon became standard in the R.F.C. In May 1915 Strange had an extraordinary escape (shown above) which became national news.
By the end of the war he had many ‘kills’ to his credit and was a Lieutenant-Colonel. His younger pilot brother Gilbert (also O.S.E.) was shot down and killed in 1918.