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Thomas Mottershead was born in Widnes Lancashire on the 17th January 1892 one of a family of 10. He studied engineering and had been apprenticed as a fitter and turner in Widnes. On the 10th February 1914 he married Lilian Bree living togeher in Market Street Widnes. In the Summer of 1914 he moved south to find employment as a motor mechanic at Andover. He enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps on the 10th August 1914 as an Air Mechanic serving at the Central Flying School at Upavon.
The Royal Flying Corps was constituted on the 13th April 1912 as an adjunct of ground forces with a basic duty of reconnaissance and observation with a view to supporting the infantry and artillery. Aerial combat developed because the enemy wanted to stop such activities. The first experiments in bombing were in 1912 Aircrew just dropping bombs over the side onto targets. The first RFC squadrons crossed to France on the 13th August 1914.
Thomas Mottershead was promoted to Corporal in September 1915 and Sergeant in April 1916. In May 1916 he began Pilot training and qualified as a pilot in June 1916 being posted to the Central Flying School as an instructor and then in July 1916 he went to France, to the Pilots' Pool at St. Omer and was then on the 6th July 1916 posted to No. 25 Squadron.
He was then 24 years of age, married to Lilian Medlicott Mottershead and with a baby son, Sidney Thomas Motteshead.
No. 25 Squadron was on the 1st July 1916 in I Brigade 10th Army Wing based at Lozinghem flying F E 2s. Lozinghem is some 7 miles South West of Bethune.
The F.E.2 series of aircraft were produced by the Royal Aircraft Factory having is origin in the Farman Experimental aircraft designed by the Farman brothers in France. The F.E.2 was of the pusher-type engine layout with the engine (and the fuel tank) at the rear of the aircraft with the gunner/observer in the forward cockpit with excellent views and the pilot in the rear cockpit with also good vision all around due to his lofty position and the strut and wire framework of the aircraft assisting. The F.E. 2d was powered by a 250 hp Rolls Royce engine, had a .303 Lewis machine gun firing forward on a swivelling mount; later a further Lewis machine gun was mounted to fire backwards over the top wing. Both of these guns were operated by the gunner/observer who had to stand in the front cockpit to operate the rear firing gun. By mid 1915 a new CFS bombsight had been adopted by the RFC and was in its original form used on the Western Front until the end of 1916. This was used by the gunner/observer.
The bombing of the enemy communications and centres in the north during the whole time that the Somme battles were being fought was the main activity of the Royal Flying Corps and was most intense in 1st Brigades area, particularly on junctions, billets,and dumps along the railways radiating from Lille southwards to Lens, Douai, Cambrai and Valenciennes.
In the course of the Battle of the Somme Sergeant Mottershead was engaged in a low level bombing raid on a German anti-aircraft battery which he successfully destroyed.
On the morning of the 17th September, 12 of the 17 F.E.2s from 25 Squadron dropped 112–lb. and 20–lb. bombs and destroyed sheds and trucks, and set fire to the station buildings and blew up parts of the railway line at Douai.
On the next big railway raid made on the morning of 22nd September 1916 great damage was inflicted on the junction at Somain midway between Douai and Valenciennes. Somain is some 9 miles East of Douai where the railway continues to the East to Valenciennes with a branch line running South to Cambrai. Again 112-lb. and 20-lb. bombs were dropped by Numbers 25, 16 and 10 Squadrons which flew over in two formations at half an hours interval. Two trains in the station caught fire and blew to pieces in a succession of explosions and the station buildings and rolling-stock were left burning. The trains which exploded were hit from 1,500 feet by three pilots of No. 25 Squadron, one of whom was hit by an anti-aircraft shell and was forced to land. Four German aeroplanes attacked the British Squadrons; one of them was shot down and crashed and the others withdrew after two of them were damaged.
Sergeant Mottershead on the 22nd September 1916 with 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Street as observer took part in the bombing of the railway station at Somain destroying an ammunition train by bombing it from about 1500 feet, then enabling 2nd Lieutenant Street to straff a second train in the station. While climbing away from the target their aircraft was attacked by a Fokker scout. His skilful manoeuvring enabled 2nd Lieutenant Street to shoot the enemy plane down. For this action he was awarded the D.C.M. and the citation in the London Gazette records; “For conspicuous gallantry when on a bombing raid. He dived down to 1,500 feet, blew up one ammunition train with bombs, and attacked another with machine gun fire. On rising he was attacked by a “Fokker” from behind, but by skilful and daring manoeuvring he enabled his observer to destroy it by fire.”
Later and with fellow Lancastrian Sergeant Sidney Attwater also piloting an FE 2 the pair were on patrol reconnoitring a German airfield. Sergeant Mottershead pointed down and signalled to Attwater to follow; Mottershead went down to land on the airfield and he and his observer began to open fire at the hangars so Sidney Attwater with his observer joined them and also began firing their guns at the hangars. With one on fire Sergeant Attwater pointed up and both pilots took off and returned to base where they were threatened with court martial for using up all their tracer ammunition!
Thomas Mottershead was then promoted to Flight Sergeant and transferred to No. 20 Squadron at Clairmarais north-east of St. Omer.
In the early morning of the 7th January 1917 Sergeant Mottershead was on patrol in FE – 2d No. A39 with Lieutenant W E Gower as Observer when they were attacked by two Albatross D III of Jasta 8. When attacked their aircraft was at about 9,000 feet over Ploegsteert Wood. Lieutenant Gower managed to hit one and put it out of action but the second Albatross flown by German ace Leutnant Walter Gottsch hit Mottershead’s aircraft, and pierced the petrol tank so setting the machine on fire. Lieutenant Gower was unable to subdue the flames enveloping the aircraft but played a fire extinguisher on Mottershead’s clothing particularly at the back where his seat was by the engine and the fuel tank.. Although badly burned Sergeant Mottershead was able to take the aircraft back to the Allied lines, so manoeuvring the aircraft to try and keep the flames away from Lieutenant Gower, and made a successful forced landing even turning the aircraft up-wind. The undercarriage collapsed on touching the ground however throwing the observer clear but pinning Sergeant Mottershead in the cockpit. He was rescued by the injured Lieutenant Gower and a number of British soldiers who had run to the crash site and taken to one of the hospitals in Bailleul with serious burns to his hands and legs but the gravest were those to his back where the fire had burned the cockpit, his flying jacket and clothing. On the 11th January Sidney Attwater visited him. When a kite balloon was seen falling in flames in the distance Thomas Mottershead got out of bed and with his pal watched the burning balloon until a nurse came in and made him get back to bed. He died the next day, 12th January 1917, from the burns which were too extensive for him to have survived.
The attack was witnessed by Lieutenant Colonel Rowland Feilding commanding the 6th Battalion of the Connaught Rangers, part of 47th Brigade, 16th (Irish) Division. In War Letters to a Wife on the 8th January 1917 he wrote to his wife “I must reopen my letter to tell you of a sight I saw yesterday. The experiences of my own battalion had driven it out of my mind I was in the fire-trench examining the destruction caused by the bombardment of the early morning when one of our aeroplanes flew overhead, very low, engaged (as I have since learnt) upon reconnaissance work on my behalf. The enemy of course opened upon it with the usual “Archie” fire. In fact, it was the latter that drew my attention to what was happening, because several “duds” fell close enough to me to be uncomfortable. I looked up and saw a German aeroplane swoop down upon our man. Then there was a fusillade of machine-gun fire between the two. Then our man’s petrol tank was hit and took fire, and the machine became a long streak of streaming flame, making for home, and earth. Every second I thought it must collapse. It seemed impossible that either pilot or observer could be alive, or that the engine could be working. But the rush through the air kept the flames from the canvas, and the aeroplane flew on. It was an inspiring sight; a magnificent fight between man and death, in which the man won – for the time being. After a long slanting flight the aeroplane came to ground a mile or more behind our line. I sent an officer to the spot. Though I could have sworn the occupants were dead they were not. The aeroplane was a crumpled, shapeless mass, the fire having engulfed it the moment it settled, but both were alive, though one was so severely burned that he is not likely to recover.”
Thomas Mottershead was the one severely burned.
Rowland Fielding’s letters at this time were written from Facing Messines-Wytschaete Ridge (Cooker Farm). Prior to the Battle of Wijtschaete – Messines Ridge 7th June 1917 the Field Companies of the Royal Engineers attached to the Ulster Division (Divisional Boundary approximately on the line of Peckham Crater and south of the 16th Divisional boundary) had large stores and equipment dumps at Daylight Corner now Hoophof junctions of the N331 and a minor road from the East of Dranouter about 2 kilometres North of Nieuwkerke. From this point a small trench tramway ran to the southern end of the Ulster’s Division's Front passing Tea Farm and Cooker Farm, with a branch south to Shamus Farm. In January 1917 the mid point of the 16th Division’s frontage was Spanbroekmolen. The 6th Battalion was in a position some 500 yards from the German line near some skeleton buildings known as Shamus Farm. The British front line ran from north to south and in the 6th Battalion's sector was to the East of the copse with what is now R.E. Military Cemetery at its southern end, alongside the Wytschaete - Wulverghem road. The Battalion's area was centred on Strong Point 6, approximately where Kingsway tramline came up to the fire trenches, a position just to the north of R.E. cemetery and south west from the hamlet of Kruisstraathoek. Near S.P. 6 was the mineshaft for the mines that were blown on the 7th June 1917 forming what are now the three Kruisstraat Craters, being on the German front line in January and June 1917. The distance between the front lines was 400 to 500 yards. The sector being held by the 6th Battalion was about 5000 yards North West of Ploegsteert Wood. Shamus Farm buildings contained reserves of ammunition, smoke candles and smoke bombs and when on the morning of the 7th January 1917 the German artillery shelled the area these buildings were set on fire. Colonel Feilding had been at the scene until the early hours of the 8th January and that was when examining the destruction caused by the bombardment on the 7th January he saw the F E 2 on fire. Thomas Mottershead was then probably flying in a North Westerly direction from Ploegsteert Wood to land in fields in the area about half a mile from the British front line,to the west of R. E. Farm Cemetery, Wystchaete and the east of the Stuiverbeek.
Sergeant Thomas Mottershead was awarded the Victoria Cross. An extract from the London Gazette dated 9th February 1917 records “For most conspicuous bravery, endurance and skill, when attacked at an altitude of 9,000 feet; the petrol tank was pierced and the machine set on fire. Enveloped in flames, which his Observer Lt. Gower was unable to subdue, this very gallant soldier succeeded in bringing his aeroplane back to our lines and though he made a successful landing, the machine collapsed on touching the ground, pinning him beneath the wreckage from which he was subsequently rescued. Though suffering extreme torture from burns Sergeant Mottershead showed the most conspicuous presence of mind in the careful selection of a landing place, and his wonderful endurance and fortitude undoubtedly saved the life of his Observer. He has since succumbed to his injuries.”
The investiture was made to his widow Lilian Mottershead on the 2nd June 1917 and at the same ceremony Lieutenant Gower received the Military Cross for his great coolness on the 7th January 1917.
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