World War One, RAF. Second Lieutenant Laurence Harold Button...

Hammer

£120

World War One, RAF. Second Lieutenant Laurence Harold Button (1899-1921), pilot, 35 Squadron RAF, formerly of Beeston, Nottingham, [13]pp manuscript narrative: My doings while Prisoner of War, at the officers' PoW camp at Schloss Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, in which Button describes on the 9th August, 1918, at about 7pm, being 'over the front line. When I was attacked by 11 Hostile machine[s], [when] my Observer was wounded in the foot by the first burst, also my controls were shot away except my elevator control. I came down in a slow spiral, a strong west wind was blowing me further into enemy lines, also my engine was out of action. During the descent I was hit in the shoulders. I managed to land the bus, it crashed slightly. While on the ground I was wounded in the *** foot. Climbed out of the machine and gave myself up to some German Red Cross' etc., verso pastedown and leaf with pencil doodles, including aircraft parts and a hospital bed, the autograph account inscribed in a contemporary German notebook of cloth over marbled boards, along with three loosely-inserted transcripts of letters sent to Button's parents while he was missing (before being declared as wounded and a prisoner of war soon after) from Major K.F. Balmain, commanding officer of 35 Squadron, and Captain James E. Phillips, describing what they then knew of the Button's crash, pastedown of notebook with a later MS ownership inscription, 4to
Button, apart from during his wartime service, appears never to have left his native Nottingham, according to archival records: a resident of Beeston, he was schooled at Nottingham High School, before passing through the officer training corps at Nottingham University and being commissioned in the RAF in early 1918. Following his crash and incarceration, it was not until 29th January 1919 that he was repatriated, having been treated in hospital for some months. The fact that Button died two years later, in 1921, one can only surmise his crash and the resulting injuries irrevocably impaired his health.