Collingwood’s war

Collingwood was a Compass Officer in the Royal Flying Corps. His diaries cover the Germans’ secret retreat to the Hindenburg line in early 1917, 'Bloodty April' 1917 when so many planes were destroyed and pilots killed, , the fierce spring battles of 1918 when the War seemed all but lost, the final advance to victory and the joy of liberated people. In these desperate times, he never lost his passion for birds. His diaries are full of his exquisite pencil sketches of landscapes, people and, of course, the birds.

His work servicing the compasses took him to almost all of the many aerodromes in the countryside of north-east France and some in Belgium. Constantly travelling between them, he was able to say that he had 'traversed almost every lane and road to the front line trenches’. It was the ideal job for studying the birds behind the lines. Is it possible he somehow planned it!

Aerodromes visited by Collingwood in the course

of his work on the compasses