Peter Connon records this incident in his superb book "In the Shadow of the Eagle's Wing, An Aeronautical History of the Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway Region, (Part 2, 1915 to 1930)". He states the incident was on 15th June 1915 and that this aircraft crashed on the water at Windermere and was damaged. The pilot survived. Researching the pilot named he doesn't appear to have been an officer in the RNAS in 1915. The date was probably 15th June 1916.
Pilot - FSL Paul Oliver Gadbois RNAS. Born Montreal, Canada.
Paul Gadbois was born on 24th May 1892 in Montreal, Canada. He may well have been initially trained to fly at the Wright Brothers Flying School in the USA. He received a commission to the rank of temporary Probationary Flight Sub-Lt in the RNAS on 19th January 1916 and was graded as Temporary Flight Sub-Lt on 29th February 1916. I would therefore suggest that if he was the pilot then the incident at Windermere must have happened after this date, ie not in 1915. He was awarded his Royal Aero Club aviator's certificate at the Northern Aircraft Company, Windermere on 14th June 1916. Flight Sub-Lt was defintely injured on/by 9th July 1916 as the details of this are given in Flight Magazine of the day and I would suggest that he was injured on 15th June 1916 (NOT 15th June 1915). He never properly recovered from these injuries and relinquished his appointment on 18th February 1918 "on account of ill-health contracted in the service". His son Jacques Gadbois served in the RCAF during WW2.
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