Three incidents I am finding difficult to pin dates to apparently relate to one pilot, and all my information comes from other people rather than directly from contempary documentation. He was apparently involved in three flying accidents in three days at Marske in Summer 1918.
Incident 1 : ditched an aeroplane eighty yards off shore also at Marske after his engine had failed.
Incident 2 : engine failed on a flight over sea just off the Redcar coast, the pilot managed to make it back to land but the wheels of the aeroplane failed to clear sand dunes causing it to crash and overturn close to the beach at Marske. Pilot sustained a broken nose and injured his knee.
Incident 3 : crashed into a house at Marske after the engine again failed soon after take off.
The pilot was later famous for being the author of the Biggles series of books. He apparently served at Marske between 1st April 1918 and 20th July 1918 but his service record is unavilable to confirm this. Whether these three incidents actually occurred is open to question. Have they been invented? Perhaps he did not believe I would be researching and questioning everything. I would welcome some proper information. To ditch an aeroplane would write it off and there should be a record of this. To crash into a house should have sustained enough damage to also write that off and a record would exist. In addition, if he sustained injuries then the RAF Museum's "Vault" archive should list the incident and a casualty card should exist. The flying unit changed it's name from No.4 (Auxillary) School of Aerial Gunnery to No.2 School of Aerial Fighting and Gunnery to No.2 Fighting School during this date period.
Pilot (Instructor) - 2Lt William Earl Johns RAF. Broken nose and injured knee.
William Earl Johns was born on 5th February 1893 in Bengeo, Hertfordshire. While working in Swaffham, Norfolk he enlisted into the King's Own Royal Regiment (Norfolk Yeomanry) in 1913 and later fought in Gallipoli in 1915, he transferred to the Machine Gun Corps in 1916 and served in Greece but contracted malaria. After recovering he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and received a commission in September 1917 and was posted back to England for pilot training. He was later posted to Redcar on 1st April 1918 until 20th July 1918. In August 1918 he was posted to France but was shot down after only six weeks of operational flying on 16th September 1918 and was made a PoW when 55 Squadron DH.4 B1133 was shot down. Post-War he remained in the RAF until 1927. He is most famous for being the authur of the "Biggles" series of adventure books about a pilot's adventures. He died on 21st June 1968.