Wallet 1 of 1 - Papers of Laurence Henry Smith, c.1924

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Accession Number AWM2020.22.108
Collection number 2DRL/0229
Collection type Digitised Collection
Record type Wallet
Item count 1
Object type Letter
Physical description 16 Image/s captured
Maker Smith, Laurence Henry
Place made Australia, Germany: Berlin
Date made c.1924
Conflict Period 1920-1929
First World War, 1914-1918
Copying Provisions Digital format and content protected by copyright.
Source credit to This item has been digitised with funding provided by Commonwealth Government.
Description

Collection relating to the First World War service of 2383 Lieutenant Laurence Henry Smith, Australian Flying Corps, Middle East, 1915-1918.

Wallet 1 of 1 - The collection consists of two documents. The first document contains the particulars of service and recollections of Lieutenant Smith. Smith recalls when he was shot down, that it was believed that he and the pilot had both died because his aircraft fell approximately 1000 feet; and that their families were advised as such.

Smith records food shortages, meeting General Liman von Sanders in Aleppo before being moved to a prisoner of war camp at Afyonkarahisar. He discusses contracting malaria and dysentery, and describes his treatment when Turkish doctors believed that Smith had tuberculosis, the paralysis of his legs, and his treatment with the help of an Indian trooper who administered him massages. Smith also records meeting with Cedric Waters Hill, an Australian officer with the Royal Flying Corps who was captured and escaped from Yozgad prisoner of war camp, and whose story is recounted by his co-escapee Elias Henry Jones in the publication “The Road to En-dor”. Smith mentions that they embarked for Egypt together on the HMHS “Kanowna” and also describes a chance conversation with Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence in Damascus.

The second document in the collection is a typed letter written to Smith from Victor Haefner, the pilot who had shot down Smith’s plane, dated May 1924. Haefner reminisces about his experiences as a pilot during the war, his forced landing by Bristol Fighters, the defeat of the German army on the Western Front, and the death of his two brothers shortly before the Armistice. Haefner is also critical of the social unrest in Germany at the time. Haefner was arrested later that year and sentenced to 5 years in prison for espionage against Germany. An anti-fascist activist, Haefner left Germany for Paris c. 1933 during the Nazi Party's rise to power, and then left Paris for England with the outbreak of the Second World War. His name appears in the “Sonderfahndungsliste G.B.”, the Schutzstaffel’s Black Book.