Responsible for destroying 1294 enemy aircraft between June 1917 and November 1918, the Camel was the most successful fighting scout employed by either side in terms of the sheer number of victories that it scored. A natural outgrowth of the Pup and Triplane, it gained its formidable combat performance at the cost of losing the earlier types’ faultless handling qualities. Indeed, the Camel was renowned for its sensitivity and need for skill and experience, and casualties amongst pilots undergoing training on the type were very high. More than 5490 examples were constructed, and it was used by a large number of frontline units on the Western Front, in Palestine, on the Italian front, in the Home Defence role in the UK and in Russia. At least two RFC pilots scored six victories in a single day with the fighter, and Canadian Roy Brown was flying a Camel when he claimed to have shot down Manfred von Richthofen on 21 April 1918.

Norman Franks is one of the world’s leading authorities on World War 1 fighter aviation, having published some of the seminal works on the subject. He is currently working on a long list of volumes on Great War aces for Osprey’s Aircraft of the Aces series.