Page 115 - They Also Served

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Euan Rabagliati 1912.
The son of an Italian political refugee,
Cuthbert Euan Charles Rabagliati was
born in Bradford on New Year’s Day,
1892. Educated at Bradford Grammar
School, he entered the Royal Military
College Sandhurst, as a gentleman
cadet and was commissioned into the
King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in
February 1912. After volunteering for
flying training, he obtained his Royal
Aero Club Aviator’s Certificate (779) in
May 1914 at Brooklands, one of the first
thousand people to learn to fly in the
country. He was then transferred to the newly formed RFC and was one of the first pilots to land in France, ten days after the declaration of war.
A few days later, on 25th August, Second Lieutenant C W Wilson, with Rabagliati acting as observer, took off from a grass strip at Le Cateau to drive off a German Taube reconnaissance aircraft. From a position below the enemy, Rabagliati loosed off over a hundred rounds from his .303 Lee-Enfield rifle as the Avro 504 aircraft pitched wildly in the turbulent air. Finally, the German pilot slumped in his machine, which glided to earth to be later captured by advancing British troops. Wilson and Rabagliati were credited with being the first RFC pilots to shoot down an enemy aircraft and were almost certainly the first pilots in the world to achieve the feat. In an interview for the 1964 television series on the Great War, he recounted how, soon afterwards, he was summoned by the commander-in-chief, Sir John French, and asked about what he could see from the air. When Rabagliati described large German formations on the move, French looked in disbelief at his staff, then changed the conversation to trivial technical details of the Avro. As he was bombarded with questions like, ‘Aren’t these machines dangerous?’ and ‘Aren’t they very cold?’ Rabagliati attempted to bring the field marshal back on track. However, French refused to believe first-hand evidence over the opinions of his staff.
Awarded an MiD soon afterwards and another in early 1915, he was awarded the MC in November before commanding a squadron and later a wing, finishing the war as a
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