Gavin Alexander Porter was on 'Old Contemptible' who joined the Royal Field Artillery pre-war in London while studying for a degree in 'electricity' through the University College of London. His interest in his studies soon waned and he was commissioned through the university Officer Training Corps in May 1913.
With the outbreak of war Gavin Porter became a rare Australian member of the British Army in France in 1914, an ‘Old Contemptible’ taking part in the retreat from Mons. From the Battle of Le Cateau on 26th of August 1914 to stopping the German army in the Battle of the Marne and then through to his unit, 68 Battery XIV Artillery Brigade, going to the Somme in October 1914.
After the Battle of the Marne, late in 1914, Gavin applied to be seconded to the Royal Flying Corps as an observer, which was approved that December. Thus, he was a very early Australian military aviator although not yet a pilot. However, he wasted little time in applying for pilot training and was off to Etampes, 50 kms south of Paris in early April 1915, to undertake basic training as a pilot at the Henri Farman Aviation School. On 29 April he proudly clambered down out of the cockpit of a Maurice Farman biplane having successfully completed his solo, a simple series of take-off, turns, straights, ascents, descents and, of course, a successful landing. He was duly issued Royal Aero Club Certificate No. 1907.
After more advanced training back in England, Gavin was assigned to the newly formed 13 Squadron at Gosport, Plymouth Harbour. The squadron flew the slow, steady observation aircraft, the BE2c.
Gavin flew across the English Channel to France on 19 October 1915 and his squadron was soon thrust into battle. Losses were not long in coming. Captain Marks and his observer 2nd Lt Will Lawrence, brother of Lawrence of Arabia, were killed on 23rd of October. Another pilot and observer were shot down on 11 November in a disastrous multi-squadron raid on a German airfield.
With Flight Commander Captain Cecil Marks being killed, Lt Gavin Porter took over as Flight Commander temporarily. His promotion to Acting Captain and Flight Commander was officially gazetted mid 1916 as being from 17 November 1915. But, Gavin’s tenure as Flight Commander was to be a brief one.
Two BE2s were detailed to undertake a photographic reconnaissance near Bapaume on the Somme, France, on 5th of December 1916. Tasmanian-born pilot 2nd Lt Arthur Richard Howe Browne and his observer AM1 (Airman 1st Class) William Henry Cox and Gavn Porter and his observer AM1 Henry Kirkbride in their favourite aircraft, BE2c 4092 took off just after 1 pm. Both aircraft were intercepted by German Fokker Eindeckers. Browne and Cox were shot down after a one-on-one battle with Leutnant Gustav Leffers, Browne being hit and the FE2 divng out of control to crash near Bapaume.
This was Leffers' first victory, he went on to score seven more. He was shot down and killed 27 December 1916.
As the demise of Browne and Cox unfolded, Gavin Porter’s BE2 was attacked by Oberleutnant Ernst Von Althaus who went on to destroy nine aircraft and was awarded four decorations including the Orden Pour le Merite and Iron Cross 1st and 2nd classes. Both attacks took place at 2 pm and a message later dropped by the Germans into the British front lines clarified what had taken place: With regard to the BE4092 and other aircraft brought down after a violent fight in the air. The pilots and observers, 4. Met with an honourable flying man’s death and were buried yesterday with all military honours. There is some contradiction in records and accounts as to whether Gavin Porter was killed on 5 December or died the following day of wounds. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission date is 5 December 1916 and this is the date on his headstone.
A funeral with full military honours was held on the Tuesday at Havrincourt, but the Germans expressly banned the attendance of the local French people. In defiance of the Germans many of the local French both attended the funeral and daily tended the graves of the four 13 Squadron airmen until all villagers were evacuated when Havrincourt was overtaken by the front-line battles.
Gavin Porter and Arthur Browne were the first Australian-born airmen killed in air-to-air combat. Browne was born in Tasmania in 1894 but, with the failure of his father’s mining interests, had left Australia as a young child of around five years old and had lived in Reigate, South of London. Three other Australian WW1 airmen had lost their lives before this date, these being: Lt Basil Drummond Ash RNAS, died 30 September 1914, lost over the Noth Sea, Major George Hebden Raleigh, 4 Squadron RFC, died 20 January 1915 in an aircraft accident and Lt George Pinnock Merz, Half Flight AFC, died 30 July 1915, attacked and killed in combat by hostile Arabs. None of these three were lost in aerial combat.
Gavin Porter, an Australian ‘Old Contemptible’ and early WW1 aviator, had thus achieved an unwanted ‘first’ in Australian aviation. He was the first Australian killed in air-to-air combat.
Along with fellow 13 Squadron pilot Arthur Browne, and observers William Cox and Henry Kirkbride, Gavin Porter now lies in Achiet-le Grand Communal Cemetery Extension, four kilometres northwest of Bapaume, on the Somme. He is in Section IV, Row O, Plot 4, a few metres from the Grand Cross. His Commonwealth War Graves Commission records note that his epitaph reads, An Australian One of the Old Contemptibles, the wording requested by his parents.
John Stackhouse