Song of the Camel Pilot

DESCRIPTION: "The Camel is a noble bird, Complete with wings and hump, It flies about like any scout And then comes down with a bump." It shoots down Germans. The Navy launches bombing raids, but the Camels have to fly around to guard them
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1967 (Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook)
KEYWORDS: pilot technology
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook, pp. 43-44, "Song of the Camel Pilot" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "O Where O Where Has My Little Dog Gone" (tune) and references there
NOTES [225 words]: The "Camel" of this song is surely the Sopwith Camel, perhaps the leading British fighter plane of World War I. Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, Dictionary of the First World War, 1995 (I use the 2003 Pen & Sword paperback), p. 442, give this description:
"Celebrated and successful British biplane fighter developed from the Sopwith Pup and in full service with the RFC on the Western Front from July 1917. Designed in late 1916 to cope with twin-gunned German Albatros D-types, it was the first British fighter equipped with two synchronized forward machine guns, and its name was derived from their hump-like casing. A difficult machine to fly, tending to spin out of control during the tight turns that were its specialty, the Camel was never popular with inexperienced pilots and caused many training deaths. In skilled hands, its exceptional agility and good rate of climb combined to make it a formidable weapon, and it was used by many Allied Aces.... Camels eventually shot down 1,294 hostile aircraft."
We see much of this reflected in the song: the Camel has "wings and hump," it fights enemy Albatroses, it has two big fixed wheels, and it lands (or crashes) with a bump.
For another song about the Camel, see "The Last Lay of the Sopwith Camel Pilot." It is also mentioned in "Ten Little Albatri" and "Every Little While." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: WJL043

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