Centennial of Royal Air Force and end of World War I highlighted at EAA AirVenture

OSHKOSH – Arnold Roseland was commanding a squadron of half a dozen Royal Air Force Spitfires in the skies over France a month after the D-Day invasion when he saw Luftwaffe planes below.

He told his fellow pilots he was dropping down to take a look and would meet them back above the clouds. They were the last words his mates heard him speak.

Roseland pointed his Spitfire down and was soon in a battle for his life with five German planes.

It’s fairly rare to see a Spitfire fly in the United States since the workhorse of the Royal Air Force, which helped defend Britain during World War II, is more commonly found in England.

But there are Spitfires at EAA AirVenture this week to help celebrate the centennial of the Royal Air Force. Among them is a beautiful aircraft that gives Ron Roseland-Barnes chills when he sees it in the air.

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The recently built replica Spitfire features the same markings as the aircraft his father flew in dozens of missions in Europe. Standing next to the Spitfire parked Monday afternoon at the edge of Boeing Plaza, Roseland-Barnes related the incredible last moments of his father.

With his Spitfire heavily damaged, the 28-year-old Canadian flight lieutenant stayed at the controls when he saw his burning plane was headed toward a farmhouse in the town of St. Martin-de-Mailloc in Normandy. When the plane cleared the farmhouse, Roseland slid open the canopy, crawled out onto the wing and pulled his ripcord. But the parachute snagged on the tail and when the plane crashed, Roseland was catapulted forward and died.

Several residents witnessed his last moments, including a young man who would grow up to one day become the mayor of the town. Townsfolk were so appreciative of Roseland’s heroics they erected a statue to the British pilot on the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Roseland-Barnes was 9 months old back in Canada when his father died, and his mother, who remarried, rarely talked about him. He didn’t know anything about his father’s last mission until 1999 when residents of the Normandy community tracked him down and invited him to visit, showing him and his family the spot where his dad died, his grave site and the farmhouse where 22 people had sought refuge and survived because of his actions.

“The whole town was there. It was just amazing and very emotional for me,” said Roseland-Barnes, who lives in Oakville, Ontario.

The Royal Air Force was formed on April 1, 1918, with the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service.

AirVenture, which kicked off the weeklong aviation convention Monday, is also honoring the centennial of the end of World War I. A rare collection of replica and vintage World War I planes are parked next to each other near the vintage aircraft area on the sprawling grounds.

The World War I encampment includes a Sopwith Camel, Airco DH.4, Albatros, Sopwith Pup and a Fokker D.VII.

Ogling the planes was Gary Jubin of Green Bay who flew his 1943 Stearman to EAA AirVenture. Jubin, whose father was a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot during World War II, marveled at the airspeed indicator attached to an end strut of the biplane of a Fokker D.VII with camouflage paint on the wings. Now airspeed indicators are inside cockpits, but during World War I, many of the flight instruments were on the outside of planes.

Standing next to a Fokker D.VII painted red with "Lo" in honor of the pilot's girlfriend Lola, Jubin said: “Germany had to surrender all of these at the end of the war.”

Eric Presten brought his replica 1909 Bleriot XI, a French-built single-seat plane used by both the French and English as an observation aircraft to take photos of the trenches.

Though Presten lives in Sonoma, California, he keeps his plane in Brodhead  because it’s cheaper and because the Bleriot XI needs a long grass runway to take off and land and there’s only one such runway in California. The Bleriot is not easy to fly, said Presten, and can only be taken up in calm conditions.

Bleriot XIs were flying before World War I started, so it was one of the first planes put into production for the war effort and used by both French and British pilots.

Presten flew a Bleriot XI in a 2009 movie about Amelia Earhart featuring actress Hilary Swank.

“The first plane Amelia Earhart ever saw was a Bleriot XI and it was Clyde Cessna’s,” said Presten. “After flying one in the movie, I wanted one for myself.”