Edward Carter Eaton (17 September 1898 – 26 June 1918) was a Canadian First World War

flying ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviation, military aviator credited with shooting down a certain minimum number of enemy aircraft during aerial combat; the exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ...

credited with five confirmed aerial victories.

Biography

Eaton was born in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Canada on 17 September 1898.The Aerodrome website page on Eato

Retrieved 20 September 2020 At the time of his enlistment on 11 August 1915, he gave his birth date as 1896. He was 5 feet 6 inches tall, with dark hair and hazel eyes.Attestation paper

Retrieved 20 September 20 Eaton served in France during late 1917 with

No. 65 Squadron RAF No. 65 Squadron was a flying squadron of the Royal Air Force, which formed in 1916. the squadron saw action in both the First and the Second World Wars, before being reformed as a Bloodhound unit in the 1960s. The squadron then became an Oper ...

as a

Sopwith Camel The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the b ...

pilot. In company with a couple of other British pilots, Eaton drove an

Albatros D.III The Albatros D.III was a biplane fighter aircraft used by the Imperial German Army Air Service () during World War I. A modified licensed version was built by Oeffag for the Austro-Hungarian Air Service (''Luftfahrtruppen''). The D.III was flown ...

down out of control on 23 November 1917 for his first aerial victory. On 4 January 1918, he sent an Albatros D.V down out of control over

Passendale Passendale () or Passchendaele ( , ; ) is a rural Belgian village in the Zonnebeke municipality of West Flanders province. It is close to the town of Ypres, situated on the hill ridge separating the historical wetlands of the Yser and Leie val ...

. His next two victories came when he and another British pilot destroyed another D.V on 16 February, and a Fokker Dr.1 triplane on 20 May. On 28 May, he drove down a German

Pfalz D.III The Pfalz D.III was a fighter aircraft used by the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' (Imperial German Air Service) during the First World War. The D.III was the first major original design from Pfalz Flugzeugwerke. Though generally considered inferior to co ...

out of control to become an ace.''Above the Trenches: a Complete Record of the Fighter Aces and Units of the British Empire Air Forces 1915-1920'', p. 146 On 26 June 1918, Eaton was involved in a

dogfight A dogfight, or dog fight, is an air combat manoeuvring, aerial battle between fighter aircraft that is conducted at close range. Modern terminology for air-to-air combat is air combat manoeuvring (ACM), which refers to tactical situations requir ...

, and was shot down and killed by Fritz Rumey. See also

Aerial victory standards of World War I During World War I, the national air services involved developed their own methods of assessing and assigning credit for aerial victories. For various reasons, all belligerents engaged in overclaiming aerial victories to a greater or lesser degre ...

Biography

References

Further reading