One day however I was flying over the country some ten miles from the ‘drome when I decided it was time to go home. The plane however decided that it did not wish to get back to the hanger and kept swinging off the home straight, with the result that I would find myself away from the landing ground when I should have been over it. By this time it was getting dusk, and as nighty flying was at that time virtually unknown, I decided to come down in the nearest field. My attempt to do this wasn't very successful when I was about 40ft up I found myself at the end of the field instead of at the beginning and looming up in front was a nice row of high trees. I opened up the throttle with the idea of getting up for another attempt, but the result was rather disastrous, I left one of the bottom wings in the tree, swerved sideways with the engine full on and nose down and the next thing I knew I had hit the ground a hell of a wallop, the engine doing a complete loop and making its bed in the front seat. Nearly every bit of the machine was matchwood up to where I was sitting. That must have been my lucky day - it was the 13th. However, someone must have been looking after me as I was virtually unscathed. When people came running over to me. I was sitting on a fence smoking a cigarette. The whole thing is the unsolved mystery why it did not burst into flames. When the damage was assessed the parts to be retained by the squadron was one tail skid.