While taking pictures of Bolshevik units, ground fire punched holes in the fuel tank of the DH.9A of Flight Lieutenant Walter Anderson (pilot) and observer officer John Mitchell.
When another DH.9A was forced down by the anti-aircraft fire, Anderson and Mitchell landed to pick up its crew, Captain William Elliot (later Air Chief Marshal) and Lieutenant Laidlaw.
[2] On 30th July, 1919, near Cherni Yar (Volga), these officers were pilot and observer respectively, on a D.H. 9 machine, which descended to an altitude of 1,000 feet to take oblique photographs of the enemy's position.
A second machine of the same flight which followed as escort was completely disabled by machine-gun fire and forced to land five miles behind the enemy's foremost troops.
Anderson, notwithstanding that his petrol tank had been pierced by a machine-gun bullet, landed alongside the wrecked aeroplane, picked up the pilot and observer, and got safely home.
The crash of the de Havilland D.H.86A was suspected to be caused by the radio operator getting his foot caught between the fire extinguisher and the second rudder bar.