battle (1 July). Before the battle ended the British air service had established an ascendancy over the enemy which was never afterwards lost, and Ball was the spearhead of this achievement. But the strain told on him, and on 17 July he was wisely transferred to a two-seater squadron, No. 8. On 1 August he was promoted lieutenant, and on the 15th of the same month he was back with No. 11; the next day, on his Nieuport machine, he attacked five enemy aeroplanes, destroying one and forcing two down. On 22 August, his last day with No. 11 squadron, he flew into an enemy formation of twelve machines, crashed two of them, set fire to another, returned for ammunition, attacked fourteen more, ran out of petrol, landed just clear of the trenches, slept by his machine, and flew next morning to No. 60, his new squadron. His audacity and skill were remarkable. By the end of the month he was the leading Allied pilot, and on 1 September he destroyed four more enemy machines. He was promoted captain on 13 September.
Ball's extraordinary success had a heartening effect on the British infantry. When the Somme campaign ended, he was sent home to infuse his spirit and methods into flying officers in training. He was in England from 4 October 1916 until 7 April 1917, when he flew out with No. 56 squadron, arriving for the Arras offensive which opened on 9 April. His method now was to lead his patrol on S.E. 5 (scout experimental) machines and, in addition, to go out alone on his Nieuport. On 3 May he had destroyed thirty-eight enemy machines, one more than the record of the leading French airman, Georges Guynemer. On 5 May, after shooting down two Albatross scouts, he wrote home, describing his spare time, ‘1 dig in the garden and sing.’ Two days later, 7 May 1917, Ball made his last flight. The reports are conflicting. He flew into a formation led by the German airman, Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, fought three of the enemy, and, it would seem, sent two down before he himself was hit. He was buried at Annoeullin, east of La Bassée. His posthumous Victoria cross award (June 1917) credited him with a record of forty-three aeroplanes and one balloon destroyed and a large number sent down out of control. Ball was awarded the military cross (1916), the distinguished service order with two bars (1916), the croix de guerre and legion of honour (1917), and the Russian order of St. George, fourth class (1917).
Ball was a cheerful young soldier, of gentle manners and vigilant conscience. ‘I hate this killing business,’ he wrote; but he fought with an almost religious fervour. When he was flying his aeroplane was as much a part of him as were his sensitive hands. He was the greatest fighting pilot of the air service, and his personality has contributed much to its traditions of efficiency and self-sacrifice.
[W. A. Briscoe and H. R. Stannard, Captain Ball, V.C., 1918; official records; personal knowledge.]
BALL, Sir ROBERT STAWELL (1840-1913), astronomer and mathematician, was born at Dublin 1 July 1840, the eldest son of Robert Ball, LL.D. [q.v.], a clerk in Dublin Castle and a well-known naturalist, by his wife, Amelia Gresley Hellicar, of Bristol. He was educated at Tarvin Hall, near Chester, under Dr. J. Brindley, and in 1857 entered Trinity College, Dublin, shortly after the death of his father. In the course of a distinguished university career he gained a scholarship, the Lloyd exhibition, a university studentship and prizes in the fellowship examinations of three successive years (1863-1865). Between 1865 and 1867 he was tutor to the sons of the third Earl of Rosse [q.v.] at Birr Castle, Parsonstown, King’s county, and there he first came in contact with practical astronomy through making regular observations of nebulae with Lord Rosse’s celebrated six-foot reflector, then, and till long after, the largest in the world. After two years of this congenial work, Ball was appointed professor of applied mathematics and mechanism in the Royal College of Science, Dublin, which had recently been founded by government. He had a natural gift for teaching, and a notable feature of his instruction was the extensive use of experimental apparatus in mechanics, on a system derived from Robert Willis [q.v.]. His growing reputation at this time is attested by his election as a fellow of the Royal Society (1878).
Ball’s association with the Royal College of Science came to an end in 1874, and thereafter his life was filled by two astronomical appointments: first (1874-1892), as Andrews professor of astronomy in the university of Dublin and royal astronomer of Ireland, and secondly (1892-1913), as Lowndean professor of astronomy at Cambridge, in succession to John Couch Adams [q.v.]. During his earlier years at the Dunsink Observatory he was an energetic observer with the
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