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In a letter about his first flight, published by his alma mater, Ellis described the experience.<\/p>\n
“I was not so excited as one would expect after all the tales told by old flyers to new ones,” he wrote.<\/p>\n
“It was pride \u2013 real pride \u2013 that I felt when I gave my Lewis gun a final inspection and test, and the old RAF engine showed its test revolutions, and away we went.”<\/p>\n
He wrote of the awe of being in the air, tracing No Man’s Land from above before being reminded of the battlegrounds below.<\/p>\n
His account captured the mix of terror, adrenaline and stillness that came with flight, along with near misses and moments of unintended trespass.<\/p>\n
“Orders are orders, but fools are fools and always will be so,” Ellis wrote.<\/p>\n
“So ended my first flight \u2013 but not David Ellis.”<\/p>\n
After the war, Ellis retrained in London as a dentist, practising for a decade before returning to Australia. He eventually settled back in Geelong, where he married and started a family.<\/p>\n
More than a century on, those memories are still being passed down.<\/p>\n
Ellis is one of thousands of servicemen who will be commemorated across the country on Anzac Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAVID Ellis has spent a lifetime remembering his uncle, a man who shared his name and served in the first world war. More than a century after enlisting in the Australian Army, his nephew is still telling the story of the life and service that shaped their family. Raised in Bannockburn, Ellis attended Geelong College […]<\/p>\n