Anthony Jacques Mantle Anthony Jacques Mantle DFC ( 17 December 1899 in London — 1988 in Durham ) was a pilot who joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1917 at the age of 17 . He went to France , Italy and later over Turkey . His flying career ended when he was forced to land behind enemy lines in Russia and was taken as a prisoner of war and held for 10 months in Moscow . He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross ( DFC ) in 1919 . His cousin , Jack Mantle , was a recipient of the Victoria Cross . Service history . Mantle volunteered for service with the Royal Naval Air Service ( RNAS ) in early 1917 , but this was merged with the Royal Flying Corps ( RFC ) on 1 April 1918 to form the world ' s first independent air force , the Royal Air Force . He was appointed second lieutenant on probation the day the RAF was formed . His service record indicates that from September 1916 to March 1917 he had been working as a broker ' s clerk at the firm of J Amis on Mincing Lane in the City of London . It is not clear where he was initially based , but in November 1917 he was posted to Greenwich , and then to Vendome in France on 8 February 1918 to the Royal Naval Air Service Training Establishment ( RNASTE ) airfield , ( known locally as the ' Camp de Poulines ' ) 5 km to the South of the town ( ) where he trained on the Curtiss JN - 4 , aka the ' Jenny ' . After just over a month in France , he was posted back to the United Kingdom on 23 March , going to RAF Cranwell . It seems it was then intended that he should join either 66 or 67 Wing based on the Adriatic , but it took some months to organise transport . Until transport was available , he was based at RAF Eastchurch . He departed in July 1918 . In October 66 Wing was renumbered 62 Wing . By 11 October he was on the island of Mudros . He was ordered back to England in December 1918 . He was attached to No . 222 Squadron and No . 226 Squadron during this period . Transport again seems to have been problematic , and by March 1919 , he was still in Malta , at Spinola Bay , San Ġiljan . Mantle was now offered the opportunity to see action on the Caspian Sea . He was stationed inland at Petrofska from April 1919 , where he flew the DH - 9A aircraft ( Dehavilland two seater biplanes ) , as part of the British movement to protect oil interests in Baku , Azerbaijan . While out on a raid over the Volga in , with his observer , Harry Ingrams , in August 1919 , their plane developed engine trouble and they were forced to crash land on a large island in the Volga Delta . They were unhurt and managed to burn the plane , but were ambushed shortly afterwards by an armed group of locals who took them prisoner . The local Commissar tore up the official documentation offering a reward for their safe return over the border and then organised for a local schoolteacher to act as translator as they were taken to Astrakhan for questioning . He was then taken by train to Moscow whereupon he spent several weeks in Lubyanka prison in the company of other allied prisoners before being moved to Bytereski Prison . Months later , after the work of an Army chaplain called Frank North , he and several of his companions were taken to the border with Finland and released in part exchange for Bolshevik prisoners . While prisoner , he was promoted flying officer on 7 December 1919 . He arrived in Finland on 31 March 1920 . He returned to the UK on a ship that docked at Southampton on 24 April 1920 . He was placed on the unemployed list and demobilised on 26 June 1920 .