On August 26 1894, Arthur Henry Cobby was born at Prahran in Victoria. By the time World War One had broken out in 1914, he was in a reserved occupation at the Commonwealth bank in Melbourne. This irked Cobby somewhat, and after two years of trying he was finally allowed to join the AFC. He chose the AFC not from any desire to fly, but simply because he knew some of the earlier trainees, such as MacNamara (later to win a VC), and Murray Jones.

    His initial training was on Bristol Boxkites, and after six weeks of this, he and the rest of his intake were posted to England to complete their training on Avro 504 Ks and Sopwith Pups. On completion of his training he was posted to 68 (later 2) sqn AFC near Harlaxton to undergo operational training. Whilst there he crashed an Avro 504k and was hospitalised for three weeks. Upon being discharged from hospital he was posted to 71sqn (later 4sqn) AFC, and departed for France on December 18th 1917, to be based at Bruay flying Sopwith Camels.

    Cobby’s first operational flight occurred on January 9 1918. This involved escorting a photographic recconaisance flight over the lines, and was totally uneventful. The 13th however was a different story. Detailed to carry out an offensive sortie, Cobby was given the tail end position, and the admonition to stick to the leader at all costs. This worked until a trio of Albatross scouts dropped down and began to take shots at him. Unsure of what to do, Cobby tried to catch his leader who flew on obliviously. Then Cobby’s wingman began having engine troubles, and started to lose height. Cobby protected Willmott (his stricken wingman) as best he could until his flight leader returned. Willmott crashed and was taken prisoner, and Cobby learned a valuable lesson. February third opened Cobby’s score in another confused action.

    Following an aggressive flight leader, Arthur O’Hara Wood, Cobby and his wingman Tab Pflaum were having trouble keeping up, so when Wood dived on a pair of DFWs they were pleased to be released from this onerous task. Whilst Wood tackled one machine, Cobby tackled the other. As he was approaching from a dive, Cobby had picked up a lot of speed and found to his chagrin that he had not left enough time for setting up the shot. He subsequently shot hurriedly from a range of barely twenty feet, and only narrowly avoided colliding with the enemy machine. He half rolled and again attacked, this time making sure of his target but was disappointed to see it fly away. Finding himself alone in the sky, Cobby headed for home, and on the way met Palfium and Woods separately. Woods was obviously irate.

    Upon landing Woods tore strips off them and loudly disbelieved their tales of a scrap (Pflaum was also involved with another machine which he shot down). He finished by threatening to have them returned to England. It transpired however that all the fights had been witnessed by ground observers, and that all three enemy machines had in fact crashed.

    On May 14, Cobby was promoted to flight commander, and on June 17 led fifteen Camels on an offensive bombing patrol, and on its return he and New Zealander Fl Lt Watson split from the patrol to hunt up some action. After an hour of fruitless searching they found a formation of five Albatross scouts below them, and fell to attack. He and Watson took a machine each, the tail ender on either side of the ‘V’ in a fast diving pass. Cobby’s first burst collapsed his targets lower right wing, and as the machine fell the rest of the wing was torn off. Watson had set his opponent alight. By now, the leaders of the formation were returning to the attack and Cobby had time to successfully attack one more machine before he and Watson made off.

    Cobby had become known as an aggressive but cunning pilot by the time he was posted to England for operational training duties in September. He survived the war as Australia's highest scoring scout pilot, and after serving again during world war two, died on armistice day 1955.