FEATURES
During the second week of July 1918, 10 personnel were killed in seven days. Two Sopwith Camels spun into the ground, and an RE8 came over the airfield with the top wing on fire and crashed into the hangars.
Today’s ab initio pilots would see many similarities to those training in 1918… One of the instructors – Capt Palmer- flying a BE2C at Cranwell in 1918, after a modern day “Sector Recce” to Newark and Nottingham remarks in his logbook; “Landed four times, lunched at Hall”; and he recorded a 15 minute trip at 1,000ft as “Testing one of Watson’s pupils. Ok”. Yet “Testing a pupil for forced landings” from 1,200ft took 20 minutes!
From the pupils’ side, 2Lt JW Brown notes in his logbook, for a 40 minute local trip at 3,500ft for 8th July 1918;
“Very bumpy, was shown how to do loop, vertical turn and spinning nose dive and how to get out of them. I practised turns and glides but am inclined to be heavy on the rudder.”
1918 saw the significant introduction of WRNS (“Wrens” the female members of the Royal Navy) into the previously all male camp (apart from the sick bay nurses). Their main task was to drive senior RNAS and RFC officers. When the RAF was formed, the WRNS and the female members of the RFC, (known rather cumbersomely as “Lady Workers of the RFC”) formed the WRAF – Women’s Royal Air Force.
There was much animosity to the amalgamation of the RFC and RNAS to form the RAF on 1st April 1918. On Sir Godfrey Paine’s visit to Cranwell in June 1918 as Master General of Personnel, he alluded to this resentment when he spoke of the fact that the amalgamation didn’t amuse him as it meant that he had “to take off the dark blue coat he had worn for years”.
Sir Godfrey told his audience that the RAF uniform would be pale blue, but only when the dye difficulties had been overcome! He said to his new RAF audience that they must continue the war and remember that they are:
“…neither the Army nor the Navy; we’re the outcome of two excellent parents with magnificent traditions. AND I tell you that the RAF can and will be the finest force in this country.”
King George V and Queen Mary visited Cranwell on 11th April 1918. The Piloteer
www.raf-ff.org.uk Envoy Autumn 2014 27
for May 1918 reports that the weather was drizzling rain, a cold wind and low mists. The Piloteer also reported that the King was “especially delighted with the smartness of the blue Guard of Honour”. He sat in the pilot’s seat of a Handley Page and was shown various other aircraft including a captured German Albatross. He and Queen Mary were also taken to see the airships and a collection of aerial photographs; and to the workshops, to see the apprentices under training with their files, scribers, rulers and emery cloths.
The First Annual Sports Day at Cranwell was 30th July 1918, in glorious sunshine with a variety of events for all personnel. The judges were from the highest and lowest ranks, including Capt HRH Prince Albert, and Cranwell’s RAF Brass Band provided the music. It gave personnel the opportunity to socialise with all ranks; the boys finding it particularly strange to be socialising with NCOs and officers who actually cheered them on! The Sports Day closed with a concert on the parade ground given by the Station Concert Party and CPO Gibbon and the “Egbert Brothers” from London.
Life on the Station continued with amusing tales of “the usual earwig attacks in the dormitories” and jokes about the many rabbits on the station. There was plenty of sport and some team members were professionals. Prince Albert was an accomplished tennis player. Cranwell had a successful station cricket team. OC No 4 Boys Wing, Lt Col Barnaby, was a good batsman, scoring some good innings against teams from other stations and units and other Lincolnshire teams.
The social side of the Station for welfare purposes was also encouraged throughout these years. Indoor recreation, including concerts, dancing, billiards and the rifle club were controlled by the Central Sports Committee. They also had the Cranwell Station Brass Band and Concert Orchestra. An account in The Piloteer for November 1917, of a concert given by the Cranwell Orchestra states that the climax of the 1812 Overture was “a little too much for a hall the size of the gymnasium”! One’s mind boggles….real fireworks inside the gym perhaps…?
On November 11th 1918, the signing of the Armistice turned men’s thoughts to discharge. Although flying training and Boys training continued as usual, the instructors (practically all ex-RNAS personnel and serving for the “Duration of War”) had either been demobilised or were awaiting demobilisation, so training was cut to a minimum.
RAFC Cranwell has come a long way from 1915, with improved technology, accommodation and no earwigs! However, the ethos and traditions that began with CPO Whitlock finding some quiet Lincolnshire farmland in wartime rural Britain are still very much with us today. So next time you are walking around the Station, take time to consider those who walked there before you… on soil that was known as… HMS Daedalus.
“One moonlit night, my parents heard a funny noise. When they went out to look they saw a German Zeppelin flying over. Evidently the Germans had heard about Cranwell and had come over to look. No bombs were dropped.”
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