So this was it. The last day of training in a (relatively) safe environment, with no-one wishing you harm, and no one shooting at you from the ground or the air.
The last day at Hursley Park/Worthy Down was evidently something of a recap, with a shoot (complete with ground strips) and zone calls being rehearsed. Not a bad thing, either.
Last log book entry during training
Date: 27.5.18
Hour: –
Machine type and No.: RE 6650
Passenger: –
Time: 1 hr 15 m
Height: 3000
Course: Shoot. Gr. Str. & Zonecalls
Remarks: Successful
On his penultimate flying day at Hursley Park/Worthy Down, Greg is in intensive training for his work with the artillery on the Western Front. Two shoots today, one marred by a dodgy engine (a problem that would be recurrent on active service) and the other recorded as successful.
Log book entry
Date: 26.5.18
Hour: 9.45
Machine type and No.: RE 4479
Passenger: –
Time: 35 m
Height: 2000
Course: Shoot
Remarks: Engine missing badly
Date: 26.5.18
Hour: 10.45
Machine type and No.: RE 4529
Passenger: –
Time: 1 hr 15 m
Height: 3000
Course: Shoot
Remarks: Successful
In his last three days of flying from Worthy Down while training at Hursley Park, Greg has another shoot:
Log book entry
Date: 25.5.18
Hour: 4.15
Machine type and No.: RE 6650
Passenger: –
Time: 1 hr 0 m
Height: 3000
Course: Shoot
Remarks: Successful
The timing, although late in the day at 4:15 pm, was early enough to avoid the murky weather moving in from the west by evening:
Met Office weather charts for morning and evening of 25 May 1918. Click for larger image. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0
But this time the flight was longer, with the sortie lasting more like the 2-3 hours that would be typical for a shoot in Greg’s squadron on the Western Front. Greg would have been flying in figure-of-eight patterns, as suggested in the SS 131 booklet “Co-operation of Aircraft with Artillery”, Revised Edition, as issued by the General Staff in December 1917:
Figure-of-eight circuits flown when observing a shoot. The points ‘G’ are when the aircraft signals ‘Fire’. The battery’s ground aerial is laid parallel to the ‘corrections’ leg.
And as a coda, there was some reconnaissance to end the day.
With ground transport being arranged from Hursley Park to the aerodrome at Worthy Down, Greg took to the air again in an RE8 to practice aerial firing and photography with the Artillery & Infantry Co-operation School.
Date: 16.5.18
Hour: 11.0
Machine type and No.: RE 6616
Passenger: –
Time: 30 m
Height: 1500
Course: Aerodrome
Remarks: Aerial firing (150 rounds)
Date: 16.5.18
Hour: 1.45
Machine type and No.: RE 2472
Passenger: –
Time: 1 hr 5 m
Height: 2500
Course: Photography
Remarks: Camera jambed after 8th plate
Date: 16.5.18
Hour: 3.40
Machine type and No.: RE 2472
Passenger: –
Time: 1 hr 0 m
Height: 3500
Course: Photography
Remarks: Eighteen plates exposed. Successful.
Second time lucky with the camera.
And at the end of the day it was back in the transport to Hursley Park:
From Hursley Park to Worthy Down and back at the end of the day. Click or tap for a larger, zoomable image. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Greg’s next recorded flight would be on Tuesday 21 May 1918.
Popham panels were first mentioned in a post for 5 April 1918. They were the possible subject of a hard-to-read log book entry while Greg was at Yatesbury:
To recap, Popham panels, or T-signalling panels, were a means of ground-to-air communication. They were introduced towards the end of the war. Their use was principally by the infantry, as an alternative to the 12′ x 1′ “ground strips” used by the artillery to make up letters and symbols. I would guess that the ground strips were more favoured by airmen as they were larger and easier to see. But the smaller size of Popham panels would have made them much more practical for infantry use.
Instruction in Popham panel reading was certainly undertaken at Hursley Park. Dave Key’s post for 11 May 2018 on The History of Hursley Park website shows a course paper (the third image of the post) that refers to the following.
2. Lecture Popham panel & its use. Procedure of mess-
ages Battn. & Bde. H.Q. & message dropping.
Message pads & tracings-Flares - Final
Report & Interview
Greg may have attended a lecture like this, perhaps on a non-flying day like today.
And when it came to the…
6. Practical. Popham Panel Reading
…then this is how it would have looked from the ground:
Greg’s pilot’s log book doesn’t contain any indication of Popham panel practical work at Hursley Park/Worthy Down. Maybe he just didn’t record it, or perhaps he was already specialised in the ‘ground-strips-and-artillery’ stream.
The Artillery & Infantry Co-operation School at Hursley Park delivered tuition for airmen generally – observers and pilots – on Sundays as well as weekdays. By 1918, some of the roles originally conceived as for observers – including, fairly naturally one would think, artillery observation – had in fact transferred to the pilots. This left the observers free to concentrate on what became their principal role, which was defence of the aircraft, and in particular keeping a careful look out for hostile aircraft. Because of this fluidity in responsibilities, some of the instruction would have overlapped, with both pilots and observers benefiting from it.
Observers School
I’m indebted to Dave Key of the History of Hursley Park website for the following outline of instruction entitled “Observers School – Analysis of Programme” as delivered at Hursley Park.
“Observers School – Analysis of Programme”. Image credit: Dave Key
Although the text is somewhat hard to read, the following components of the course can be deciphered to varying degrees of certainty:
Commandants Lecture
Church
General Lecture (CFS [Central Flying School] Reconn.)
Reconnaissance
Contact Patrol
Art. Obs. [Artillery Observation]
[??]
Hostile Aircraft
Map[?] Reading
Elementary Gunnery
Photography[?]
See alsothe post dated yesterday (11 May 2018) on the History of Hursley Park website entitled “The best I think predominate“, which explains more about the operation of the Arty. & Inf. Co-op. School.
An alternative programme was scheduled in the event of bad weather, indicating that at least some of these components must have been practical rather than just classroom-based.
Church Parade
The reference to ‘Church’ shows that lectures continued on a Sunday, and indeed it was only in the previous month that Church Parade on Sundays had been reinstated, not least because of the enthusiasm of the recently arrived Chaplain, the Reverend G. W. R. Tobias RAF. We know this from a letter from Mr Tobias to his parents dated 14 April 1918 (transcript courtesy of Dave Key again). The following extract also shows the scale of operations at Hursley (“600 Flying Officers on a short final course”):
Royal Flying Corps,
Hursley Park Camp,
Nr Winchester
14/april/18
My dear dear Mother & Dad,
You will see above that I have been attached to the Royal Air Force. It’s Sunday evening I am scribbling this in the Mess Ante Room where a jolly American Officer is doing impromptu conjuring tricks with great skill & effect. He is a fine fellow & his patter & jests are extremely clever, topical & impromptu. I find it very hard to cease thinking of dear old Meyer for a moment. I can’t take up a paper or hear any discussion of the war without hoping & praying for the dear old fellow’s safety.
…
I arrived in the camp on Friday afternoon & have had a hurry time ever since. There are here some 600 Flying Officers on a short final course. Some 300 Air Mechanics 110 American ditto & 300 w.a.a.c.s (clerks, chauffeurs, cooks waitresses, mechanics etc.). There is a largish Hospital (Hutments) nearby which is just being taken over by the Americans. My predecessor devoted himself almost entirely to the Hospital & the w.a.a.c.s. The Flying Corps he abandoned in despair as the Officers are here for only about a month’s course & flying & Lectures go on on Sundays as on Weekdays. He had closed down the Camp Church completely. I got a batman & Church orderly in and appointed to me & got the Church cleaned out. I had an interview with the Colonel who quite agreed that lectures should cease from 10 to 11 on Sunday morning in order to allow of Church Parade. Everybody has been most kind & ready to help. I celebrated this morning at 6:30 in the Camp Church. At 8 at the Hospital & breakfasted with Matron afterwards. At 10 we had a fine Church Parade service, mostly Officers about 40 Waacs & 20 air mechanics. About 200 in all but had to turn away 100 officers as the Church is too small. I must find a larger place or have an open air parade next Sunday if fine. At six I had Evensong in the Hospital Chapel. A dozen nurses 6 American & 6 English. All the up patients have left & most of the English Staff & only a few Americans have come in their place. Also present were the Camp Supt. Major & the Lady in Charge of the Waacs & one of the corridor Officers. At 7 I held a service in their new C.E. Hut. Poor attendance, a couple of Waacs & about 30 mechanics.
…
Contact Patrol
The programme also refers to a ‘Contact Patrol’. What was that about? The Aerodrome Forum’s contributor ‘bristol scout’ offers the following explanation:
The other main function of the squadron was contact patrol. It was an aerial liaison between the front line and the battalion and brigade headquarters, designed to keep them in close touch with each other during the inevitable disorganisation of other means of communication during an offensive. At such times, it was realised, the advance would often find itself cut off from its supports and would have difficulty, or sometimes be actually unable, to send back word where they were. But an aeroplane patrolling at low altitude could easily see the red flares which the Tommies carried and were instructed to light at given times.
The observer could mark the positions of these flares on the map, write down their co-ordinations on a slip of paper, put it in a weighted message bag and, swooping down over battalion headquarters (whose position was known by a semi-circular sheet of white cloth pegged out on the ground), drop the message bag. (http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42474)
That’s the theory, but as the same contributor goes on to comment:
They actually just flew low enough to see the men in the trenches with accuracy…….brave, brave men.
Although Greg’s pilot’s log book shows that his first flight from Hursley Park/Worthy Down wasn’t until Thursday 16 May 1918, he must have arrived a little before then, and possibly had some initial classroom instruction before he took to the air over Hampshire.
So perhaps it was around 10 May that Greg arrived at Winchester station and was driven the five miles or so past what was then known as Oliver Cromwell’s Battery (an iron age hill fort, reused as a camp by the Roundheads in the English Civil War) to Hursley.
Winchester to Hursley Park. Route superimposed on a 1902 Bartholomew map, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland. Click or tap for a larger, zoomable image.
There he would have first set eyes on the magnificent Queen Anne-style mansion that is Hursley House, set in its surrounding parkland.
A 1906 photograph of Hursley House. Reproduced by permission of Historic England Archive.
For a highly informative source of Hursley Park’s history from medieval times, through the building of the present mansion house and its role in two world wars to the arrival of IBM in 1958 and their continued occupation since then, look no further than Dave Key’s excellent History of Hursley Park site.
As Dave explains, towards the end of the First World War:
By 1917…[Hursley Park] Camp had given way to the Royal Flying Corps, first as Cadets and then as Observers, coming to receive advanced training in the Artillery [and] Infantry Cooperation School. Their departure in May 1918 (now as the newly formed Royal Air Force) made way for the camp to be taken over by the Americans who, like the British Army before them used the Winchester area as a staging post before embarking for France. In Hursley the US AEF [American Expeditionary Force] established a new Base Hospital by bringing together the British Military Hospital and Army Camp to create a massive new hospital to handle an expected 2,000 casualties. (https://hursleypark.wixsite.com/history/history-ww1-1914-1918)
So in mid-May 1918 Greg was probably one of the last cohort of airmen to pass through the portals of the “Arty. & Inf. Co-op. School” at Hursley.
Header image: Detail from a 1906 photograph of Hursley House. Reproduced by permission of Historic England Archive.
