BRAVE FLYING PIONEERS the RAF took off
little fanfare. Talking about the mission – and George’s war contribution – he said: “The commanding officer would have gathered them round and told them: ‘I’ve just had a signal from HQ to say the RFC and the Royal Naval Air Service have merged – now let’s go out and shoot some Germans’.
“The flight leader was Captain Frank Weare, so he and Lt Hayward would have taken off first.
Upon their return, a group photograph was taken, with the participants standing in front of a Bristol Fighter, along with the squadron commanding officer, with Lt Hayward indulging in a well earned post-sortie cigarette.
“He proved to be an outstanding air gunner in the backseat of a Bristol Fighter.”
The Great War was the first conflict to be documented on film and both sides commissioned their own professional photographers to help strengthen national morale. Of 14 official war photographs, nine were by Mirror men. After the war, David returned to work on the Daily Mirror.
Meanwhile George, whose elder brother John died fighting at Passchendaele in 1917, continued his RAF career, qualified as a pilot and served for two years in India before returning to England as a flying instructor. But in 1924, aged just 29, he and a student pilot died when their aircraft crashed near George’s training school base at RAF Digby, Lincs. Engine failure was blamed.
Now the RAF is honouring the courage and pioneering spirit of its first airmen.
A service at Westminster Abbey in July will be followed by a huge parade in the Mall and a spectacular flypast by 100 aircraft.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier, head of the RAF, said: “We are commemorating the legacy of extraordinary success, achievement and sacrifice that is at the heart of our proud tradition – something which continues to inspire us today.”
norman franks AIR EXPERT ON 1918 SORTIE