John Edwin Yates any info

[dorrie]

John Edwin yates was born November 1897 and came from Nottingham. He attended King Edward School Retford. having carried out some research he must have emigrated to Canada and entered the WAr as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. I have a copy of his attestation papers. John Edwin Yates at some stage transfeerd to the RFC, being a part of 70 Squadron. He was killed in 1/11/1917 and is buried at Mendighem Military Cemetery.

Has anybody any futher information that can be shared?

Thanks

Dorrie

[jhill]

I hope some informed individuals will step forward with some hard information for you. Until then the best I can do is some banal generalizations.

As you can see, John Yates enlisted at Weyburn with the 152nd Battalion. Presumably he sailed with them in October of 1916. As far as I know, the Royal Flying Corps accepted transfers from the Canadian Expeditionary Force only in France or England, so he must have transferred after that date. His name is not mentioned in "Canadian Airmen and the First World War" by S.F. Wise, but this is not too significant, as only a representative sample (though a large one!) of men are mentioned by name.

I am not sure what records are available in the U.K. on RFC men, but there is a certain amount in Ottawa on Canadians in the RFC. A description entitled Air Historical Records is found here

Another, entitled Ledgers of CEF Officers attesting to the Royal Flying Corps can be found here

Unfortunately, I do not know how you can gain access to them save hiring a private researcher in darkest Ottawa.

Sorry I cannot be more helpful.

[Dolphin]

Dorrie

2Lt J E Yates was killed in an accident while flying Sopwith Camel B2305. He left his aerodrome at 1420 on an Offensive Patrol and at 1425 his aircraft spun and crashed at La Lovie.

I hope this helps.

Gareth

[dorrie]

Thanks for information that is very useful

dorrie

[Neil Burns]

Hi James,

This is a long shot to the point where I'm pretty much wasting your time but is there any mention of a George Furze or Toronto and Glen Ridge NJ who was training at I believe Lincoln in the summer of 1918?

Thank you,as always, for your help,

Neil

[jhill]

Hi James,

This is a long shot to the point where I'm pretty much wasting your time but is there any mention of a George Furze or Toronto and Glen Ridge NJ who was training at I believe Lincoln in the summer of 1918?

Thank you,as always, for your help,

Neil

Sorry. Wise's book requires a little bit of looking, as its index is not exhaustive, but I am pretty sure there is no one named Furze mentioned. This is not surprising since he concentrates on those posted to operational squadrons, and someone in training in the summer of 1918 may not have made it to the front.

I notice that your George Furze seems not to be a CEF man, unless he is 193057 FURZE , GEORGE THOMAS of Hamilton. One would expect that almost all Canadian airmen training in 1918 would either be graduates of the R.A.F. (Canada) training schools or a recent transfer from the C.E.F. Of course, airmen trained in Canada would also undergo some "finishing" training in England, so I suspect that would have been what your man was doing in Lincoln.

Of course I do not have access to the paper files at the Archives in Ottawa, which is the source you really want. (Apparently, those files are not complete, either!).

[Neil Burns]

Hi James,

i knew it was along shot and I appreciate you taking a look for me.

George Furze is a bit of a mystery, I purchased a Glen Ridge NJ World War I Service medaal a few years ago named to George F. Furze. There was no record of a George Furze in the Trenton NJ archives so I went to the Glen Ridge library which is pretty close to where I live. The historical holdings of the town contained a small notebook wiht handwritten notes on each man's service there was also a very grainy and old 'photo-copy' of a page from a book called 'Essex County Heroes' .

Turns out he was born in Canada (I really can't get away from you folks!):

Furze, George Frederick

74 Windsor Place Glen Ridge NJ

Born Toronto Canada 11/15 1897

Single

Canada

Royal Air Force

Enlisted 2/6/18 (2 is February to me)

Air Force

Lieutenant

Camp Gordon Canada until July 6,1918 to England stationed at Lincoln for training in the RAF at Lincoln until end of war. Received commission at Camp Gordon Canada. Member of Christ Church Glen Ridge NJ

Strangely Mr Furze belonged to the Glen Ridge MArshalls which was a local militia typer unit I have a photo copy of a group photo which shows him pretty clearly (he kind of had a Buster Keaton look to him) in the Marshalls.

I've often wondered why he didn't enlist as a Canadian pre-1917 and why join the RAF when he could have served in the US forces.

I couldn't find a MIC last time I checked but it may have been added since

I looked. If you search the Forum for 'Furze' you'll see I've asked about him a few times.

Thanks again for looking,

Neil

[jhill]

Royal Air Force

Enlisted 2/6/18 (2 is February to me)

Air Force

Lieutenant

Camp Gordon Canada until  July 6,1918 to England stationed at Lincoln for training in the RAF at Lincoln until end of war. Received commission at Camp Gordon Canada. Member of Christ Church Glen Ridge NJ

Excellent! He was a R.A.F. Canada man then. I would think that Camp "Gordon" is almost certainly Camp "Borden" which was the main training station at the time. (Some of the original 1917 hangars still exist). At that time a considerable proportion of R.A.F. Canada cadets were americans. The U.S. Army was hopelessly behind in training airmen. In February, 1918 the whole operation had been in Texas for some months. They had done a deal with the U.S. Army under which they would train some thousands of airmen for the U.S. Army in exchange for warm winter air fields. Only a skeleton operation remained at Borden until spring. Most americans in the R.A.F. were eventually sent to their own air service, but it took time to sort things out.

[Neil Burns]

Interesting James thank you for that information. It does seem that Lt. Furze stayed with the RAF since he was training at Lincoln (??) the Air War is certainly not my forte but I figured if he was AEF he would have trained in France (?) That's why it struck me as strange that being Canadian born he would wait until Feb 1918 to enlist, but if he enlisted in the AEF he should have a NJ service record (although I know that's not 100%).

Thanks again,

Neil