RFC Flowerdown

[rwh]

The following is part of a local history article written by my aunt Kath Mullett nee Flux:

Watching the program on BBC 1 to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of the RAF revived vivid memories of my childhood, and set me wondering if there are many people living who remember the airfield at Littleton, and saw the little biplanes landing and taking off.

My parents had a bungalow with an acre plus of land and our boundary adjoined the airfield. I clearly remember seeing the pilots in their helmets and goggles in their open cockpits, and received many a wave and a smile as I stood watching; all very exciting for a five-year old.

The Commanding Officer and my parents became great friends, and his wife and daughter came to stay with us. They were an Irish family and as all this happened just before the end of the first World War, there was then no danger of them travelling from Ireland

Isn't it strange how the simple little things that happened in childhood are the easiest to recall, particularly those of a very small child. I remember pig stys and trotting around behind my father as he tended them, and finding the bucket of waste put over the fence for pig feed, from the Royal Flying Corps (as it was still called then) canteen

Kath's 5^th birthday was on June 20^th, 1918. The bungalow/smallholding was on the north side of what is now North Drive, Littleton, Winchester and so would have adjoined what is now the Army Training Regiment Flowerdown site. Kath's Littleton school admission record implies that the family left Littleton in May 1919

1) Does anyone know who the CO referred to might be? I note that the website rafweb.org lists No 1 (Training) Wireless School at Flowerdown 13 Nov 1918 to 8 Mar 1919

2) Other searches suggest that there was no airfield at Flowerdown, with the nearest airfield being at Worthy Down a mile or so to the north east. However she seems to imply that there were aircraft taking off next door to her. Admittedly she was only 5 at the time and around 80 when she wrote the above, but she lived in Winchester until after the second world war so would have been aware of the difference between Flowerdown and Worthy Down

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Full details of the WW1 use of Flower Down at item 15 on the kink below:

http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community/showthread.php?11732-FIRST-WORLD-WAR-RFC-RAF-Schools

Dave

[Stoppage Drill]

I remember Flowerdown being a Royal Navy establishment. It was a wireless centre and had numerous enormous aerials. After the Navy left, it fell into disuse until the old Rifle Depot in Winchester closed down and Flowerdown was reborn as the Light Division Depot, Sir John Moore Barracks.

Worthy Down had started out as an RFC establishment, but also became RN (I think) in the 1930s, training Air Telegraphists. Post WW2 it became the training centre for the Regulating Branch before being handed over to the army ca. 1960.

During flying days, aircraft from WD (always a grass runway) were sometimes taken across the Newbury road (A34) and took off from the land bounded by the A34 and the old Roman road. There was a sort of level crossing to halt traffic on the Newbury road as aircraft were towed across from the main airfield area. A person living in Littleton may well have seen aircraft using this area and assumed that aircraft were using Flowerdown.

[mickdavis]

Full details of the WW1 use of Flower Down at item 15 on the kink below:

http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community/showthread.php?11732-FIRST-WORLD-WAR-RFC-RAF-Schools

Dave

Not really full detail, just information from the autumn 1918 Quarterly Survey of Stations. I'd love further info on the USAS units that passed through the camp. I've never seen reference to a landing ground at Flower Down in any documentation but a lot of sites used occasionally don't appear. Is there a map reference for that at Littleton?

FLOWER DOWN

Flower Down, Winchester, Hampshire

Transit Camp USAS 1917 – 1918. Depot and School RFC/RAF 1918 – continued in service

8th Aero Sqn USAS

8.12.1917

from

USA

24.12.1917

to

Joyce Green aerodrome

9th Aero Sqn USAS

8.12.1917

USA

28.12.1917

Spittlegate aerodrome

104th Aero Sqn USAS

8.12.1917

USA via Liverpool*

24.12.1917

Upavon aerodrome

105th Aero Sqn USAS

8.12.1917

USA

23.12.1917

?

102nd Aero Sqn USAS

8.12.1917

USA

9.1.1918

?

2nd Aero Sqn USAS

9.12.1917

USA

?

?

103rd Aero Sqn USAS

8.12.1918

?

23.12.1918

en-route for France

104th Aero Sqn USAS

10.7.1918

Old Sarum aerodrome

19.7.1918

en-route for France

25th Aero Sqn USAS

7.8.1918

Marske aerodrome

20.8.1918

en-route for France

168 th Aero Sqn USAS

7.8.1918

Doncaster & Tadcaster aerodromes

11.8.1918

Southampton for St Maixent (F)

138th Aero Sqn USAS

14.8.1918

Montrose aerodrome

17.8.1918

en-route for France

199th Aero Sqn USAS

17.8.1918

Yatesbury aerodrome

?

?

85th Aero Sqn USAS

30.8.1918

Yatesbury aerodrome

?

?

154th Aero Sqn USAS

30.8.1918

Chattis Hill aerodrome

12.9.1918

?

Wireless Operators School

24.8.1918

Cranwell aerodrome

6.1919

disbanded

1 (Training) Wireless School

9.11.1918

Blenheim Barracks, South Farnborough

23.12.1919

re-designated Electrical and Wireless School

Electrical and Wireless School

23.12.1919

formed ex 1 (T) Wireless School

8.1929

Cranwell aerodrome

SW Area 1918

Sorry, this website messes up my MS Word tabulations.

[rwh]

Thanks for your replies. There is a map included with the article a section of which I've shown below (someone has written 1969 map on it so presumably that's the year the mapping was done). Kath has hatched the area which she thought contained the "airfield" (I've bounded this with the green line). Her bungalow is highlighted by the red dot (this is at grid ref SU 458 323), it is no longer there, but the location matches the 1916 building control plan for it held at the Hampshire Record Office. The building control plan also lists the property as being 2 acres in size and shows it extending eastwards from the bungalow along North Drive with a width of c 30yds. The plan does not show the full extent of the property, but if it was a similar width throughout its length it would have extended for about 300 yds, i.e. roughly to the start of the hatched area.

Looking on Google Map I notice that part of the above hatched area is now occupied by a long and narrowish rectangular sports field with 3 football pitches, tennis courts et al. Would such a site have been the right length for a WW1 airfield, it appears to be flat enough for that use?

Think I might wander over there tomorrow and see if I can find any stray bits of Sopwith Camel lying around!!

Richard

[rwh]

As regards COs at Flowerdown I've found a photo on the Hampshire Record Office online catalogue which is described as follows:

Littleton: Arthur Deane and Colonel Oscar Graham, Commander of Flowerdown, photo dated 1920-1921 Possibly at the opening of the Littleton Recreation Ground.

(Hanpshire Record Office ref 3m93/102/8)

I have not shown the photo as I need to check up on copyright

I would be grateful if anyone can give me any info on Col Oscar Graham as I'm struggling to find anything at the moment

Richard

[Starlight]

On 06/11/2014 at 09:41, Stoppage Drill said:

I remember Flowerdown being a Royal Navy establishment. It was a wireless centre and had numerous enormous aerials.

Just to add a little, my grandfather was invalided out of 6 Squadron (based at Bertangles at that time) due to an aggravated medical condition in January 1918 and sent back to England where he took up a position as wireless mechanic / instructor at the No 1 (T) Wireless School at Flowerdown. He stayed there till he was demobbed in January 1919. If anyone is interested in knowing more about the installation at Flowerdown, try reading 'The Flowerdown Link 1918 - 1978' by Squadron Leader L L R Burch, Dewberry Printing Ltd, 1980.

[Starlight]

Here are a few dates and details taken from 'The Flowerdown Link':

 

No: 1 Radio School operated from November 1916 to December 1918 [presumably at Farnborough]

In March 1917, the No:1 Radio School ceased to be part of the Recruits Depot and became a Park under the Administrative Wing

About August 1917, demand meant that the unit needed to be significantly increased and it was decided to concentrate all training at Farnborough.

In October 1917 the Wireless Officers School and the Wireless Mechanics School were brought over from Brooklands, amalgamating with the Corps Squadron Operators School, forming a Unit which assumed the status of a self-accounting Depot directly under the Training Division. This required a large influx of instructional staff (many from active service in France, like my grandfather). To take the additional staff and recruits, it was decided to build a new school at Flowerdown. Work commenced in October 1917. By this time the unit was so large, it occupied the whole of the Blenheim Barracks, together with the Farnborough Town Hall.

On 1st April 1918 the Wireless Training School was placed under the new Directorate of Training.

In early August 1918 the Brooklands workshops transferred to Flowerdown and later that month was joined by what was originally called the RNAS Wireless School for Operators and a Unit from Farnborough. Flowerdown and Worth Down became the operational centre for air training of wireless operators, with the aircraft based at Worthy Down.

 

 

[Ottawa1880]

Starlight, I have just noticed this thread while doing some background research on my grandfather. I believe that our grandfathers would have crossed paths at Flowerdown. My grandfather, William Thomas Bassett was injured in a flying accident in France 30 Jun 1918 (he had only been in France for just over a month - he spent the first part of his time there in a field hospital with influenza - probably Spanish Flu). He was then transferred to 2ADSP. It was while waiting there that he appears to have crashed his plane.  He was transported back to the UK on 3 July 1918. After time spent in the London Hospital, he was assigned as an instructor to No 1 (T) Wireless School at Flowerdown on 26 October 1918. With the exception of a short time spent with the Air Ministry, he stayed at Flowerdown until being dispersed on 30 July 1919. He had trained in 1916 at the South Wales Wireless College in Swansea and achieved a diploma of some sort.

 

[Starlight]

Hi Paul, Thanks for your message. It is most likely that our grandfathers would have known each other, as mine was at Flowerdown from 24th January 1918 (having been invalided out of 6 Squadron due to a chronic illness that was exacerbated after an extended period of exposure in the snow whilst on leave in England for the purpose of getting married - a blessing in disguise as he didn't have to return to France) to the 26th January 1919 when he was demobbed from the RAF. Incidentally, on the 14th August 1918, whilst walking across the airfield at dusk, my grandfather was struck on the back by a BE2e that was coming in to land. Luckily he was not badly injured, though he was reprimanded for not looking out for landing aircraft before walking across the landing field.

 

I looked in all of my books and research notes, websites etc and could find no link between your grandfather's injuries (sustained on at least two occasions) and any reported incident involving an aircraft. As he was based at the No 2 Aeroplane Supply Depot as a lieutenant (non flying), either at Verton if he was with the Repair Park or St Andre-aux-Bois if he was with the Issue Section, it was most likely due to a ground accident.

 

I have attached a few photographs which might be of interest:

 

1) Extract from CG Jefford's "Observers and Navigators" - I have a copy and it is very interesting when it comes to training. I also have a copy of L L R Burch's "The Flowerdown Link 1918 to 1978

2) Photo of the Flowerdown complex c1919 (it grew a lot after that)

3) Old map of the Worthy Down / Flowerdown area

4) Present day Google Earth image of the Worthy Down / Flowerdown area

5) Present day Google map image of the Worthy Down / Flowerdown area 

6) Photo of my grandfather (man wearing a headset) with his wireless team by a mobile workshop lorry at Abeele, Belgium c1917

[Chris_Baker]

I have received a letter today from an elderly gentleman whose father served in the ranks RFC/RAF as a wireless operator. He went to Flowerdown in May1918 after a period in hospital (which is how I found this thread).

He had originally been mobilised in August 1916 and went to France in February 1917. Sadly, his AIR79 service record offers no clue as to where he trained. Where were the RFC training ranker wireless operators in that period? Brooklands?

[Alan24]

This is what I've uncovered over the years...

Before the war Flowerdown was used as a Polo ground by the Hampshire Yeomanry 

Worthy Down was an RNAS station aka HMS Kestral.

In May 1913 Flowerdown was the site of an air display by Australian Sydney Pickles whose own Bleriot XI had failed causing him to borrow an aircraft from Mr Handley Page. 

In 1914 Flowerdom was a tented camp  training taking place on Crawley Down.

A newly constructed hutted camp was officially opened in April 1915. One of the first units was 8th Border Regt. 75th Bde, 25 Div.

By 1916 into 1917 Flowerdown was home to the Heavy Artillery Training Centre. A number of RGA Heavy Batteries left from here.

Early 1918 the RAF wireless school moved from Farnborough. 

[Starlight]

4 hours ago, Chris_Baker said:

He had originally been mobilised in August 1916 and went to France in February 1917. Sadly, his AIR79 service record offers no clue as to where he trained. Where were the RFC training ranker wireless operators in that period? Brooklands?

In the book 'The Flowerdown Link' by Sqn Ldr L L R Burch, it tells the story of a man who decided to enlist in the RFC as a wireless operator after seeing an advertisement in a daily paper for volunteers wishing to be trained as wireless operators. He reported to the London Polytechnic in Upper Regent Street where he passed a very easy written examination and was medically examined. Soon after he was sent to Farnborough for two weeks for kitting out and basic drill instruction with the plan that he return to the 'Poly' for training as a wireless operator. Instead he was posted directly to the Blenheim Barracks at Farnborough in August 1916 where he received training until passing his exams at the No 1 Radio School (as it was called at that time) in February 1917. He, along with fourteen other budding wireless operators were despatched the No 2 Aircraft Depot at St Pol in France and from there each man was sent one of the front-line squadrons (in the case of the man in question, 4 Squadron at Arras) for training in the field. Once the squadron was trained in the ways of the squadron he would be 'attached' to a battery where he would work and live as a wireless operator but he would still fall under the control of the squadron. My grandfather was a wireless mechanic at 6 Squadron and eventually was in charge of wireless installations in the squadron's BE2s and later RE8s but one of his roles was to visit the wireless operators in the field who were attached to 6 Squadron.

For show the differences between training to be a wireless mechanic and a wireless operator I have attached a couple of extracts from my book, 'For God, England & Ethel', the story of my grandfather's time with 6 Squadron RFC.

 

 

 

 

 

[Chris_Baker]

That is really useful stuff, Starlight. Thank you.