S/Lt Cyril Hall/Seymour-Hall RNAS/RAF --information?

[DavidIsby]

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I am looking for information on Sub-Lieutenant Cyril Hall (or Seymour-Hall) whose wartime service included flying SS.Z class airships from RAF Anglesey in 1918. I know the details of his service that are in his RNAS service record ADM 273/13/19, National Archives (UK), Kew and his RAF service record AIR 76/203, National Archives (UK), Kew.  His name appears as Hall in these documents, but he went by Seymour-Hall and this is reflected in official documents and the Air Force list.

He was pilot of the airship SS Z.51 when it came down in the Irish Sea on 15 August 1918. The three-man crew was rescued by the USS Downes. No one was injured (there were no casualties to report). The airship was returned to Anglesey in pieces. Hall wrote a thank-you letter to its captain and crew.
He received a Mention in Dispatches. After the war, he received a civil airship pilot's license and applied for an RAF commission.  He joined the Colonial Service, stationed in Zanzibar. The Ancestry.com databases record several of his voyages there and back. 
He changed his name twice, becoming CHARLES SEYMOUR-HALL. He became a member of a professional society dealing with navigation. He did not attend the annual Anglesey reunion dinners held in London in the interwar years; at least he did not sign the seven souvenir menus held at the RAF Museum.   In the 1940s he was living in Scotland and was a member of the RAF club.

After being in poor health for some time, he died in 1981, in Dover, one of the last British combat airship pilots. He kept framed photos of the SS Z.51 and the Anglesey airship pilots to the end of his life.

I would be grateful for any further information on this gentleman and the events he was connected with, including:

1) What were the names of the other two crew members of the SS Z.51 on 15 August 1918?
2) Is Hall/Seymour-Hall's report on the loss of the SSZ.51 still extant? (I have been unable to locate it). The report that exists is a short one written by his commanding officer, Thomas Elmhirst. (His papers in the Churchill Archive, Cambridge, have much of interest on airship operations in general, nothing on this incident in specific).
3) Did Hall/Seymour-Hall write anything or do any oral history? Was he written about? (If so, I am unaware of it)

4) Any other pertinent biographical information? Name of spouse/spouses?

Many thanks,
David isby

[charlie962]

This sounds like the same Charles Seymour-Hall who was being prosecuted in 1955 for importuning ? Previously a magistrate 20yrs Colonial service Africa, WW2 Private Secretary to the Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Production, aged 58 at the time of his remand.

Edited 15 April , 2019 by charlie962

[DavidIsby]

many thanks.  the age matches, so that was obviously the same individual.

[DavidIsby]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zp7zjcir3bnq642/OTF-Winter2019-The_Slow_Fall_of_Airship_SZ51.pdf?dl=0

 

This is a repost of my article that appeared in OVER THE FRONT in early 2020 (when there were multiple distractions).

THE SLOW FALL OF AIRSHIP SS Z.51 is about the loss of a Royal Naval Air Service airship on 15 August 1918.  But it is also a compelling story that provides insights into how Anglo-American air-sea tactics evolved to defeat the U-boat threat that, the year before, had threatened to choke off maritime traffic.