Our People - Alexander Drysdale |
25 March 1918 |
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Second Lieutenant Alexander Drysdale
Royal Flying Corps Killed in Aero Accident 25 March 1918 Penwortham (St. Mary) Churchyard, Lancashire, United Kingdom. Plot 438. Son of Alexander and Elizabeth Barker Drysdale, of "Ellerslie," Talbot Rd., Penwortham. Born at Glasgow. INSCRIPTION: "O FOR THE WINGS OF A DOVE" The Royal Air Force (RAF) was formed on 1 April 1918 by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Of the four RAF officers from the area who died, three were to perish in aero accidents and one in hospital from as yet unknown causes. Lieutenant John Harrison Gardner (New Longton) died in an accident near Cologne in Germany 9 January 1919. Second Lieutenant William Ernest Seed (Penwortham) died in hospital 12 December 1918. Flight Cadet Stanley Redvers Iddon (Walton-le-Dale) died in an accident while training at RAF Harlaxton 6 September 1918. The first from the area to perish was Alexander Drysdale.
Alexander was born to Alexander and Elizabeth Barker Drysdale in Glasgow in 1899. He was the eldest of five surviving sons born to the couple. Alexander senior was a charge hand at a tobacco warehouse who moved the young family to Penwortham from Glasgow in about 1910. Alexander signed up for the Royal Flying Corps on 29 August 1917 and went to train at RAF Harlaxton. Many advances were being made in the field of aviation but it was still in its infancy. There had been no standardised primary or basic pilot training until the establishment of the RFC School of Special Flying at RAF Grange, Gosport, Hampshire in 1917. Even so, the training regime was in its early days - machines had quirks and pilots made mistakes. On 25 March 1918 Alexander took to the skies in a Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 with his instructor Lieutenant Gordon Smith Mellis Gauld (formerly of the Royal Field Artillery). Gauld was born in Japan to his Canadian missionary parents in 1893 and after qualifying as a pilot became an instructor. The R.E.8 was used for artillery observation, air photography and reconnaissance. It was a heavy craft and it was said that it had a tendency to stall easily if a sensible airspeed was not kept up. A few minutes later the aircraft crashed, from an unknown cause, and both were killed instantly. Gordon SM Gauld was buried at Grantham, while Alexander’s body was brought home to Penwortham and he was interred in the family plot at St. Mary’s. His CWGC headstone is inscribed, ‘O FOR THE WINGS OF A DOVE’. His name appears on three other local memorials, the Penwortham St. Mary's Board, the Penwortham Civic War Memorial on Liverpool Road and the Penwortham Methodist Memorial on Leyland Road. 
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An RE8 with a French Nieuport 27 fighter escort, c. 1916 by Lieutenant Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly. Reproduced from The Great War As Recorded through the Fine and Popular Arts, Ed. Sacha Llewellyn and Paul Liss
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