Royal Flying Corps

Cadet Clifford Norman Murray

~ Nick Metcalfe ~ Leave a comment

This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Pennsylvania.

Cadet Clifford Norman Murray

Clifford Norman Murray was born on 6 July 1897 at Pensnett, Staffordshire (now in the West Midlands), the eldest of the three children of Thomas and Ada Murray.[1] Sailing onboard the RMS Franconia from Liverpool, the family emigrated to the United States on 5 June 1913, and settled in Swissvale, east of Pittsburgh. When he left school, Murray went to work with the Union Switch and Signal Company. In 1917 the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, although they kept a house in Swissvale.

On 12 October 1917, Clifford Murray enlisted for service with the Royal Flying Corps (152452, Cadet) and in December after ground training in Toronto he went to Fort Worth, Texas with No. 81 Canadian Training Squadron. A little under two months later, on 14 February 1918 when flying about two miles south-east of Field No. 2 his aircraft, a Curtis JN4 serial C.736, went into a spinning nose-dive. Cadet Murray died due to a fractured skull in the inevitable crash. His body was returned to Swissvale. After a military funeral—in which his casket was draped with the flags of both nations and honours were provided by the United Spanish War Veterans—he was buried in the nearby Monongahela Cemetery. His grave is in Section 3, Lot 90, which is in the west-centre of the cemetery. When his mother died in 1929 she was buried alongside him; his father is also buried in the cemetery.

The grave of Clifford Norman Murray

Cadet Clifford Norman Murray is commemorated on page 591 of the Canadian First World War Book of Remembrance; that page is displayed on 21 December. He is also commemorated in Dudley on the Higher Elementary School war memorial.[2]

His nephew (his brother’s son), Clifford Norman Murray, served with the United States Air Force.

Acknowledgement:
Chris Dubbs and Dale Pysher for their efforts to visit and photograph the grave.
Dr Peter Wardle for permission to use the photograph of Dudley Higher Elementary School war memorial.

1. (Back) Thomas Murray (30 January 1876-5 June 1960) married Ada Fereday (19 September 1877-4 May 1929): Archie Vernon (26 October 1904-28 October 1965), Doreen Malvena Ada (later Poxon) (31 August 1909-17 January 1999).
2. (Back) The school was later named the Sir Gilbert Claughton School and when it closed in 1990 the buildings became the Claughton Centre. The building is now derelict and the memorial has been removed for safekeeping.

Cadet William Joseph King

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This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Massachusetts.

The grave of William Joseph King

William Joseph King was born in late 1892/early 1893 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Little is known about his family or his early life. On 4 January 1916, he married Josephine Freeman at the Borough Hall in Brooklyn, New York. His wife was a professional singer, who performed under the name ‘Dolly Grey’.[1] King worked as a car salesman in New York, while his wife pursued her stage career in the United States and in South America.

Josephine King aka ‘Dolly Grey’, 1917

King enlisted into the Royal Flying Corps as a cadet in Toronto on 24 September 1917. After his ground training at No.4 School of Military Aeronautics at the University of Toronto, he travelled to Texas where he learned to fly. Continue reading →

Second Lieutenant Arnold Whittier Hill

~ Nick Metcalfe ~ Leave a comment

This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Massachusetts.

Arnold Whittier Hill

Arnold Whittier Hill was born in Malden, Massachusetts on 13 June 1897, the only son and eldest child of Arthur and Josephine Hill.[1] He attended school in Malden, where he demonstrated an early interest in flying.

He volunteered in Boston for service with the Royal Flying Corps and enlisted in Toronto on 4 January 1918. After attendance at No. 4 School of Military Aeronautics at the University of Toronto, he travelled to Texas where he learned to fly. Transferred to the Royal Air Force upon its formation on 1 April 1918, he was commissioned on 27 June. Hill was selected for training as an instructor and posted to the School of Special Flying at Armour Heights in Toronto. On 13 July 1918, he was flying Curtis JN4, registration C374, at Leaside Aerodrome, in southern Toronto, when he stalled in a turn and his aircraft fell from 800 feet. He was killed on impact and the aircraft was engulfed in flames. Continue reading →

Second Lieutenant Ralph Michael Cummings

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This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Massachusetts.

Ralph Michael Cummings

Second Lieutenant Ralph Michael Cummings was typical of the young men who volunteered to fly with the Royal Flying Corps, only to be killed during training.

He was born on 15 December 1894 at Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, the eldest son of Michael and Minnie Cummings.[1] The family emigrated to Massachusetts in 1895, where a second son was born. Ralph Cummings became a naturalised citizen of the United States in 1913. Prior to his enlistment, he lived in West Bridgewater and work as a salesman for R. H. Stearns & Co. Continue reading →

Cadet Wilfred Cecil Alcock

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This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Massachusetts.

The grave of Wilfred Cecil Alcock
The grave of Wilfred Cecil Alcock

The weekend of 24 November 1917 saw a series of accidents at the training airfields that made up Camp Taliaferro near Fort Worth in Texas. The newspapers of the day carried lured stories of multiple fatalities and mortally wounded aviators (see the gallery for an example) but the truth is somewhat simpler to recount. On Saturday 24 November Cadet Wilfred Alcock crashed into the undercarriage of another Curtis JN4 flying in formation and was killed instantly. The other pilot, Royal Flying Corps Cadet James Harold Thompson, crash landed and was injured but recovered. Another crash involving Cadet Eric Biddle was not the fatal event that the newspapers reported, and neither was that of Cadet Brailey Gish, although they were injured. A second fatality occurred on Monday 26 November when newly commissioned Second Lieutenant Frank Park Mathews fell in his aircraft from 2,500 feet. Only Alcock was British; Thompson was born in Canada but lived in the United States and Biddle, Gish and Mathews were Americans, the latter two being pilots of the Aviation Section, United States Army Signal Corps.[1] Continue reading →

Cadet Kenneth MacDonald Kearney

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This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Connecticut.

The grave of Kenneth MacDonald Kearney
The grave of Kenneth MacDonald Kearney

Cadet Kenneth Kearney served briefly with the Royal Flying Corps in early 1918 before succumbing with pneumonia in Toronto during his initial training. He was born on 25 March 1894 in New Haven, Connecticut.[1] His father was born in New York of Irish parents; his mother was also born in New York but of Scottish parents; he was their only child. Continue reading →

Cadet Palmer Wilkinson Taylor

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This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Rhode Island.

Palmer Wilkinson Taylor
Palmer Wilkinson Taylor

Palmer Wilkinson Taylor was born on 10 March 1896 in Providence, Rhode Island, the youngest of the two children and only son of Frank and Harriett Taylor; he was of English stock—both sets of grandparents were born in England.[1] The family lived in Massachusetts before moving, sometime before 1910, to Santa Monica. In February 1913 his mother died and in 1915 Taylor began his studies at Stanford University.

Taylor abandoned his studies in order to enlist in the Royal Flying Corps. Continue reading →

Second Lieutenant Evanda Berkeley Garnett

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This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Rhode Island.

Second Lieutenant Evanda Berkeley Garnett
Second Lieutenant Evanda Berkeley Garnett

Not all of the casualties buried in the United States were repatriated in the period immediately after the First World War. Second Lieutenant Evanda Berkeley Garnett was killed in an air crash in Lincolnshire on 27 January 1918. Over 40 years later, on 16 September 1959, his sister Caroline called at the United States Embassy in London in order to arrange for the disinterment of his ashes and their return from Lincolnshire to Rhode Island. She believed, incorrectly, that the remains of the other airman killed in the crash had been repatriated previously and stated that it was the family’s intention to bring Evanda Garnett home too. His ashes were duly exhumed and sent to the United States where they were reinterred in the family plot in Island Cemetery, Newport.[1] Continue reading →

Lieutenant Louis Bennett

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This essay is about the only First World War casualty commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in West Virginia.

Few know more about the life and exploits of Lieutenant Bennett than Dr. Charles D. Dusch, Jr., the Deputy Command Historian of the United States Air Force Academy, whose comprehensive and extremely well-researched thesis ‘Great War Aviation and Commemoration: Louis Bennett, Jr., Commander of the West Virginia Flying Corps’ led us to his door.

This shorter piece by Dr. Dusch was written for this project. It describes Bennett’s involvement with aviation in the United States, his service with the Royal Flying Corps in France, his untimely death and his mother’s efforts to commemorate her only son. More information about Dr. Dusch may be found at the end of the essay. Footnotes are by the project editor.

The memorial to Louis Bennett Jr. in Machpelah Cemetery, Weston
The memorial to Louis Bennett Jr. in Machpelah Cemetery, Weston

West Virginia’s only Great War ace, Louis Bennett, Jr. was born in Weston, West Virginia, on 22 September 1894.[1] Unlike many of his peers who were merely enticed by the thrill of flying and became good pilots in the war, Bennett was much more. He clearly thought about aviation keenly and its impact on the war in larger terms, and he also took action on his ideas to bring them to fruition. Continue reading →

Cadet Samuel Walter Arnheim

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This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in New York.

‘When deeds of valor are done on the battlefield
we do not look to see whether a man is Jew, Protestant or Catholic…’‘ [1]

Major General John F. O’Ryan[2]

The Arnheim-Zorkowski Mausoleum in Beth Olam Cemetery
The Arnheim-Zorkowski Mausoleum in Beth Olam Cemetery
Marks Arnheim
Marks Arnheim

Samuel Walter Arnheim was born in New York on 21 April 1889 into a wealthy Jewish family, the only son and youngest of the three children of Marks and Fannie Arnheim.[3] His father was born in Berlin and had arrived in the United States as a child. He travelled the United States and the West as a young man before returning to New York, where he established a tailoring business in 1877 in ‘Little Germany’ in the Bowery. He became a US citizen in 1881. The business flourished and in 1892 he moved to a large building on the corner of Broadway and Ninth Street; it became one of the most prominent tailors in the city and during the war, in addition to high quality men’s suits, made uniforms for Army and Navy officers. Samuel’s mother, from Connecticut, also had a German father. Continue reading →