Sergeant Pilots in the Royal Flying Corps

As a young lad growing up in the UK in the 1950's, I was very close with my Grandfather who, as a member of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, had been involved in the fighting in World War 1 right from the beginning. My own interest was in aeroplanes and as well as telling me about his days in the trenches and the madness and sickness of war, he also used to talk to me about "flying machines and madmen" (the pilots and observers). The public image always portrayed of dashing hero pilots of the RFC was always that of an officer class, but my Grandfather used to talk about Sergeant pilots who flew unarmed and wore the wings on their uniform. He said these were the men who were qualified pilots, usually senior mechanics, who repaired the damaged planes and were then required to test fly them again before they were returned to squadron duties. The repair centres were very close always to the main fighting and these men took the planes up for testing without them being armed. He said many were in fact chased by marauding German flyers and indeed many were shot down or forced down by the Germans, as they could not defend themselves.

I had no reason to disbelieve my Grandfather and he was certainly not given to exaggerating a thing, in my experience. Later in life, my interest in aviation history still strong, I wanted to find out more about these Sergeant pilots and I started to make enquiries in all the proper official places. At first I was met with total denial of their existance by aviation historians in official museums and keepers of such histories as existed. This continued for years despite further forays into archival data which should have brought forth information. Non of the official historical bodies in the UK claimed any knowledge of such a mustering. Non-the less I knew deep down that my Grandfather had no reason to lie to me and I knew he had seen an awful lot of interesting things in his 5 years in the mess of France and Belgium.

I discussed this issue also with other well respected observers and researchers on the history of the RFC and I believe all of them thought I was somewhat off my rocker in insisting that there must have been Sergeant pilots in the RFC, despite official assurances that only the officer class were trained to fly and sported the RFC wings.

One day I spotted a rather cracked and sad looking old photograph for sale on Ebay. It was clear that he was wearing the wings of an RFC pilot but..... the man was wearing an enlisted man's uniform and a flight sergeant's stripes on his sleeve! I didn't win the auction, but I contacted the winner (in the good old information-sharing days when this was still possible on Ebay - Ebay, please note that by stopping such communications between Ebayers you have stopped dead a fantastic resource of research and information sharing!!!) and I told him my story and asked if it was possible to have a scan of the picture for my records. He was quite happy to share, especially under the circumstances (thank you so much Cliff!) and together we set up a collaboration to find more evidence. He had not been aware that there was any question about sergeant pilots in the RFC and a search of his extensive RFC image collection turned up several more images clearly showing Sergeant and Flight Sergeant pilots, in uniform and wearing the RFC pilot wing.

Since that time, with the cooperation of others who have access to the UK national archive at Kew, further period official records and communications documenting the authorised existance of NCO pilots have materialised.  I guess its now official!

There is value in listening to old men's stories and chasing down little bits of evidence, even if it takes years,  to build a groundswell of irrefutable evidence. A salute to ALL those brave men who wore the wings, commissioned and armed, non-commissioned and unarmed.

Chris Langley