Salute aerial heroes (From The Northern Echo)

Salute aerial heroes

5:10pm Wednesday 14th December 2011 in History By Chris Lloyd, Deputy Editor

The story of a Darlington Grammar School First World War air pioneer and victim of the conflict.

I never hear,
The growling diapason of a plane
Up there,
The deep reverb’rant humming of a plane
Up there,
But up to God I wing a little prayer
Begging his care
For him who braves the dangers of the air.

God keep you, Bird-man, in your plane
Up there!
Your wings upbear, your heart sustain!
Give you good flight and oversight
And bring you safe to earth again!

SADLY for Harold Easby, he didn’t come safely down to earth again. Instead, his primitive biplane sideslipped soon after take-off in France, and he was killed.

Dangerous aircraft: A DH4 biplane, like the one Harold Easby died in

“His death was instantaneous, and you can be sure that he felt no pain,” his commanding officer wrote back to his family in Darlington, as if it were some comfort to them.

“It was all over in a few seconds. The accident was of a type which will happen as long as men fly aeroplanes built for fighting.”

Sub-Lieutenant Harold Richard Easby was only 19. He was one of two Darlington Grammar School boys who had answered the nation’s call after “Bloody April” 1917.

Britain had gone into the First World War unprepared for aerial combat only to discover during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 the importance of this new theatre of war.

Desperate to catch up, Britain threw poorly-trained and illequipped fliers into the air, but they were no match for the Germans, and April 1917 earned its bloody epithet as they were shot from the skies.

Britain cast around for a new generation of fliers, and found two at the school in Vane Terrace, Darlington.

Memories 56 told of John Worstenholm, who went to Cambridge University for a term but gave up his studies to become a pilot. He lasted only five weeks over the Somme before being shot down and killed.

Worstenholm, the only son of the editor of The Northern Echo, played in the same school football team as Easby, whose family have been in touch with details of his short, brave life.

Easby was eight months junior to Worstenholm, but the pair found themselves adversaries in cross-country races and the debating society.

Worstenholm was probably the more academic, but Easby, the better sportsman, was no slouch. He was the son of a master house painter and decorator. In 1910, ged 11, he won a scholarship from the Bondgate Methodist Church Day School that enabled him to study at the grammar school.

He captained the school football and cricket teams, became head prefect and won enough scholarships and awards to get a place at Oxford University.

Instead, aged 18 years and four months, on February 22, 1917, he registered for military service at the Recruiting Office in Fawcett Street, Sunderland.

The recruiters realised his potential and, from a large number of candidates, he was selected for the Royal Naval Air Service – there was no RAF in those days – and sent for training as an observer at Crystal Palace and then Redcar.

His first flight was on May 17, 1917. It lasted 14 minutes, reached 1,500ft, and Easby’s exercise was to sketch the aerodrome beneath him (Redcar aerodrome was beside the racecourse).

Observers also received training in flying a plane in case something happened to their pilot while they were airborne.

On June 10, Easby flew solo for 76 minutes at 2,000ft and, he noted in his diary, that he made one very good landing and two moderate ones.

Five days later, he returned from a flight over Saltburn, got his landing all wrong, and crashed. He was unhurt but his aircraft was wrecked.

After that, he seems to have stuck to observing.

In August 1917, he was sent to the Kent coast to be trained in photography, telegraphy and bomb dropping. But the flying machines were very rudimentary: on a couple of occasions, he mentions having to return to base because of engine trouble, and once he and his pilot were forced down because they had run out of petrol. Nevertheless, he passed his exams so well that he was awarded two months seniority in rank and he volunteered to serve on the frontline at Dunkirk.

HE lasted less than two months. On January 8, 1918, his father, Thomas, received the dreaded knock on the door at their home in North Lodge Terrace, and was handed a telegram from the Admiralty.

“Deeply regret inform you Observer Sublieut Harold R Easby killed 7th January. Result aeroplane accident letter follows.”

The letter, from his commanding officer followed a few days later.

“He had not been here many weeks, but in that time had proved himself to be a clever and capable observer, and very keen on his work,” reported Squadron Leader F Esk Sandford. “He had taken great trouble to learn his work, and on his last flight had asked to go up to practise shooting at a target with his machine gun.

“Unfortunately, soon after the aeroplane left the ground, the machine sideslipped on a turn: this became a nose-dive, and it was too low for the pilot to recover.”

The pilot of the Airco DH4 tractor biplane day-bomber was Flight Sub-Lieutenant Cyril Barber, 23, from Ontario, Canada.

He also died, and Easby was buried with him in Dunkirk.

“You can easily find his grave if ever you come over here after the war,” said the squadron leader. “He had full naval honours for his funeral, as he died for his country as well as any man in this war.

“In conclusion, I wish to say that while I regret his loss so much, I must congratulate his mother and yourself on the way your son did his duty.”

His parents donated one shilling towards the cost of the memorial board in the grammar school – now the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College – that bears the names of the 86 former pupils who died during the First World War. He has two nieces in Darlington, and we are extremely grateful to his relative, Jennifer Parry, of Faversham, for sending the information this article is based upon.

The family has several pieces of memorabilia relating to Harold, including his logbook. Among the papers is a copy of the poem, A Little Prayer For the Man in the Air, which opens this article. It was written by John Oxenham, who, like the Easbys, was a staunch Methodist. He was a Christian idealist and he put his total faith in God’s purpose for the war. One million copies of his poems were sold, making him the post popular war poet of the day, although we now prefer poets like Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon, who had a less idealised, more gritty view of the conflict.