RIP Henry Allingham

Fratton Fred

Can you imagine what it would have been like to spend an hour in this man's company. Imagine the things he could have told you, the memories he must have had stored away.

113 is an incredibly good innings

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6719546.ece

Timesonline wrote:

Henry Allingham was the last survivor of the Royal Naval Air Service known to have been in action overseas in the First World War. He was an aircraft mechanic but often flew as an observer and air-gunner, or at the request of pilots to provide assurance that their aircraft were properly maintained and airworthy.

Allingham was 18 at the outbreak of war and would have volunteered but felt he could not leave his widowed mother; when she died in 1915 he rode his Triumph motorcycle to the recruiting office to offer it, and himself, to the Royal Engineers as a dispatch rider.

Until the Military Service Act of January 1916, the Royal Navy and the Army were reinforced by their own regular reservists and a flood of volunteers. Conscription was consequently avoided until heavy casualties on the Western Front made it inevitable.

Accepted but told to go home and wait, Allingham became impatient and, being an engineer apprentice, offered his services as an aircraft mechanic. His early days with the RNAS were spent at sea servicing aircraft carried on naval vessels............

Morlar

Agreed - he must have had a hell of a life.

Btw this was also mentioned in the WWI forum request thread;

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055554801

MarchDub

His successor [Walter Breuning b. 1896] is just as interesting IMO - not all of history is about war memories.
And there's still a chance to "spend an hour" with him...for someone.


http://www.kpax.com/Global/story.asp?S=10222519

Fratton Fred

I wonder what Walter could tell us of his recollection of Irish independance, or what his views were on the black and tans?

Besides, he's only 112, still a boy!