LIEUTENANT GEORGE ALLAN EXLEY. ROYAL FLYING CORPS


LIEUTENANT GEORGE ALLAN EXLEY. ROYAL FLYING CORPS. KILLED IN A FLYING ACCIDENT 14TH JANUARY 1917.



George Exley was born in the Holbeck area of Leeds in July 1892. His father, John, a dispensing chemist owned a string of pharmacist shops operating under the name Messrs G Exley and Son. The Exley family moved to Burley-in-Wharfedale in 1903 and lived in a house known as Farr Royd and George was sent to school at Ilkley Grammar where his father became a school governor. After finishing school, George, attended the London College of Pharmacy and by 1914 had become a member of the prestigious Pharmaceutical Society.
 
At the beginning of 1915, George, enlisted in the Royal Engineers as a despatch rider, however, within three months his officer potential had been noted and he was commissioned into the 5th Battalion Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Within a few months George was again on the move when he transferred into the Royal Flying Corps as an observer with 20 Squadron. Based in the Ypres sector he survived many incidents including a forced landing in April 1916, when his plane was attacked by two German fighters.
In the summer of 1916, George, returned to England to train as a pilot in the Military Flying School at Huntingdon. He qualified as a pilot in September of that year and by December was back in France.

At the beginning of January 1917 George was attached to number 29 Squadron Royal Flying Corps in the Arras sector of the Western Front. The weather that January had been atrocious, bitterly cold with frequent heavy snowfalls. On the 14th January the weather was poor with low lying cloud cover when George took off in a scout plane, probably a DH2 biplane. Whilst flying in the low cloud he became disorientated and decided to fly at a lower altitude, probably, get under the cloud base. Unfortunately, this manoeuvre brought him too low and his plane collided with a tree killing him instantly.

Today 2nd Lieutenant George Allan Exley is buried in the British Military Cemetery at Hararcq and is remembered on the war memorials in Burley in Wharfedale and at Ilkley Grammar School.


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