SUB LIEUTENENT NORMAN MALLARD, ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE. DROWNED 30TH MARCH 1918 AGED 17 YEARS.


SUB LIEUTENANT NORMAN MALLARD, ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE. DROWNED 30TH MARCH 1918 AGED 17 YEARS.






At about 11am on the morning of the 30th March 1918, trainee pilot Norman Mallard took off from the War School at Manston airfield in Kent in a single seat Sopwith Camel and flew north towards the Thames Estuary at Westgate on Sea. Flying out over the bay where a number hydrogen balloons were positioned he was involved in an exercise to practice shooting them down. At 11.26am Norman positioned himself for a practice attack and dived at full throttle towards the balloons below. At about 500 feet above sea level he appears to have lost control of the plane which went into a steep tail spin and crashed into the water. Rescuers dashed to the scene of the crash and pulled the young pilot from the wreckage of his plane, but sadly he was found to be dead.


Norman Mallard was born in Streatham South London on the 12th July 1898 the son of Peter, who worked for a newspaper and Amy, who was as a teacher with mentally disabled children. In 1910 after the death of his father, his mother, although, Australian by birth, brought her family to Yorkshire where she had relatives. Norman attended Archbishop Holgates Grammar School in the York but in 1911 won a scholarship to Christs Hospital School, a public school in Sussex. In 1914 Amy brought her three children to Ilkley where they lived at West Croft on Grove Road. Norman finished his schooling in 1916 and joined the Royal Naval Air Service in late 1917. He  commenced pilot training at Cranwell and must have qualified as he was allowed to fly the notoriously difficult to control Sopwith Camel.

After the accident, Norman’s body was brought back to Ilkley where a funeral service was held at St Margaret’s Church. Paraded back through the town the funeral cortege was escorted by soldiers from the convalescent home on The Grove before interment in the town cemetery. Sub Lieutenant Norman Mallard is remembered with pride on our war memorial in Ilkley.

https://www.chwarmemorial.org.uk/RollofHonour.aspx?RecID=230&TableName=ta_ww1rollofhonour&BrowseID=1140








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