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An also tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of the man my Father was named after.
On 2nd April 1918 flying Sopwith Camel B5720, Charles Edward Pattison RAF, aged 21, of Winona, Ontario, Canada hit overhead wires near Redcar Racecourse and crashed soon after, the wreckage caught fire which completely destroyed the aircraft. The pilot sadly died of his injuries, this was the first day the RAF was in existance and he was almost certainly one of the RAF's first casualties.
Pilot - Captain Charles Edward Pattison RAF, aged 21, of Winona, Ontario, Canada. Buried New Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh.
Charles Pattison was born on 13th July 1896 in Glasgow, Scotland. He moved with his family to Canada at a young age and begun working at the Royal Bank of Canada on 2nd March 1914 prior to enlisting in Winona on 15th December 1915 into the RNAS. He is listed as serving with the French Army for several months and for this service he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre medal. He was buried in a very old burial ground in central Edinburgh.
Sopwith Camel B5720 was built by Clayton & Shuttleworth Ltd at Lincoln and delivered to the Home Defence Flight at East Fortune by road on 12th November 1917 where it served until being transferred to Redcar on 22nd March 1918. It probably served with the Home Defence Flight at Redcar but records are unclear. The RNAS H.D.Flt disbanded on 1st April 1918 and reformed as the RAF School of Special Fighting the next day, 2nd April 1918, the day Redcar became under RAF control. The aircraft was destroyed as a result of the accident recorded above and the aircraft was deleted on 13th April 1918.
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...it was a plane adrift beneath the moon moving serenely thru beams like an angel of the night .....fair as a song ........aloof from mortal dreams
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