The Cammell Memorial

By Paul H. Vickers, Friends of the Aldershot Military Museum

On Queen’s Avenue, opposite the Church of Saint Michael and Saint George, stands an obelisk in memory of Lieutenant Cammell, one of the pioneers of Army aviation who died at a tragically young age.

Reginald Archibald Cammell, generally known as ‘Rex’, was born on 10 January 1888 and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1906. In November 1910 Lieutenant Cammell made the first official military flight in a Blériot aeroplane over Salisbury Plain. When he later flew the Blériot to Farnborough for an overhaul, engine failure caused him to make a forced landing which wrecked the plane. However, Cammell purchased his own Blériot monoplane which he based on Laffan’s Plain at Farnborough. He flew this in the Daily Mail Circuit of Britain air race in July 1911, but had to retire at Wakefield through engine failure.

Cammell joined the Royal Engineers’ Air Battalion when it was formed in April 1911. The battalion’s purpose was to train officers and men in the handling of all forms or aircraft and provide a body of expert airmen from which air units could be organised in time of war. Cammell was one of only three officers qualified in all forms of aircraft - balloons, kites, airships and aeroplanes - and he had a reputation as a skilful and versatile aviator.

In 1911 Cammel was ordered to collect a Valkyrie monoplane from its manufacturers, the Aeronautical Syndicate Limited, at Hendon. The plane had been presented to the Army by Mr Horatio Barber, designer and general manager of the company, and Cammell was to fly it from Hendon to Farnborough for testing. He did not make an auspicious arrival at Hendon, as he flew there in his Blériot but misjudged a turn and crashed into a shed. Undeterred, Cammell pressed ahead with his mission and was given some instruction on the Valkyrie by Mr Barber, as Cammell had not previously flown a Valkyrie and its controls were different to those in the planes he had piloted. A new Gnome 50 horsepower engine had been fitted to the plane, which had been a very difficult operation and it had to be taken out and re-fitted two or three times.

During the morning of Sunday 17 September 1911, Barber took the Valkyrie on a test flight with Cammell as a passenger. At around 5.40 that evening Cammell took off alone in the Valkyrie, intending to have a half hour’s practice flight before the journey to Farnborough the next day. He completed a circuit over the aerodrome, turned and came in over the hangars at around 100 feet, apparently with the intention of landing in front of the sheds. He was attempting a spiral ‘vol plane’ manoeuvre, in which the engine is shut off and the aeroplane descends in a controlled glide. During this he went into a tight left turn which caused the plane to bank steeply, the Valkyrie turned over and plunged to the ground. Cammell was thrown but was hit by the chassis, one of the struts pierced his back, and when he landed not only was his left leg broken but he hit the ground with his head, causing concussion of the brain. Spectators who ran to help found Cammell was still alive and he made a couple of gasps for breath. He was rushed away in a car to the Central London Sick Asylum close by, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

An inquest was opened the following Tuesday at Hendon, where numerous eye-witnesses gave their accounts of the crash. Although the sequence of events was clearly established, there was no answer to the central question of what caused the accident. Witnesses testified that they heard no problems with the engine, and no structural problems were found with the plane itself. The spiral vol plane was said to be one of the most difficult manoeuvres in flying, and Cammell was attempting it in a machine with which he was not experienced. Some colleagues believed that he simply turned too sharply, noting that he used to do tight turns in his Blériot so may have attempted too much in the Valkyrie. Mr Barber noted the differences in the controls for the Valkyrie from those of Cammell’s normal planes, the Farman and the Blériot, and suggested that Cammell did not know how to correct the bank in the Valkyrie with the result that it came down sideways. However, the final cause of the crash could never be determined, and a verdict of “death by misadventure” was recorded.

Lieutenant Cammell was given a full military funeral at Aldershot on 22 September 1911. The body was taken from the mortuary of the Cambridge Military Hospital to the Military Cemetery, where a service was held in the Cemetery Chapel. Leading the procession was a firing party of fifty men from the Air Battalion, followed by the Royal Engineers’ Band, the coffin on a gun carriage drawn by six black horses, and the carriages of the mourners, including Cammell’s mother and sister. Marching behind were forty members of the Royal Engineers carrying wreaths, officers of the Royal Engineers, aviators Samuel Cody and Geoffrey De Havilland, Mervyn O’Gorman, Superintendent of the Balloon Factory at Farnborough, and representatives from other units in the garrison. At the grave the firing party fired their salutes while the band played the dead march from ‘Saul’, and the trumpeters of the Royal Engineers sounded the Last Post.

Such was the regard for this brave young lieutenant that the officers of the Royal Engineers organised a subscription to raise a memorial to him. This took some time, and it was not until December 1913 that work commenced on building the memorial on the edge of the parade ground of Gibraltar Barracks, the Royal Engineers’ barracks in Aldershot. It was sited at the east end of the parade ground, facing on to Queen’s Avenue and opposite the church of Saint George, now the cathedral church of Saint Michael and Saint George. Completed in 1914, the monument was in the form of an obelisk with a brass plaque on the base on which was the dedication to Lieutenant Cammell and noting that it was erected “by his brother officers in recognition of his services to military aviation”.

Still standing in its original location, this is a fine and elegant monument honouring a gallant young man from the early days of Army flying.

Credits

Article originally published in the The Garrison, Summer 2022

Copyright © Paul H. Vickers. This article, including the accompanying pictures, may not be reproduced or republished, in whole or in part, either in print or electronically, including on any websites or social media sites, without the prior permission of the author.