The Air Force Museum of New Zealand has a fascinating new album of digital portraits of new World War One-era pilots available online.
During World War One two flying schools were set up in New Zealand to train pilots for the war effort. The Walsh brothers began the New Zealand Flying School at Kohimarama in Auckland in 1915, while, a little later, Henry Wigram began the Canterbury (NZ) Aviation Company (CAC) at Sockburn, Christchurch.
The CAC trained 188 pilots between August 1917 and November 1920. The company arranged for portraits to be taken of all graduates and the Air Force Museum of New Zealand holds over 80% of these in the collection. Over the past few years, a major project has been under way to digitize these portraits to make them available to the public.
Many notable names in New Zealand aviation trained at Sockburn, now called Wigram in Sir Henry’s honour.
Among the stars of early aviation were ‘Bert’ Mercer, graduate number 7, who worked as a mechanic at the CAC before learning to fly. He started New Zealand’s first commercial airline, Air Travel (NZ) in 1934.
Hume Christie, graduate number 22, served in the Air Force in both world wars and went on to be on the organising committee of the London to Christchurch Air Race in 1953.
John Moncrieff, graduate number 40, went missing without trace in January 1928 when he and George Hood attempted to be the first to fly across the Tasman Sea.
Harold Piper, graduate number 166, among other things, became a test pilot in 1933 and later, Chief Pilot for the aircraft manufacturer Short Brothers until 1947.
James Sloss, graduate number 12, was unfortunately, the only graduate to die as a result of an operational flight in World War One. He was badly wounded in a crash on 9 November and died on 23 November 1918.
Leslie Alfred Limbrick, Canterbury Aviation Company graduate number 5. Sockburn Aerodrome. Image MUS9408813.
Browse the collection of portraits here.
