Second Lieutenant Albert William Gordon, Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was the first New Zealand Flying School graduate to lose his life on active service. This occurred on his first and only mission, only one week after going to serve on the Western Front.
Albert was born in Auckland in 1888 and began flying at the New Zealand Flying School at Kohimarama in March 1916. The school was partly funded by the British government and contributed 83 New Zealand pilots to the First World War effort. After gaining his Royal Aero Club Certificate (private pilot’s licence) in December, Albert embarked with the 21st Reinforcements New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) for the United Kingdom, arriving in March 1917. He joined the RFC and gained his Pilots Badge on 20 June 1917. A month later he joined No. 32 Squadron in France.
On 30 July 1917, Albert, alongside two others, including his New Zealand flight commander, Captain Arthur Coningham, engaged five enemy fighters in combat near Langemarck in Belgium. Coningham was wounded but completed the patrol, however Albert was more seriously wounded and although he managed to crash-land his aircraft, the Airco DH.5 landed in a shell hole and both of his legs broke on impact. While recovering well in hospital, Albert fell ill from a blood clot in the heart and died suddenly on 12 August 1917, aged 29. He was buried at Etaples Military Cemetery in France.
On 30 July 1917, Albert, alongside two others, including his New Zealand flight commander, Captain Arthur Coningham, engaged five enemy fighters in combat near Langemarck in Belgium. Coningham was wounded but completed the patrol, however Albert was more seriously wounded and although he managed to crash-land his aircraft, the Airco DH.5 landed in a shell hole and both of his legs broke on impact. While recovering well in hospital, Albert fell ill from a blood clot in the heart and died suddenly on 12 August 1917, aged 29. He was buried at Etaples Military Cemetery in France.
‘It breaks my heart & brings everything up fresh’
Writing to her remaining living son Arthur Gordon in November 1917, Albert’s mother described how she felt reading the letters she received from Captain Coningham’s mother, about her late son:
‘This Capt Cunningham’s [sic] mother wrote to me last week and she said her son wrote to her & told her to tell me what a brave boy Alby was & a son to be proud of although only knowing him a short time they grew very much attached to him & his name would live in their memory while life lasted, darling when I get all these letters from distinguished people it breaks my heart & brings everything up fresh. But fretting like this won’t do us any good & we can’t bring him back.’
Coningham later became Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, a senior officer in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War.
