"The Fledglings"

For the Royal Flying Corps the horrendous losses suffered during the Battle of Arras in 1917 were to become known as ‘Bloody April’. The inquisition that followed identified the technological inadequacy of the planes but more significantly the lack of training for the flyers. In response to these setbacks significant changes were made to improve the aircraft but also to both extend the training programme and improve the quality of the tuition. In both areas Hursley was to play a role.

By 1916 the new army planned by Lord Kitchener was largely complete and the need for camps like Hursley to provide basic training for large numbers of raw recruits was receding. All around Winchester the existing army camps were beginning to focus on specialist training, for example Avington Park Camp with Heavy Artillery, Pitt Corner with the Veterinary Corps and Hazeley Down Camp with the new Tank Corps.

At Hursley it was to be the Royal Flying Corps.

A key part of the plan to improve the basic training for flyers was to begin the training earlier, before the age of 18 when they could be sent into combat. To achieve this new Cadet Wings were established at Oxford and Hursley, where by May 1917 No.2 Cadet Wing R.F.C. had taken over the army brigade camp.

Once at Hursley they were organised into four ‘Flights’ and underwent a two month period of basic training to improve their physical fitness, teach them how to march, drill and, through a heavy schedule of classes, learn the basics of aerial observation, wireless operation, engine maintenance, rigging for the planes, weapon skills with machine guns and bombs, learning the instruments and the theory of flight. The intent was that by the time they reached 18 they would be able to progress to more advanced training, flying and observation skills.

For Cadets like James Hargan Hursley was a wondrous place. Writing to his mother, he enthused about the surrounding countryside where “the greenness and the colour are beyond the power of my poor pen to describe. What a contrast in every respect to Farnboro’. With its whirring of aero engines and planes day and night.” However, for him the greatest thrill was that “You see we are treated as officers in embryo, and not as units, so many numbers.”. Although still accommodated under canvas, conditions were far less crowded and the army brigade camp huts were converted into Mess halls where mess tins were replaced by real crockery on white tablecloths served by ladies of the Women’s Legion and WAAC.

For others the isolation miles away from the excitement of town life made it a somewhat dreary place. A comic map of the village highlights the “forbidden” pubs while photographs show the variety of sports pursued; from the expected football and cricket matches against other nearby camps to the more unexpected Baseball (which Canadian Cadets tried manfully to teach their British fellows) and a parody of the local Hursley Hunt’s pursuit of foxes with their own hunt for the rats that scurried over their feet at night.

Whilst at Hursley this youthful schoolboy humour found an outlet in their in-house magazine, “The Fledgling”. With the first four issues written at Hursley, and later editions reflecting on their time at Hursley, it gives a fascinating insight into the daily life of these young men and the officers who commanded them.

For the Cadets, the stay at Hursley was to be short lived. By the end of September they had transferred to new accommodation by the seaside in Hastings. Their place at Hursley was soon taken by the staff and flyers of the “Wireless and Operators School” who had been forced out of their previous base in Brooklands to make way for increased aircraft production by the Royal Aircraft Factory. This school will be the subject to the next instalment of the history of Hursley during The Great War.