Royal Flying Corps - Bomber School?

[Brian Wolfe]

Hello All,

Here is a photo of what I think is a group of RFC Training staff possibly from the bomber branch. The photo shows a nice variety of bombs and on the rear wall there are instructional charts showing the workings of the different bombs. I think the Sergeant Major sitting front left has a wound stripe on his left sleeve. Would anyone know if that is indeed what it is? On the back of the photo is the name "Eric Richardson" and a place name that I can not make out due to the person's hand writing. The name has two letters which looks like a "T" followed by a "u". The "T" looks to have not been crossed leaving it looking like a "spike" with the "u" attached. The rest of the name is clear enough and is "auston", followed by the date 1918. Anyone like to give the place name a go?

I would think this photo was given out to the graduating classes. That is just a guess and not very worthy of an arm-chair historian I'm afraid. But I threw it out there anyway.

I hope you like this picture, it's an interesting study.

Cheers.

Brian

[PKeating]

If you have an original print, the detail is usually extremely clear. So you can scan it at, say, 600 dpi or more, blow up the area around a man's sidehat or fieldcap and see if the RFC badge is discernable.

PK

[leigh kitchen]

Looks like a wound stripe, but it's hard to tell from this photo. Looks like a couple of naval air service men in the group?

And is one man wearing the RFC maternity smock?

Edited March 2, 2007 by leigh kitchen

[Brian Wolfe]

Looks like a wound stripe, but it's hard to tell from this photo. Looks like a couple of naval air service men in the group?

And is one man wearing the RFC maternity smock?

Hello Leigh,

Under the magnifying glass the stripe really looks like a wound stripe to me. It looks to be one of the privately purchased brass stripes and not the sewen on cloth issue.

I thought that there were some naval air service men in the photo as well but I am not familiar enough with uniforms to have made that claim in my original post. Since I purchased this photo I have been looking through several books written in the post war era and noticed several of the bombs, such as in my photo, shown being prepared for delivery to the air field. While my interest is mainly in medals I do find period photos and post cards very interesting.

Cheers

Brian

[Brian Wolfe]

If you have an original print, the detail is usually extremely clear. So you can scan it at, say, 600 dpi or more, blow up the area around a man's sidehat or fieldcap and see if the RFC badge is discernable.

PK

Hello PK,

I will give that a go this weekend. This is an original print and the detail under a magnifying glass is excellent.

Cheers

Brian