News / Blog Items

Prior to the commencement of Stage 2 of the restoration of the Ma'Asker Al Raschid Cemetery (formerly known as the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery) where the cemetery grounds will be levelled and prepared, with the 22 headstones that remain more or less intact place along one of the cemetery's new perimeter walls, exploratory excavation has been carried out to locate the concrete foundation footings in order to gauge the condition of the graves and also to confirm the exact dimens

After the annual Remembrance Day ceremony carried out by British Embassy staff at the Baghdad North Gate Cemetery on the morning of Friday 11th November 2022, wreaths were laid in the afternoon at the Ma'Asker RAF Cemetery (formerly the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery) in a small gathering to mark the first anniversary of the cemetery's re-dedication.

In the course of my research into the early days of 6 and 8 Squadrons Royal Flying Corps I was given three photographs by the late Richard Price, great nephew of Lt Graham Price, a 6 Squadron observer. The photo with the propeller blade ‘marker’ shows the grave of Sergeant Benjamin Frederick Barnard (a fitter/rigger with 8 Squadron) who was killed by a spinning propellor whilst starting a BE2c on the 15th August 1915 at the Squadron’s base at Marieux. He was buried at Louvenc

The February 1935 edition of The Aeroplane carried a one-page feature on 6 Squadron's 'coming of age' dinner at London's Mayfair hotel,...

The first day of the Battle of Messines was a difficult day for 6 Squadron, with two aircraft destroyed, four officers killed, one taken as POW and three badly injured. The exact fate of one of the pilots who gave his life on that day, Lt Arthur Phillippo, has remained a mystery until last month (July 2022), when I read on a WW1 forum that the WW1 medals and bronze Memorial Death Plaque of a fellow 6 Squadron pilot, Capt Sydney Philip Smith, had been sold at an eBay auction f

I recently worked on an enquiry regarding the role of flying observers during WW1 and the topic widened to the growth of the RFC/RAF and...