twenty-five years ago a young officer and Old Bedfordian, stationed with his regiment—the 2nd Gurkhas—at Dehra Dun was spending a few days! holiday at the neighbouring hill station of Mussoorie and' cidentally playing. for the Gurkhas in a modest polo tournament—three a side because of the smallness the ground in that Himalayan erie, At an intimate picnic party on one of Mussoorie's many beauty. spots overlooking the Dun valley' ho revealed fo a friend in casual conver sation his" ambition to become an airman. He maintained "thatthe aeroplane would be the rear trans former of future means of communication and, amid the incredulity of his small audience, he forecasted the possibility of dropping from the air fon Mussoorie's 6,500 ft. plateau. He had his chance that very year, for hho was one of the three Indian Army foleers choses to itend the fying school which it was proposed to open Sitapur. Only a year earlier Brancker—a young Artillery affeer and Old Bedferdian too—at his own expense had flown his own plane at the Rawalpindi manquvres, to. manifest doubts of his superiors, who had refused "even to pay for his petrol and duly noted that the machine soon crashed. Sitapur never really got under way, for' the cataclysm of August 1914 closed it up fand transferred its personnel to the real thing in France. Brancker's destiny is part of British" aviation history. "As Sir Sefton Brancker and the first Civil Aviation Chiat made the first "alr journey from Great Britain to India on reconnaissance for the establishment of an airship route and he was fated to meet his death In ROI's intended fulfilment of tha plan, That Gurkha oflleer in. the Royal Flying Come steadily developed his airman's lore and won distinction in France, (Continued on page 359)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.