SIR - Regarding the T&A article on April 10 about children from Farsley using an activity pack to help study and celebrate 100 years history of the RAF, and the story of Farsley Pilot Charles Butler who lost his life in WW1.
I am reminded that here in Bingley Cemetery there is a grave stone which records the death at 18 of one of the very first RAF Flight Cadets, Thomas Turner Whitley, who lost his life on July 24, 1918 just a few months after the RAF was formed on April 1, 1918.
RAF Museum records show that he was training at RAF Manston, Kent in a Beardmore pup aeroplane, (most of which had been hastily built).
Something went wrong with the machine and he crashed into the sea and was later found dead.
Bingley Cemetery has several RAF grave stones from both world wars but this one is pertinent because of the youthful age of the Flight Cadet and his death being at the very beginning to the formation of the RAF, plus the grave depicts a model of his aeroplane.
I hope some Bingley schools take up the RAF 100 activity packs and research this and other local RAF Graves.
Chris Binns, Stepping Stones, East Morton
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