activities, but
his name deserves record among the pioneers.

When Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett of the Grenadier Guards became
adjutant of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps he made a vow
that the corps should combine the smartness of the Guards with the
efficiency of the Sappers. In spite of difficulties and disasters, the
corps went far, in the first two years of its existence, towards
attaining that ideal. In the summer of 1912 the Central Flying School at
Upavon got to work, and thenceforward supplied a steady stream of
trained reinforcements for the corps. There was inevitable delay at
first; but as soon as some of the new wooden buildings were nearing
completion they were taken over, and on the 19th of June the school was
opened. The plan was that there should be three courses every year, each
of them lasting three months and passing on its graduates for further
training either with the military squadrons or at the naval school. The
first course began on the 17th of August 1912, and was not completed
until the end of December, but the subsequent courses were punctually
completed in the time prescribed. The delay in the first course was due
chiefly to a shortage of machines. The use of monoplanes was forbidden,
and the nineteen pupils who presented themselves in August had to be
instructed on the only four available biplanes, which were soon damaged
by the maiden efforts of the learners. For a short time the pupils were
sent on leave, and the school was closed; then new machines and new
recruits began to arrive, and the work of education went forward.
Besides the main business of flying, the pupils were instructed and
examined in map-reading and signalling, the management of the
internal-combustion engine, and the theoretical aspects of the art of
reconnaissance. Of a total of thirty-four pupils who were examined at
the end of the course, only two failed to pass. During the next year and
a half, up to the very eve of the war, the work of the school went on
steadily, with improving material and increasing efficiency. There were
three fatal accidents: on the 3rd of October 1913 Major G. C. Merrick
was killed on a Short biplane; on the 10th of March 1914 Captain C. P.
Downer, on a B.E. biplane; and on the 19th of March 1914 Lieutenant H.
F. Treeby, on a Maurice Farman biplane. On an average about thirty
officers passed out from the school, into one branch or another of the
service, at the end of each c