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2nd Lt. Thomas Albert HUMPHREY Observer - 205th Squadron, Royal Air
Force 8th Battalion, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment
1894 - 3rd May 1918

Thomas Humphrey was the youngest of four sons born to Edward and Eliza Humphrey,
who ran the North Cray Bakers/Post Office and he was one of the first members of North
Cray Troop of Scouts. All his three brothers served in the Armed Forces. Enlisting on 7th
September 1914, Thomas was assigned to the Queen’s Royal West Sussex Regt. In 1917 he
was recommended by his Captain for a Commission and came home for training, being
gazetted into the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment as a 2nd Lieutenant. Always up for
a challenge by early 1918 he had been transferred to the Royal Air Force as an observer.

On Sunday 3rd May 1918, after orders were received from their Commander, the young
airmen of 105 squadron, Royal Air Force, quickly climbed into their light, flimsy aircraft,
revved up the engines and one by one took to the air. Thomas fitted himself into the
passenger seat of the two-man aircraft piloted by 21-year-old Raymond Scott. It may have
just been just a co-incidence, but Raymond's father was also a master baker employing one
of his sons as well his brother in their bakery business in Darlington.

The isolation of flying above the clouds was something the airmen found exhilarating and
once experiencing the new freedom there were very few cases of men wanting to opt back
to their regiments. However, they were acutely aware of the extreme dangers and were only
too conscious of the fact that their average survival rate was less than a few
weeks. Parachutes were not permitted as those who made such decisions thought the men
would come to rely on them! Nevertheless, the thrill of this new adventure meant it was a
price they were prepared to pay. At the start of the war observers were there just to take
photographs of the battlefields, but now they operated a mounted machine gun and
engaged with the enemy aircraft.

After the flight when the British pilots had engaged with the German pilots, Thomas' plane
failed to return. He and his young pilot were initially reported as missing although in reality
it was realised that they could not have survived. His commanding officer wrote to his
mother on 6th May: “Your son has not been long with us but has already made good and
done a lot of very useful work. He was very keen indeed and very popular
with his messmates." Thomas' plane had been shot down by the German pilots and
crashed on enemy held territory in France. Although each of the two Nations were at war,
there was an enormous mutual respect for fellow airmen of any nationality and Thomas and
Raymond were ceremoniously buried as prisoners-of-war in Fontaine-les-Cappy
Churchyard in France.

In Memoriam: The Commonwealth War Graves Commission hold details of the following
citation:
HANGUARD COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION
Special Kipling Memorial Plot
"THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT"
To the memory of these two British soldiers and two British Airmen who fell in
1915 and 1918 and died as Prisoners-of-War and were buried at the time in the
Fontaine-Les-Cappy Churchyard extension, but whose graves are now lost.

The Royal Flying Corps was the Air Arm of the British Army during the First World War,
until it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1st April 1918 to form the Royal Air
Force. 2nd Lieutenant Thomas Humphrey was, therefore, one of the very first members of
the Royal Air Force.

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