No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps

   No. 6 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps was formed at Farnborough on 31st of January 1914. They proceeded to France in August 1914. However their aircraft and many of their crews were then immediately reassigned to other Squadrons in order to bring them up to strength, and the squadron was not operational until October. It was renamed No. 6 Squadron, Royal Air Force in April 1918.

5th August 1914 Preparations for France

7th October 1914 Squadron rushed to Belgium

16th Oct 1914 On the Move  On the 16th of October No.6 Squadron moved to Poperinghe Aerodrome. Six Squadron’s work was primarily the observation for the artillery engaged on counter battery work, recording enemy troops movements and the mapping enemy trench positions. It played a large part in the Battle of Ypres despite constant attacks from the German air force and anti-aircraft fire, equipped with a variety of aircraft types, but principally the BE2.
Holts Battlefield Guide

26th October 1914 Aircraft markings altered

13th of December 1914 Wire Cut

14th of December 1914 French on the Offensive

15th of December 1914 Operations Resumed

16th of December 1914 Instruction

17th of December 1914 Wet Weather

18th of December 1914 No Progress

19th of December 1914 Demonstration

3rd Feb 1915 Shelling

4th Feb 1915 Attack Made

5th Feb 1915 Communication Issues

6th Feb 1915 Targets Selected

10th Feb 1915 Rounds Fired

11th Feb 1915

10th March 1915 Attacks

24th Apr 1915 Forced to retreat  Under heavy Germam shelling at Poperinghe, No 6 Squadron RFC were forced to move further back to join No.4 Squadron at Abeele Aerodrome. At around this time a scout flight comprising Martinsyde S1 and Bristol scout aircraft was added to the squadron to protect their reconnaissance planes.

14th of June 1915 Orders

25th July 1915 Combat

5th Dec 1915 Aircraft damaged

5th Dec 1915 Aircraft damaged

19th Dec 1915 Aircraft damaged

2nd Jan 1916 Aircraft damaged

17th Jan 1916 Pilot Wounded

3rd Mar 1916 Aircraft damaged

9th Mar 1916 Aircraft Lost

1st Apr 1916 Aircraft damaged

9th Apr 1916 Aircraft damaged

9th Apr 1916 Aircraft damaged

16th Apr 1916 Aircraft damaged

6th May 1916 Aircraft damaged

20th May 1916 Aircraft damaged

2nd Jun 1916 Aircraft damaged

26th Jun 1916 Aircraft damaged

1st Jul 1916 Aircraft Lost

2nd Jul 1916 Aircraft damaged

6th Jul 1916 Aircraft damaged

7th Jul 1916 Aircraft damaged

29th July 1916 Raid

29th Jul 1916 Aircraft damaged

1st Aug 1916 Aircraft damaged

2nd August 1916 Mass bombing raids

9th Aug 1916 Aircraft damaged

20th Oct 1916 Aircraft Lost

26th Oct 1916 Aircraft Lost

8th Nov 1916 Aircraft damaged

8th Nov 1916 Aircraft damaged

23rd Nov 1916 Aircraft damaged

27th Nov 1916 Aircraft damaged

29th Nov 1916 Aircraft damaged

28th Dec 1916 Aircraft damaged

18th March 1917

7th Jun 1917 In Action

7th July 1917 Air forces redeployed

30th July 1917

2nd Aug 1917 Message of Congratulation

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Want to know more about No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps?

There are:58 items tagged No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps available in our Library

These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War.

Those known to have served with
No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps
during the Great War 1914-1918.

Dowding Hugh Caswell Tremenheere. Group Capt.
Felts Percival Claude . 2nd.Lt. (d.23rd July 1917)
Foulsham Harry Shirley. Sgt
Halliday Morrice Frederick John. 2nd Lt (d.7th Jun 1917)
Lankshear Frank. (d.21st August 1917)

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Records of No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps from other sources.

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249167

Frank Lankshear 6 Squadron (d.21st August 1917)

Frank Lankshear served with the Army Ordinance Corps and No.6 Squadron, RFC.
Beryl Chandler

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246345

2nd.Lt. Percival Claude Felts 6 Squadron (d.23rd July 1917)

Percival Felts was the son of James William and Agnes Maria Felts of The Laurels, Potton in Bedfordshire. He served with the 6th Squadron, Royal Flying Corps based at Abelee Aerodrome, Belgium. He is buried in Lijsenthoek Military Cemetery, Belgium. He is remembered on the War Memorial at St. Marys church, Potton, Bedfordshire. A pupil of Bedford Modern School 1909-11, he os commemorated on the School War Memorial, which was unveiled in 1923 and in the Roll of Honour, published in The Eagle, December 1923.
Caroline Hunt

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224980

Sgt Harry Shirley Foulsham 6 Squadron

Shirley Foulsham joined the army on 21st October 1914 serving with the City of London Yeomanry. He transferred to RFC in 1916 and was a Sergeant Observer and aerial gunner on photographic reconnaissance, flying in RE8 aircraft with 6 squadron in Belgium. I have aerial photographs taken by him. He is in a photograph on this website with a sergeant pilot/navigator wearing goggles under the details of Hector Cameron Gardner.
Shirley Foulsham, who was my father, was shot down on 3rd September 1917 and captured near Menin with a machine gun bullet in his left wrist and taken to Courtrai Hospital for 3 days before going to Magdeburg Hospital in Germany as a p.o.w. from 9th September. He was repatriated on 12th January 1918. He was debriefed on arrival in UK and the record is in the National Archive Ref: WO/161/100/112. He convalesced on a farm in Stradbroke, Suffolk where his father had been a dispensing chemist. He married Martha Catling who was the farmer`s eldest daughter. He later became a representative for Fisons Fertilisers. In WW2 he became a Captain in the Home Guard and a town, district and county Councillor and JP. He died on 9th December 1972.
Peter Foulsham

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185828

Group Capt. Hugh Caswell Tremenheere "Stuffy" Dowding

My Stepfather, Hugh Dowding, was educated at his father's preparatory school at Moffat and then Winchester, after which he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1899. Failing to gain a commission in the Royal Engineers, he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery, being posted to Gibraltar, then to Ceylon and Hong Kong. In 1904 be was posted to No 7 Mountain Artillery Battery â€“ NWF, in India. From January 1912 he attended Army Staff College. In 1913 he joined the Garrison Artillery on the Isle of Wight
He learnt to fly at the Vickers Flying School, Brooklands, gaining his RAeC Certificate (No 711), on the day he passed out from Camberley, after 1 hour 40 minutes. At the Central Flying School his instructor was Capt. John Salmond. Having gained his 'Wings', he was added to the RFC Reserve List returning to his Garrison Artillery duties on the Isle of Wight. In 1929, following the escalation of trouble in the area, he was sent to Palestine to undertake an inquiry into the need and form of possible re-inforcements for the area.
At the outbreak of war in August 1914 he was Commandant - Dover Assembly Point and later that month he was posted as a Pilot to No 7 Sqn RFC, transferring to No 6 Sqn on the 6th of October 1914. On the 18th of November he was transferred to GSO3, HQ RFC and on the 8th December 1914 he was appointed Flight Commander of No 9 Sqn RFC. On the 27th of January 1915 he became Flight Commander of No 6 Sqn RFC. On the 4th of March 1915 he was appointed Officer i/c Wireless Flight, No 4 Sqn RFC and from 17th March 1915 he became Officer Commanding No 9 Sqn/Wireless Experimental Establishment RFC. From July he was Officer Commanding No 16 Sqn and on the 1st of February the following year was posted to Farnborough to become Officer Commanding, 7th Wing RFC. On the 22nd June he became Officer Commanding, 9th (HQ) Wing RFC. On New Year's day 1917 he was promoted to Officer Commanding, Southern Group Command and on the 5th of August 1917, he became Brigadier-General Commanding, Southern Training Brigade. In 1918 he was Brigadier-General (Administration), HQ No 4 Area. and then Brigadier-General (Administration), HQ North-Eastern Area. In January 1919 he became Brigadier-General (Administration) York, HQ North-Western Area and in June, Brigadier-General (Administration), HQ Northern Area. On the 1st of August 1919 he became Group Capt (Administration), HQ Northern Area and was Re-Seconded to the RAF for further two years.On the 1st of September he became Temporary AOC, Northern Area and on the 18th of October 1919, Officer Commanding, No 16 Group.
Between the wars he was Officer Commanding, No 1 Group then Chief Staff Officer, Inland Area. In August 1924 he became Chief Staff Officer, HQ Iraq Command. In May 1926 he became Director of Training ad in December 1929 AOC, Fighting Area, Air Defence of Great Britain.
On 28 January 1936 he was one of three officers representing the Air Council at the funeral of HM King George V. On the 14 July 1936 he became AOC in C, Fighter Command.
As Air Member for Research and Development in the 1930's he was in a position to oversee the development of the eight gun fighters, Hurricane and Spitfire, but even more importantly his previous experience in wireless experiments gave him an excellent insight into possibilities of it's use in the detection of aircraft. He was able to take these preparations to their logical conclusion when given command of the newly formed Fighter Command in July 1936. He immediately set about developing a system able to make best use of his limited resources and it was this system as much as anything that ensured success in 1940. He established the coastal chain of radar stations (then known as RDF), but the success of radar really lay in the reporting and control system he set up which allowed aircraft to be placed in the right place at the right height in time to meet the threat.
During the Battle of Britain his most difficult problem was the conflict between AVM Leigh-Mallory and AVM Park over tactics in which he supported both Group Commanders and saw that both sets of tactics had their advantages but that they were not necessarily suitable in both situations. From 1938 Dowding was advised of five separate retirement dates, but each one was rescinded for various reasons, therefore, his replacement in November 1940 as AOC in C Fighter Command, when flush with success in the Battle of Britain was seen as a snub by many, although it had in fact been planned.
A Whiting

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No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps
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No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps

Want to know more about No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps?

Those known to have served withNo. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corpsduring the Great War 1914-1918.

Can you help?

If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.

Announcements

Recomended Reading.

Links

The Wartime Memories Project
- No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps during the Great War -

Those known to have served with
No. 6 Squadron Royal Flying Corps
during the Great War 1914-1918.