The story of Royal Flying Corps pioneer, Alfred Richard Cross

Born September 15, 1891, Alf left school at 14 and two years later emigrated to Canada, where he engaged in a variety of jobs from shoe-shine boy, through bank clerk, to engineer first class, having in the meantime, at age 17, been in charge of a fishing fleet in Alaska. That job sadly came to an end when Alf fell out with the owner’s son and knocked him into the water!

When war broke out, Alf signed up in Regina with the Canadian Scouts as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He saw much action in France, including being awarded the Military Medal for storming a German machine gun post and later being badly wounded and out of commission for six months. Ironically, his being wounded actually saved his life, as he was lying on the ground and barely able to move, when nearly all of his companions still on their feet were killed by enemy fire.

Alf transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) as a cadet in July 1917, astonishingly rising to Captain and Flight Commander in not much more than a year. He would have been a little older than average and presumably, given the life expectancy of First World War airmen, there must have been dead men's shoes to fill too; but still, he became one of the very first to engage in night flying.

Capt Cross’ RFC record, or perhaps incident record would be more appropriate, makes interesting reading. He had his share of narrow squeaks and crashed several RE8s, e.g. “badly shaken having crashed into tree after undercarriage torn away by enemy shell”, “over-ran aerodrome and crashed into men’s billet”, “badly shot about by anti-aircraft fire”, but he came through the remainder of the war relatively unscathed. The Germans called him “The Red Devil” on account of his hair and the fact that he used to hurl out small bombs by hand! After the war, Alf was sent an excerpt from the German records dated August 23, 1918 which read as follows: “I myself followed the course of the fighting from a hill until 12 noon. About 11 o’clock and later, British airmen flew quite low over our lines without being fired at. In the case of one machine, I could read the number (15) quite distinctly with the naked eye. During the afternoon they became even more impudent. I consider it necessary that airmen should be brought under fire of our heavy machine guns.” Signed: Müller (Lt & OC No 1 Coy, 331st IR, 83rd Division).

The RE8 was not an aircraft well-liked by its pilots, being comfortably outclassed by most German machines and having, initially at least, potentially dangerous handling. Alf once said that the one of the few ways to escape from German aircraft was to dive for the ground almost vertically and then pull out at the last possible moment, which the faster pursuing plane often failed to do. Nevertheless, the RE8 was successful in its intended role of reconnaissance, photography, artillery observation and the like, but was withdrawn from service as soon as the war ended.

After the war Alf went back across the Atlantic, but returned to Newtown around 1930 to help out his brother-in-law Frank Cookson, who owned what is now Charles Humphreys Garage in Severn Square and also ran buses (which later became Mid Wales Motorways, of which Alf was a director).

Alf lived with his wife Louise (née Wigley and known as Louie), a Newtown teacher and renowned hockey player, who pre-deceased him, at ‘Westbury’ on Llanfair Road, Newtown; he died aged 88 in March 1980, having gone to live with his son Trevor in Bath. He also left a daughter Margaret, who was with the Diplomatic Service and served in Moscow during the height of the Cold War, and another son Bill, who inherited his red hair and who was in partnership with Freddie Worrall at Dulas Garage, Newtown. Alf never flew again after 1918.

With thanks to Gerald Joseph, of Newtown, and Alf's grand-daughter, Karen Cooper of Codsall, for their assistance with this article.

Corrections and further information welcome!