Grave of George Mason, Comely Bank Cemetery
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Grave of George Mason, Comely Bank Cemetery by kim traynor as part of the Geograph project.
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Grave of George Mason, Comely Bank Cemetery
Image: © kim traynor Taken: 1 Mar 2012
Randomly chosen, this is one of the many graves in the cemetery of young servicemen killed in action. As an 18-year-old, George Mason cannot have clocked up many flying hours before he met his untimely death. There is no indication as to whether he was killed on the Western Front, but the date does coincide with the Battle of Arras in which the RFC Commander General Hugh Trenchard adopted a more offensive posture towards the enemy. One German infantry officer wrote "during these days, there was a whole series of dogfights, which almost invariably ended in defeat for the British since it was Richthofen's ['Flying Circus'] squadron they were up against. Often five or six planes in succession would be chased away or shot down in flames". The average flying life of an RFC pilot during the battle was 18 hours.
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Image Location
Latitude
55.959097
Longitude
-3.228318