The grade II listed Airman’s Cross at Airman’s Corner was moved to a more fitting site as part of the changes to the Stonehenge access.  The memorial is now placed where it is more accessible, where more people will be able to learn about this aspect of local aviation history. The Earl and Countess of Wessex attended the  rededication service of the cross earlier this year.

This cross was erected in memory of two pioneering airmen who were killed in a flying accident near here in 1912. It marks this area as the cradle of British military aviation.

The open grassland around Stonehenge made it particularly suitable for flying early aircraft, and military flying began here in 1911. Within a year the Royal Flying Corps had been created.

Captain Eustace Loraine and Staff Sergeant Richard Wilson were flying a Nieuport monoplane from Larkhill airfield north of Stonehenge, on a routine training flight on 5 July 1912. They were executing a steep turn when, unaccountably, the aircraft crashed. The two men were the first members of the Royal Flying Corps to lose their lives on duty.

Captain Loraine’s enthusiasm for flying was infectious. Only weeks before the accident, he inspired his friend and former commanding officer Hugh Trenchard to learn to fly, which he did shortly after Loraine’s death. Trenchard would go on to command the Royal Flying Corps in France during the First World War and to become the founder of the Royal Air Force in 1918.*

*From a sign board next to the memorial cross.