A chara, - I am preparing two biographies of pioneer aviators and would be grateful for any information or photographs which your readers might be disposed to loan.
The first subject is Denys Corbett Wilson, whose maternal grandmother was Irish (named Byrne) and one of whose claims to fame is the fact that he made the first successful aeroplane crossing. from Britain to Ireland in 1912. From 1909 to a year before the Great War, he lived in Jenkinstown, Co. Kilkenny, from where he took part in various sporting events and displays, and undoubtedly popularised the idea of the aeroplane in Ireland. He flew with the Royal Flying Corps for ten months over the Western Front, before being shot down and killed.
My second subject is a Waterford man, the famous Colonel James Fitzmaurice, who also had an early career with the British forces before joining the infant Irish Air Service in 1922 and subsequently becoming its commanding officer. in 1928, with two German colleagues, he accomplished the first east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic by aeroplane, against the prevailing winds and other adverse conditions. He was truly the "Conqueror of the Atlantic".
Any help given will be gratefully received, and any material loaned will be promptly returned. - Is mise agus meas agam ort.
The Chyne, Gerrards Cross, Bucks SL9 8HZ