DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. World War One. Nineteen seventeen.
Three governments — the United States, Britain, and Canada — sat down and struck a deal. A reciprocal agreement, they called it: train military pilots for combat duty, share the burden, share the skies. The arrangement had a rhythm to it, too.
Foreign troops would train in Texas through the winter months, then head north to Canada for the summer. Practical, efficient, and — as it turned out — consequential in ways nobody fully reckoned at the time. Here in Tarrant County, they stood up Camp Taliaferro.
Not one airfield, mind you. Three. Three airfields carved into Texas ground, and together they provided training facilities for members of the Royal Flying Corps alongside U.S. forces.
That operation ran from October of 1917 all the way through November of 1918 — the full, brutal stretch of it. Each field accommodated an average of two thousand men. Do that arithmetic and you start to feel the scale of the thing.
Now here's what made Camp Taliaferro more than just a patch of dirt with runways. The Royal Flying Corps brought expertise. They brought skilled instructors.
And because of that, large numbers of Americans received excellent flight training in a remarkably short time. Young men who'd never left the ground were climbing into aircraft and learning, fast, what it meant to fly. But flying in wartime — even training for it — carried a price.
During the months British and Canadian troops were stationed in Fort Worth, thirty-nine officers and cadets were killed during flight training. Thirty-nine. Say that number slowly.
Each one a man who came here to learn something difficult and dangerous, and didn't make it home. Eleven of those men were buried at the three airfields themselves. And there they rested — until 1924, when the Imperial War Graves Commission purchased a plot at Greenwood Cemetery for reinterment.
A monument was later erected at the site. Twelve graves now stand there, not eleven — because a veteran who died in 1975 had made a request: bury me here, with my friends. And so they did.
The Royal Flying Corps was in Texas for only a short time. The marker doesn't let you forget that. But it also doesn't let you shortchange what they left behind — a beneficial and lasting influence on aviation in this country.
Sometimes the shortest chapters write the longest legacies.
What the marker says
In 1917, during World War I, the U.S., British, and Canadian governments entered into a reciprocal agreement to train military pilots for combat duty. Foreign troops trained in Texas during the winter and in Canada in the summer. Camp Taliaferro in Tarrant County, consisting of three air fields, provided training facilities for members of the Royal Flying Corps and U.S. forces from October 1917 to November 1918. Each field accommodated an average of 2,000 men. Royal Flying Corps expertise and skilled instructors enabled large numbers of Americans to receive excellent flight training in a short time. During the months British and Canadian troops were stationed in Fort Worth, 39 officers and cadets were killed during flight training. Eleven of the men were buried at the three air fields; in 1924 the Imperial War Graves Commission purchased a plot at Greenwood Cemetery for reinterment. A monument was later erected at the site, which now has twelve graves since a veteran who died in 1975 requested burial here with his friends. The Royal Flying Corps, although in Texas for only a short time, had a beneficial and lasting influence on aviation in this country. (1992)