Roll of Honour 2023

P AGE 21

W ORLD W AR O NE (1914 - 1918) INCLUDING THOSE WHO DIED LATER AS A RESULT OF THIS WAR

S T . E DWARD ’ S S CHOOL , O XFORD R OLL OF H ONOUR

Name BERNARD ROBERT HADOW CARTER (Sec Lt-Plt)

Lef SES 1917

Roll Number 1421 Died 07:11:1917

Set / House C

Arrive SES 1912

Where LLANGEFNI, ANGLESEY, WALES Serving with ROYAL FLYING CORPS

Age 19

Buried St. John The Evangelist Ch, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire Remembered St. John the Evangelist Church, Slimbridge , Gluons (Plaque), The St. Edward’s School Chapel (Wooden Plaque) and The Cloisters Stone Memorial Born Oxford 1898, one of three SES brothers, sons of a clergyman, all of whom fought in The Great War, with only Bernard losing his life. At School he was a School Prefect, and a member of the Rugby Football XV 1915-16, a Sergeant in the OTC and in the VIth Form. He left the School in the midst of the war and joined the School of Aeronautics at Reading in April 1917. Two months later he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps, qualified for his ‘Wings’ and was attached to the Reserve Squad at Hounslow, Middlesex by October 1917. In November 1917 he was one of six pilots selected to fly ‘specially equipped war planes’ on ‘special duty’. This entailed Carter flying to Anglesey, North Wales to deliver a special package. He took off from Hounslow, immediately hit engine trouble and landed near Chipping Norton, from where he went to Oxford to meet up with old School friends from SES. He returned to Chipping Norton and found his aircraft ‘improved’ but the weather had deteriorated. He and his observer nevertheless continued as far as Shrewsbury where they were advised by Anglesey not to proceed until the weather improved. Carter felt that his mission was important enough to delay no longer and on reaching the air-strip at Llangefni and circling several times, he was hit by a gust of wind, flipped over, and crashed into the ground. Carter was killed outright, his observer miraculously survived. Carter’s body was brought home and he was given an Honorary Guard of the Royal Auxiliary Service at the funeral service.