Reginald Morse CHARLEY 1892-1986 MC & Croix De G. (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, September 27, 2013, 15:58 (4080 days ago) @ HarryBrook

Hi Chris,
wow ! thats quite a find you have there, as a kid who grewup reading Biggles books between drawing & building aircraft models I must say I'm very envious of you, albeit in the nicest possible way. That's a great story, especially knowing he was skilled & lucky enough to survive the War; in those days just getting thro flying training was a major achievement, it was more deadly than combat flying !

I see he even has his own Wiki page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Charley

altho to be honest I now wish I hadn't seen that - without in any way wishing to knock the illustrious career of clearly a very brave man indeed, I was excited to read he worked for English Electric. This immediately brought back memories of my first airshow at little Staverton near Gloster mid 70s, and the display by the English Electric Lightning jet interceptor of the Cold War era. This air-dragster was two jet engines with a seat attached, all immense power & noise as it takes off & climbs like a space rocket !. I was so hoping your Reg had maybe played a part in this iconic aircraft's history, yet in fact he was very wisely & safely working for the civil core of the business, which probably helped him lead such a long and hopefully happy life.

Thanks so much for telling his story, and even bigger thanks and huge respect to Reginald for his incredible efforts during The Great War.
Jeff

PS did you see this week's Who Do You Think You Are ?, if not try and do so via the BBC iPlayer; it discusses the career of Samuel Cody who was a very important figure in early British Military aviation at Farnborough, nowadays the Royal Aircraft Establishment
http://www.historicfarnborough.co.uk/rae.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Aircraft_Establishment
Reginald's work with the Armament Experimental Station would have almost certainly involved the RAE. During my comparitively-insignificant career in aerospace/defence companies I worked at RAE a few times, and more often MoD Boscombe Down which replaced Martlesham Heath in Suffolk which I suspect was perhaps the AEE where Reginald worked. Researching the National Archive and RAF Hendon files may clarify this.