Airmen with links to Port Meadow aerodrome in Oxford paid a heavy price, some with their lives, during the First World War.

Research suggests they were involved in up to 120 crashes from early 1917 to late 1918, ranging from minor mishaps without injury to total destruction and loss of life.

It is known that 17 servicemen died in 12 crashes, due to mechanical faults, structural failure or pilot error and that at least 15 were injured in non-fatal accidents, including three ground crew hit by propellers as they started engines. Six of those who died are pictured below.

Peter Smith, of Arthur Street, Osney, who has been studying the history of the airfield, has discovered that of the 14,200 British and Commonwealth pilots killed in the war, 8,000 – more than half – died in training accidents.

He writes: “This highlights how embryonic flying still was in 1916-18, and how primitive the aeroplanes, less than 10 years after the first powered ‘heavier than air’ flight in this country in 1908. Although huge progress in aircraft design had been made by 1918 – with speeds of about 125mph and operating heights of about 20,000ft, compared with 60-90 mph and 10,000ft in 1914 – planes still had open cockpits, basic instruments, no oxygen, no brakes and, perhaps most controversially, no parachutes.

“Parachutes for pilots did not come into use until after the war.

“Training could take up to 11 months from ‘boot camp’ to completing specialist training, of which six or seven months involved actual flying.

“By 1918 newly qualified pilots had typically over 50 hours’ flying experience. This compared with less than 17 hours in 1916/17, resulting in many pilots being killed quickly, sometimes on their first combat patrol. The expression, ‘Fokker fodder’, was used at the time to raise political awareness of their plight and the need for better aeroplanes and training.

“The shocking fatality rate in training was debated in Parliament in June 1918, but by then, a new system of training had been introduced with better planes, such as the famous Bristol Fighter, which featured heavily at Port Meadow.

“Pilots were more intensively trained in combat skills designed to keep them alive longer, had more flying time and better quality instruction, and were encouraged to be more aggressive aerial fighters.

“While there was a reduction in training fatalities – from one death per 90 hours flying to one per 192 hours – there remained the constant threat of accidental death.”

As we have reported, Port Meadow served as a flying training aerodrome for the Royal Flying Corps and its successor, the Royal Air Force, from mid 1916 to late 1919. It was one of 100 training aerodromes set up nationally to meet the huge demand for new pilots from 1916. At its peak in mid-1918, it is thought there were between 30 and 40 aeroplanes of several types housed in 10 and possibly 11 hangars on the meadow.

Mr Smith tells me: “However glamorous, the image of flying in the war, whether at home or in combat, was extremely dangerous.

“Some instructors found their pupils’ inexperience so dangerous to their own safety that they referred to them as ‘Huns’, an expression used for the enemy!

“It is poignant that of those who survived training, many were destined not to return from overseas service. Those who died locally included experienced combat veterans – some veterans of the trenches, with gallantry awards, who wanted to escape the carnage and try something they thought safer.”

A community project is under way to establish a permanent memorial at Wolvercote to the 17 with links to Port Meadow who died. Call Mr Smith on 01865 728883 if you would like to support it or have information about the aerodrome.