Lieutenant Gerald Franklyn HARVEY
21st Battery, 2nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery attached to 5 Squadron Royal Flying Corps

Date of birth: 4th March 1893
Date of death: 8th November 1915

Killed in action aged 22
Buried at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery Plot II Row A Grave 3
Gerald Franklyn Harvey was born at Marylebone in London on the 4th of March 1893 the son of Charles Harvey, a merchant, and Marian Rose Harvey of 29 York Street in London. He was christened at St Mary's Church, Marylebone on the 5th of April 1893.

He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Heads House from January 1907 to July 1909. He was in the Fencing Team in 1909 (Aldershot) and served as a Lance Corporal in the Officer Training Corps.

He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant on probation in the Royal Field Artillery (Special Reserve of Officers) on the 16th of December 1911 and was confirmed in that rank on the 10th of December 1913. On the outbreak of war he was posted to the 21st Battery, 2nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery on the 20th of August 1914 and embarked for France from Southampton with his Brigade on board the SS "Belgravian" on the 7th of September, landing at St Nazaire on the 10th of September 1914. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 9th of June 1915.

He saw action at Armentieres, Ypres and at Hooge before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps. He was posted to 5 Squadron Royal Flying Corps as an Observer on the 5th of October 1915 and was stationed at Abeele near Poperinghe.

On the 8th of November 1915 took off from Ypres at 12.10pm with 2nd Lieutenant William Jamieson McConnochie as his pilot in BE 2c 1728 for an observation patrol. Shortly after take off the aircraft was hit by an explosion at 1,000 feet and the aircraft broke up and caught fire. It crashed near Abeele killing both men. They were buried the following day in the cemetery adjacent to No. 10 Casualty Clearing Station on the Poperinghe- Boeschepe Road.

His Major wrote:-

β€œI cannot tell you how much I missed him in the battery when he left me to join the Flying Corps. There is no one who can be trusted to carry out a difficult piece of work quite like him and many excellent things he had done deserved the highest recognition, but honours and awards had frequently the unfortunate habit of missing the proper mark.”

Another officer wrote:-

β€œHe was such a fine upright, straight fellow-we all loved him.”
Heads House

Back