{"id":10656,"date":"2015-02-05T06:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=10656"},"modified":"2015-02-05T06:00:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T11:00:23","slug":"first-canadian-military-aviator-killed-in-the-great-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/first-canadian-military-aviator-killed-in-the-great-war\/","title":{"rendered":"First Canadian military aviator killed in the Great War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Friday, February 5, 1915<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>In Hutments, Lark Hill, Salisbury Plains<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day:<em> \u201cAfter weeding out unfits, Battalion about 100 under strength; received draft from 17<sup>th<\/sup> Battn. to complete.\u00a0 Draft arrived with papers in very bad shape, and some of the men very little better than those we had cast.\u00a0 Ordered to leave officers behind to bring numbers down to establishment, so sent Lieuts. Brotherhood, Pearce, G.W.Stairs, Gavin L. Stairs, Leprohon, Heuston to reserve at Tidworth, greatly to their disappointment.\u201d [1]<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY: \u00a0The Battalion history explained:\u00a0 \u201cAs a result of the adoption of the four company system, the battalion had been left with a surplus of officers.\u00a0 These officers, together with the Base Company, were ordered into reserve at Tidworth Barracks.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>LIEUTENANT WILLIAM FREDERICK NELSON SHARPE, ROYAL FLYING CORPS: \u00a0<\/strong>One of 3 members of the original Canadian Aviation Corps. , he was the first Canadian military aviator to give his life in the Great War.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/05-Feb-15.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-10631 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/05-Feb-15-300x205.png\" alt=\"05 Feb 15\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" \/><\/a>\u201cLondon, Feb. 4. &#8211; Lieutenant William F. Sharpe of the Canadian contingent, attached to the Royal Army Flying Corps, was killed this afternoon while making his first flight unaccompanied.\u00a0 The accident happened at Shoreham, where he had been under instruction for about a fortnight.\u00a0 Piloting a Maurice Farman biplane, he made a flight up the Adur Valley.\u00a0 He was descending, and when he had about reached the ground his machine was seen to tip nose downwards abruptly and then fell in a heap.\u00a0 When assistance arrived Sharpe was still breathing, but he died almost immediately.\u00a0 His machine was smashed to pieces.\u00a0 <a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[4]<\/a><\/p>\n<pre>[1]\u00a0\u00a0 <em>War Diary, 14<sup>th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, Feb 5, 1915.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089693.jpg\">http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089693.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n<pre>[2]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 R.C. Featherstonhaugh, <em>The Royal Montreal Regiment 14<sup>th<\/sup> Battalion C.E.F. 1914-1925<\/em>, Montreal, The Gazette, Printing Co., Ltd., 1927, pg . 22.<\/pre>\n<pre>[3]\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cCanadian Aviator Killed at Shoreham, Lieut. Sharpe Loses Life While Descending In a Farman Biplane,\u201d <em>The Globe (1844-1936),<\/em> Toronto, Ontario, Friday, February 5, 1915, pg. 1, col. 2<\/pre>\n<pre>[4]\u00a0 \u00a0Ibid<\/pre>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, February 5, 1915 In Hutments, Lark Hill, Salisbury Plains The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cAfter weeding out unfits, Battalion about 100 under strength; received draft from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-day-in-rmr-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}