Percy Ogden R.F.C. ....

I took a photo of this grave because I thought it looked unusual for 1917.

In flightglobal.com in the archives I had to read many of the original pages of the 1917 magazine to find information on Percy Ogden. I got lost in the information and detail of early flying which absolutely fascinates me and has done from being a small child when I lived near an airfield and watched the Lancaster bombers take off. The second World War was over by then, but watching those slow moving, cumbersome planes actually take off and stay in the sky and pass over my attic bedroom, I was amazed they stayed in the air and didn't crash into the farmhouse. The vibration I could feel, of the plane approaching and passing over, by holding my hands on that tiny attic window was out of this world for me as a totally deaf child.

I am lost in this information I am reading from June 14th 1917, that the guy writes forget about your instruments, all they do is give you delayed information. Basically he says be at one with the plane and the sky and the turbulence, and he also advises to avoid clouds because they affected the magnetic compass and it just spun around wildly.

On June 14th 1917, it was reported that...
"Mr. Percy Ogden, who died at the Military Hospital, Shornecliffe, on June 8th, after a few days illness, WS in his 42nd year, and was a lieutenant in the R.F.C. He was the son of the late Thomas Ogden, founder of Ogden's Ltd., which in 1902 became a branch of the Imperial Tobacco Co. (of Great Britain and Ireland Ltd.). He was a director of the latter company, and of late years he had undertaken charge of its manufacturing operations in this country."

Then, in flightglobal.com September 6th, 1917 in the original archives I also found this, about the guy...

"The will of the late Lieutenant PERCY OGDEN, R.F.C., aged 41, of Fellside, Manisty, Keswick, of the British American Tobacco Company, Bristol and Liverpool, son of the late Mr. Thomas Ogden, founder of Ogdens , Ltd, who died at a military hospital on June 7th, has been sworn at £64,899"

I am going back to reading the flightglobal.com archives... here if you wish to go through their site.