Naval Service and World War I
Evill was a cousin of the pioneer aviator Arthur Longmore who encouraged him to take up flying. After taking private flying lessons at Hendon, Evill gained his Aero Club Aviator's Certificate (No. 512) on 13 June 1913, only three months after gaining his naval commission as a Sub-lieutenant. Evill then applied to join the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps but was not accepted and he spent some time serving on destroyers. Evill was promoted to full lieutenant on 15 August 1914 and was appointed an acting Flight Lieutenant on 4 December 1914 on securing a transfer to the Royal Naval Air Service which by 1914 had gained its independence from the Royal Flying Corps.
Evill spent much of World War I on operational flying duties over the Western Front, flying out of Dunkirk from February 1915 onwards. Probably around the summer of 1915 he took up duties on No. 1 Squadron RNAS which was based in Dunkirk. On 22 June 1916 Evill was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The citation read as follows:
In recognition of his services as a pilot at Dunkirk since February, 1915. In addition to his work as a pilot, Flight Commander Evill has shown great zeal and ability in carrying out experiments connected with signalling and spotting.
On 5 November 1916 Evill was appointed the Officer Commanding No. 2 Squadron RNAS which like No. 1 Squadron was engaged in flying duties on the Western Front. Less than two months later, on the last day of 1916, Evill was promoted to the RNAS rank of squadron commander.
The summer of 1917 saw Evill back in England in a training role. On 30 July 1917 he became the first commander of the RNAS's Naval Seaplane Training School at Lee-on-the-Solent. The work in establishing the unit involved requisitioning 30 acres (120,000 m2) of land and several coastal properties. Evill also had to contend with temporary hangarage for his seaplanes and the safe operation of a crane which lowered his aircraft from the top of the cliff on to rails which ran into the sea. On 1 April 1918, when the RNAS was merged with the Royal Flying Corps, Evill was regraded from squadron commander to major in the new Royal Air Force.
Read more about this topic: Douglas Evill
Famous quotes containing the words naval, service, world and/or war:
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941Ma date that will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)
“Novelists are perhaps the last people in the world to be entrusted with opinions. The nature of a novel is that it has no opinions, only the dialectic of contrary views, some of which, all of which, may be untenable and even silly. A novelist should not be too intelligent either, although ... he may be permitted to be an intellectual.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)
“There is great fear expressed on all sides lest this war shall be made a war for the negro. I am willing that it shall be. It is a war to found an empire on the negro in slavery, and shame on us if we do not make it a war to establish the negro in freedom—against whom the whole nation, North and South, East and West, in one mighty conspiracy, has combined from the beginning.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)