E C Cramp: photograph album

Crewmen of the Ark Royal pictured in front of one of the four RNAS Wight Type A.1 Pushers carried by the ship during the campaign.

The plane has been identified as likely being 175, the only one of the Wight Pushers still on board by late July 1915.

The Wight Type A.1 Pushers were not a great success at the Dardanelles, with some of the machines struggling to take off if the sea was not flat, while a shortage of parts also limited the planes’ service.

The four Wright Pushers – 172, 173, 175 and 176 – were on Ark Royal from February through to July 1915.

Of these, 172 was re-erected using parts from 175 and was henceforth known as 175, while 173 was dismantled at Tenedos by 27 April and 176 was deleted by 27 July, which left the original 175 as still on board Ark Royal.

This machine utilised parts salvaged from both 172 and 176. Ark Royal’s log records that the original 175 was hoisted up on deck on 23 July and again on 25 July but there is no reference to the plane every having flown, with no such note appearing in the ship’s log.

The crewman on the far right of the photo is most likely Sylvester Louis Cowlan, who joined the RNAS on 1 June, 1915. An experienced fitter and turner, he was posted to HMS Ark Royal as an Air Mechanic 2nd Class on 12 July the same year.

Promoted to Air Mechanic 1st Class in August 1916, Cowlan also served on the seaplane carrier HMS Empress, as well as at the RNAS seaplane bases at Stavros and Thasos, before returning to the UK in early 1918.

(Information provided by Peter Cowlan)