Tags

On the morning of May 29, 1914, the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill made a flight from the Central Flying School, Upavon to Portsmouth. He had been at the flying school for a couple of days undertaking practice flights as part of his flying lessons. Flying aboard a military biplane piloted by Major E.L. Gerrard, the flight covered the 60 miles to Portsmouth in about 40 minutes. While he had been expected in Portsmouth it was not generally known that he would arrive by air. The biplane flew into Portsmouth over Portsdown Hill and made one wide circle before landing on the drill field attached to the Royal Field Artillery barracks at Hilsea shortly after 11 o’clock. After alighting from the biplane Churchill went to the officers’ mess and afterwards went by motor car to the dockyard where the Admiralty yacht Enchantress was docked. That afternoon Churchill made a tour of the dockyard before returning to the yacht where he was joined by his brother Jack, his sister-in-law Goonie, and Archie Sinclair.