Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Here, we're actually at the Isles of Scilly, on Tresco. It's summer 1917; the Royal Naval Air Station built for anti-submarine patrols is receiving its new aircraft hangar. Men from the RNAS Air Construction Section have arrived, and in the background is a Curtiss H.12 flying-boat used by the service to hunt German submarines. 

The hangar was painstakingly transported across the water as a huge kit of parts. Tresco's flying-boats gave good service but after the war, in the summer of 1919 the station closed. 

Today the place is largely made over to a leisure complex, but you can still spot signs of the old base: the slipway, rails down which the flying-boats were launched, a few hut bases. The former ammunition store has been converted to three peaceful holiday cottages.

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm