Royal Naval Air Service
Herbert Joseph Page was born in Cheltenham on 22 February 1890. He was one of three sons and a daughter born to Frederick Joseph Page and his wife Ann Eliza.
His elder brother Frederick Handley Page, was the founder of the Handley Page Aircraft Company. At the time of the Great War his family lived at Westcombe House, Berkeley Street, Cheltenham. Herbert was a student at Cheltenham Grammar School before emigrating to Canada in about 1910.
When in Canada he married, had one child and when war broke out, he was farming on Saturna Island, located between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland.
In June 1915 he commenced flying instruction at Long Branch Aerodrome, Toronto, which was a pathway into the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) or the Royal Flying Corps and he obtained his flying certificate on 3 September that year and was immediately enrolled as a Flying Sub Lieutenant in the RNAS. He travelled to England, with his wife and son, arriving on 5 October 1915 and on the 17th commenced a course at the School of Navigation, Portsmouth.
Upon completing the course, he was posted to Eastbourne and after a month moved to Calshot, before arriving at (Great) Yarmouth Seaplane Station on 4 January 1916.
The aircraft based at Yarmouth flew anti-submarine and surface vessel patrols over the North Sea. At about 4pm on 15 February 1916 Sub-Lieutenant Page and his observer, Sub-Lieutenant Bernard Richards Lee took off on a patrol in a Short Type 827 Seaplane.
They never returned from the patrol. Their fate is uncertain but it is likely that the aircraft sustained a mechanical fault and was forced to land and was lost in rough seas. When it was recognised that the aircraft was overdue, all available ships were mustered to search but were recalled in the face of a south westerly gale.
A Court of Inquiry determined that the machine was in perfect order before leaving and the weather conditions at time of take off were suitable.
Herbert Joseph Page was just short of 26 years of age when he died and is commemorated in the Chatham Naval Memorial, the Cheltenham War Memorial and on the memorial inside Pate’s Grammar School.
Research by Graham Adams