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Thomas George HallingThomas George Halling was born on 7 April 1888 in Frampton, the son of a waterman, William Halling, and his wife Georgina née Winchcombe. Like his eldest brother, William, Thomas went to sea after leaving school. He married Beatrice Jane May Jermyn in the Cardiff area in 1913 and they subsequently had five children: George Thomas Jermyn, Mabel Doreen, Lawrence Jermyn, Beatrice J. G. and Douglas Jermyn. As a rigger in civilian life, Thomas would have been an obvious choice for work on aircraft. He enlisted on 1 November 1915 into the Royal Flying Corps as an air mechanic second class. His surviving service records are incomplete but show that he was posted to the No. 2 (Auxiliary) School of Aerial Gunnery at Turnberry, Scotland, the military aerodrome established on Turnberry golf course in January 1917, and later to the No. 1 (Auxiliary) School of Aerial Gunnery at Hythe, Kent. From June 1918 he was stationed at an unidentified repair depot before being seconded to an American Mission a month later where he remained until after the Armistice. From 8 December he spent a couple of months at the training depot station at Gormanston (north of Dublin) before his final move in February 1919 to nearby Baldonnel airfield (today the only airfield of the Irish Air Corps). A month later he was transferred to the Reserve and 'Deemed Discharged' on 30 April 1920. He was promoted several times during his service; air mechanic first class (December 1916), corporal (July 1917) and acting sergeant (November 1917). At the formation of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918 Thomas was a senior mechanic in the rank of sergeant. Thomas' address on discharge from the RAF was given as Frampton - presumably that of his parents, for his wife and children appear to have remained in the Cardiff area. In 1939 the family were living in Swansea where Thomas was the master of a sand dredger. Thomas George Halling's death is believed to have been registered in the Swansea area during the first quarter of 1960. His war service is commemorated on the plaque in Frampton Village Hall. |