Royal Flying Corps
The 1901 Census has a man of this name down as being born at Gosport, Hampshire in 1889 and at time of the census he was a scholar at Christ’s Hospital School, Newgate, London. It cannot be
certain that this is the same man.
Archibald James Cathie does not appear to be present in the 1911 Census but a passenger of this name sailed from Liverpool to Philadelphia on 5 January 1910: the occupation stated was ‘bookkeeper’, so possibly Cathie spent some time in the USA prior to the Great War.
Archibald’s Medal Index Card shows that originally he joined the Army Service Corps and was given the number M2/053858. On 10 April 1915 he was posted to France and a commission into the Royal Flying Corps followed on 12 July 1916. The National Archives File AIR 76/80 indicates he was a Second Lieutenant on 1 April 1917. He was wounded in France on 19 September 1916.
He died in an aero accident in the Cirencester area on 11 July 1917, aged 28. Reports in the Gloucester Journal and Cheltenham Chronicle of 14 July 1917 give some detail. Cathie, in the company of Second Lieutenant Henry William Knowlson Williams, took off early on the morning of Wednesday, 11 July in an aircraft which had been checked the night before and that morning and was in apparent perfect order.
Cathie was considered an experienced pilot and he was familiar with the aircraft and was regarded as a most reliable pilot: he has spent seven months as an observer in France. According to a witness at the inquest the aircraft was trying to make too flat a turn at too low an altitude, when it fell from about 150 feet, crashing into the ground and catching fire.
Cathie suffered a fatal concussion and two broken legs, whilst his companion died of a broken neck. The inquest jury returned a verdict of accidental death.
His grave in Cirencester Cemetery is marked by a stone cross, which notes that he was the eldest and dearly loved son of Commander R A and Mrs Cathie, Corrig House, Dalkey.
Dalkey is a coastal resort about eight miles south east of Dublin and this Irish connection would tie in with the fact that his medals were sent to 41 Rathmines Road, Rathmines, Co Dublin.
The Irish connection is further underlined by the fact that there is an entry for Second Lieutenant A J Cathie in the volumes of Irish Casualties of World War One 1914-18, which only notes that he was accidentally killed while flying on 11 July 1917.
Researched by Graham Adams 27 April 2014 (revised)