Arthur Longmore

Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Murray Longmore, (8 October 1885 – 10 December 1970) was an early naval aviator, before reaching high rank in the Royal Air Force. He was Commander-in-Chief of the RAF's Middle East Command from 1940 to 1941. Early life Born in Manly, New South Wales, the son of Charles Croker Longmore and Janet Murray, he was educated at Benges School, Hertford, and Foster's Academy, Stubbington, before entering Dartmouth Naval College. He was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1904. Having developed an interest in flying, he volunteered for pilot training when the Navy accepted an offer of training facilities by the Royal Aero Club, and was one of the four officers to be selected. He obtained flying certificate No.72 in April 1911 at an RAeC meeting that also awarded licences to the pioneer naval aviators C. R. Samson and Wilfred Parke. That year, assisted by Oswald Short of Short Brothers, he devised a way of mounting streamlined air bags on the undercarriage struts and under the tail of a Short Improved S.27 biplane with the construction number S.38—later often referred to as the "Short S.38"—and on 1 December 1911, using the air bags for flotation, then-Lieutenant Longmore became the first person in the United Kingdom to take off from land and make a successful water landing in a seaplane when he landed Improved S.27 No. 38 on the River Medway off Sheerness. Career Longmore joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1912. Before the outbreak of the First World War he served as a flight instructor at the newly formed Central Flying School, Upavon, and was then appointed commander of the seaplane base at Cromarty and later of the experimental seaplane establishment at Calshot. During the war he served as Officer Commanding No. 3 Squadron RNAS and then as Officer Commanding No. 1 Squadron RNAS before being transferred back to sea duties as an officer on the battlecruiser in 1916; during his service aboard Tiger he took part in the Battle of Jutland. He obtained a permanent commission in the Royal Air Force in 1920 and was appointed Air Officer Commanding No. 3 Group later that year before being given command of the RAF Depot in 1921. He was made Air Officer Commanding No. 7 Group in 1924, Director of Equipment at the Air Ministry in 1925 and Chief Staff Officer at Headquarters Inland Area in 1929.