20
City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000
be taken prisoner of war - he’d be shot as a spy.
Returning to England he was awarded the Distinguished
Service Order for Conspicuous Gallantry and still aged just
19 was given command of the new 37 Squadron charged
with the eastern aerial defence of the capital from its new
base at Stow Maries. Sitting between Chelmsford and
Maldon in Essex, Stow Maries is on the Western end
of the Denge Peninsula
formed by the estuaries of the
Rivers Crouch and Blackwater as they run into the North
Sea. At a time when the Zeppelin captains navigated by
a mixture of hand held compass, paper map and dead
reckoning the Denge was a big navigational landmark for
raiders so this was an important strategic defence location.
The Grange at Woodham Mortimer was requisitioned
as the Headquarters Flight with A Flight despatched to
Rochford just across the Crouch (now Southend Airport)
and C Flight to Gardners Farm across the Blackwater at
Goldhanger. Now promoted to Captain Ridley young
Claude led the first recorded operational flight from the
new aerodrome on the night of 23/34 May 1917 to face a
swarm of Zeppelins approaching London. It was Second
Lieutenant L.P Watkins of C Flight scrambling from
Goldhanger that would bring down Zeppelin L48 at
Theberton in Suffolk on 17 June 1917. It was both 37
Squadron’s first confirmed destruction of an enemy aircraft
and the last Zeppelin to be brought down by Great Britain
during the war. Attention would then turn to tackling the
fixed wing Gotha bombers that would menace London
for the remainder of the war.
By 1919 A and C Flights had joined B Flight at Stow
Maries but 300 personal and 20 aircraft was too much for
this remote hilltop so the squadron moved to Biggin Hill
in Kent and the aerodrome was returned to farmland.
Remarkably although the wooden hangars eventually
collapsed none of the original brick built buildings were
ever demolished housing agricultural equipment and
labourers for the next ninety years. In 2008 the 22
surviving buildings had a close shave with the demolition
who came to rural Essex as pioneers of the new air
service. When we leave Great Leighs we’ll drive cross
country to the Blackwater Estuary which was to become
a strategic location in the fight to defend the capital from
the first air raids on the UK. By 1915 it became clear that
the Zeppelin Captains who had only maps and hand held
compasses to rely were using the Blackwater Estuary as
a key geographic marker to direct them toward London.
A new Home Defence Air Squadron would be created to
be based at three airfields to defend the estuary with a
very, very young man with a splendid heart at the helm.
Claude Alward Ridley was born in Sunderland in 1897
but grew up, the third of three children in a wealthy
family, in London’s Notting Hill. He went to Sandhurst
College straight from St Paul’s School. In 1915 Ridley
joined No 3 Squadron Royal Flying Corps in France but
was wounded and returned to London to recover before
being posted to the airfield at Joyce Green near Dartford
that had been set up as part of the early defence of London
against the Zeppelins. On 31 March 1916 Ridley flying a
BE2c harassed Airship L15 with machine gun fire, which
was then caught over Purfleet by Ridley was sent back
to France with the brand new 60 Squadron where he
specialised in the incredibly dangerous business of flying
British spies into occupied territory under cover of dark.
Dangerous not least because he had to reconnoitre over
the German occupied territory during daylight hours to
select suitable landing spots.
He flew a French built Morane Bullet, (pictured to the
right) which was fast but temperamental. On 3 August
1916 he landed his spy in a field near Douai but his engine
stalled and refused to start again. For three months he
survived behind enemy lines despite speaking neither
French nor German as he made his way to safety in
Holland. Along the way Ridley spied on German
aerodromes and installations arriving in Holland with
valuable information. Ridley returned to 60 Squadron
but was no longer allowed to fly because now if he was
shot down or crashed behind enemy lines he would not
A Great Leighs family in 1915, The Carter family of Rochester Farm
