Special thanks to AHT member Rick Cook, for providing this wonderful account of his grandfather’s life and career in the airship service.
Herbert George Cook was born on the 17th August 1888 in Dorking, Surrey. His father was a coachman and his mother a housemaid. He attended the County Council School in Micklehem, Surrey.
There is a family tale of him writing to Royal Navy officer Captain Robert Falcon Scott volunteering to join his polar expedition, but he was refused as he was deemed to be too young at thirteen. This would have been the Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic 1901-1904. Undaunted, he signed up to join the Royal Navy in the May of 1904 as a Boy Second Class for a period of twelve years.
He was quickly promoted to Boy First Class on 20 December 1904, and then went on to attain Ordinary Seaman on 17 August 1906. Two years later, on 16 July 1908, he became Able Seaman and four years later Leading Seaman, on 15 November 1912. Herbert George Cook, who had been serving on HMS Waterwitch, passed his educational examination on 5 December 1911 for promotion to Petty Officer at a future date.
The confidential reports show that his conduct was very good and that he took part in many sports, receiving medals for boxing, athletics and football.
When The Royal Flying Corps was formed in April 1912, Able Seaman Herbert George Cook (Portsmouth Division) volunteered and was transferred to the RFC (Naval Wing) in August of that same year. Training started with rigging instruction, training as a balloon pilot and training as an airship coxswain. During his duties he regularly flew under the command of airship Captains Maitland, Waterlow, Hicks and Fletcher and flew as coxswain on various airships, including Beta, Gamma, HMA No. 2 & HMA No. 3.
One of his highlights whilst based at Farnborough was flying with Geoffrey de Havilland in a B.E. 2c at 81.4mph over the measured mile, in 1913.
In 1913, The British Government had bought PL 18 off the German Company Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft. It was re-designated as Naval Airship No. 4. but was also known as The Parseval. Four German officers came over to instruct in its handling. The first flight was on 30th June at Farnborough. Herbert George became friendly with Herr Schaark and received two postcards in August from Herr Schaark after his return to Bitterfeld, Germany. Herr Schaark was now busy with a new ship for the German Army.
It was on December 25th in the year 1913 that Herbert George met his future wife Maude, a sister of Lily Clarke from Scarborough who married his good friend Albert Page. Herbert George was best man and Maude the bridesmaid at the wedding. On 24th June 1914 the RFC (Naval Wing) became the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and Herbert George Cook was promoted to the rank of Petty Officer in July of that same year. HMA No. 4 took part in the Spithead Review 8-15th July and on 28th July it flew to its new base at the recently constructed RNAS Kingsnorth along with the other airships and crews. From August to September 1914, Herbert George was coxswain of HMA No. 4, under the command of Captain J.N. Fletcher.
With only two British Airships operational at the start of World War One, the French-built Astra-Torres HMA No. 3 was allocated to the eastern approaches whilst the German-built Parseval HMA No. 4 was allocated to patrol the central sector around the Belgian coastline. Their baptism of fire occurred on the morning of the declaration of war. As they crossed the Kentish coastline returning to RNAS Kingsnorth, they came under fire from a Territorial detachment encamped there which had mistaken them for a German Zeppelin.
They flew many patrols of 8-12 hours, but after the outbreak of the war these were extended to 12-16 hours on Channel Patrol.
It was during one of these patrols, on the 13th August 1914, while HMA No. 4 was on patrol off Dover at 11.35 in the morning, that the airship got into trouble. One blade of the port propeller burst and flew off, narrowly missing damaging the rigging near the envelope. Unable to make headway against the wind with just one propeller, they started drifting at 2000 feet across the channel. Coxswain Cook volunteered to unship the spare propeller (luckily they had two spare propellers on board) and along with Engine Room Artificer Shaw proceeded to replace the missing propeller. Shaw noticed that the new blade was lighter, so insisted on replacing the other blade also to keep the balance. The entire operation took one hour and twenty minutes before they were able to resume their patrol. It was for this action that Petty Officer Cook received the DSM (Distinguished Service Medal).
This event was recorded in the following log of the airship:
Log of No. 4. Airship 13th August 1914
7.40 a.m. Left Kingsnorth
9.28 a.m. Passed coastguard station shaped course for Calais
10.35 a.m. Shaped course for Dover
11.25 a.m. Shaped course for Calais
11.35 a.m. Broke one blade of port propeller, rendering it necessary to change two for new blades.
12.55 a.m. Proceeded to Calais
1.40 p.m. Shaped course for Dover
2.12 p.m. Shaped course for Calais
2.52 p.m. Shaped course for Dover
3.20 p.m. Shaped course for Calais
4.00 p.m. Shaped course for Dover
4.45 p.m. Shaped course for Calais
5.45 p.m. Shaped course for Deal
7.30 p.m. Arrived at Kingsnorth
7.53 p.m. Landed
Crew: Captain FLM Boothby JN Fletcher Coxwain H.G. Cook Engine Room Artificer Shaw
Herbert George Cook was drafted to Barrow-in-Furness in October 1914 as coxswain of HMA No. 6 until June of the following year. This airship was seriously delayed, but when Vickers undertook to build a number of new SS Ships he became coxswain in charge of rigging these S.S. ships from June to September in 1915 at Barrow-in-Furness. Meanwhile HMA No 4 had undergone a complete overhaul at Barrow in Furness so in September having just been promoted in August of that same year to Chief Petty Officer he again became her coxswain. During a trials flight on 22nd November 1915, No 4 collided with the Barrow shed in dense fog but sustained only slight damage. Initially flown to RNAS Pulham HMA NO 4 soon moved up to RNAS Howden in East Yorkshire and was placed under Commander E.A. Masterman’s control, training future airship crews. CPO Cook trained all the later rigid airship coxswains and related how he ploughed a 12” furrow across RNAS Howden’s field on 16th December 1916 after being caught by a severe down-draught whilst landing.
He married Maude Clarke from Scarborough on the 22nd of April 1916. His son George Herbert Cook was born in January 1918 in Scarborough, the grandmother insisting Maude returned to Scarborough for the birth, so that any boy would be eligible to play cricket for Yorkshire.
With British rigid airships coming online, Warrant Officer (promoted 18th January 1917) was appointed Trials Coxswain of HMA No 9 and in this capacity flew all trial flights. As a member of Masterman’s Rigid Trials Crew he was also Chief Coxswain on the trial flights of HM Airships Nos. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 29. Helping to guide them through their teething troubles, which were not inconsiderable.
When the RAF was formed on the first of April 1918, Warrant Officer Cook was automatically transferred and at the same time commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.
August of 1918 saw Cook stationed at Cardington as Chief Coxswain of the newly built R31. The R31 was based on the Schutte-Lanz designs and was of wooden construction. Two hours into her second trial flight, during a turn, the upper fin collapsed onto the starboard fin and elevator. All control surfaces locked solid, so engines were stopped. Chief Coxswain Cook collected a volunteer working party who climbed out onto the shattered framework and secured the collapsing structure to the hull. With the cables from the broken rudder and fin disconnected, the R31 was able to restart the engines and limp back home to Cardington.
It was whilst the R31 was in the shed for repairs and alterations that Herbert, when examining the rigging and gasbags at the top of the hull, was overcome by escaping hydrogen and fell onto the keel, seriously injuring himself.
On recovery he was deemed by the medical board to be below the standard of physical fitness required for active duty, but was nonetheless retained on the active list for light duties.
He was then transferred and based at Pulham circa 1921. Pulham was short of married quarters so the old sick bay, a wooden building with a veranda had been converted into a bungalow. The first occupants, an officer with Indian service had named it “Crendhar“ and the name stuck. It was here that George and his family moved into. This was now the RAF’s experimental airship station and here he was involved in Mooring Mast experiments. There were many different experiments with all classes of airship undertaken. Prime amongst these was the mooring of airships to a mast. Major Scott and others believed that mooring an airship to a suitable mast the airship could swing freely head to wind with safety only requiring to be moved into a shed for major overhauls. Lieutenant Cook, perhaps because of his unique experience as trials coxswain became involved. At one period he related there were six non rigid airships moored to various masts at Pulham together with the R33 on the high mast.
In 1925 the family moved into Home Farm and it was here that his twin boys were born. The twin brothers were just twelve days old when the R33 broke free of the mast and one of the weights hanging down narrowly missed hitting the house as the stricken airship was blown away.
Staying with the Cooks because accommodation in the Officers mess was limited was Sqn Ldr ‘Archie’ Wann, still severely disabled from the R38 crash where he had been the airships captain. George Meager also stayed with them at Home Farm briefly when snowbound at Pulham during Christmas 1926.
As a result of the mooring experiments, the Mooring Tower at Cardington was constructed in preparation for the R100 and R101. After supervising the construction, Flying Officer Cook went out to Ismalia in Egypt in 1927 to oversee the mast construction there. He then returned to Cardington as Tower Officer and in 1930 he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant. Along with Flying Officer Luck, he was responsible for training several ex-airship men as civilian Tower Officers. His duodenal ulcer, which had caused him problems for several years, finally perforated so unfortunately he was in hospital on the day the R101 departed, on the 4th of October.
With the end of the airship programme he continued with light duties until his retirement in 1932. He then moved to Marton in Yorkshire where he lived until his death.