Flt Lt James Edward Maddock Pritchard
With grateful thanks to Rosalind Hodge Parish Archivist at Willingdon and Polegate we now have details of Flt Lt James Edward Maddock Pritchard O.B.E and A.F.C.
Officer in Charge of Flying Trials, R36, R38. Served on R33 and R34 (B. 1889. D. 24 Aug 1921). Born in Leighton Buzzard in 1889 he was commissioned in the Royal Navy Air Service in 1915 and later that same year became an airship pilot serving at East Fortune, Polegate and Howden.
By 1917 he was called upon to inspect and research downed German zeppelins in France. He was also part of the triumphant R34 return trip to America in 1919. Pritchard was the first man to arrive in the United States by air, parachuting from the R34 on her successful trans-Atlantic flight from East Fortune, Scotland to Mineola, New York.
He helped coordinate the American ground crew to receive R34. He was awarded the AFC and OBE in 1919 and transferred to the Airship Experimental and Research Division of the Air Ministry, where he served as one of a number of Directors of Research. As the Officer in Charge of Flying Trials, his assessment reports on R36, for example, were thorough and incisive as he sought to ensure safety for commercial transport. Sadly, he was killed when R38 experienced structural failure over the Humber Estuary on Aug. 24, 1921. Like Maitland, his death was a severe loss to the UK airship programme.