Scope and Contents

This collection consists of three scrapbooks and five logbooks belonging to Denis H. Carey. The scrapbooks contain photographs of Royal Navy Air Stations, ships, flying boats, floatplanes and land planes used by the British around 1918. They include approximately 28 different airplanes, 9 different ships and aerial views of various air stations. The five logbooks document Carey's flying career in the Royal Air Force (1919-1936) [and perhaps Royal Naval Air Service?]. Two hundred and fifteen of the photographs from his scrapbooks that pertain to seaplanes at the Isle of Grain facility are found on National Air and Space Museum Videodisc 2B. More than three dozen types of aircraft are represented in the collection, including: the De Havilland D.H. 9A and D.H. 10 Amiens, the Fairey Atalanta, the Bristol F.2B, and the Parnall Puffin. Also pictured are several aircraft that have crashed. The seaplanes are shown on the airfield, on the HMS Eagle carrier, at takeoff, landing, and taxiing both on land and water. Only a small number of photographs display aircraft weaponry, with even fewer showing any Naval personnel.

Biographical / Historical

Denis Carey was a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. According to his logbooks, Carey flew over eighty different types of aircraft. The seaplane test-site on the Isle of Grain was one of the principal sites out of which he flew. This facility was established in 1912 by Winston Churchill for the Royal Naval Air Service (which merged with the Royal Air Force in 1918). Following World War I, test-flying of seaplanes continued to be carried out at the Isle of Grain.