Collection: FINCH WALTER J (FLIGHT SERGEANT)

Photographs mainly relating to the service of Flight Sergeant Walter Finch with 17 and 27 Kite Balloon Sections (RFC) in the Salonika Campaign. For the former unit there are group photographs of all personnel prior to their leaving England and one of the NCOs taken around the same time. There are similar group photographs taken after the arrival of the Section in Macedonia. Also relating to 27 KBS are portrait photographs of individual NCOs; an informal group photograph of members of the unit alongside a lorry-mounted hydrogen gas plant; one of two RFC and one RAMC officers and two portraits of mounted men of the Army Service Corps including Company Quartermaster Sergeant/Staff Sergeant W H Taylor. Covering the work of 17 KBS are photographs of men checking ballast bags of a partially inflated kite balloon on its balloon bed in a ravine and a partially inflated balloon with a lorry-mounted hydrogen gas production plant alongside. For 27 KBS there are a number of similar formal and informal group photographs: a full-length portrait of Sergeant R Stanbridge in Macedonia; members of the unit's concert party in costume and the Section's football team for 1917-18. Scenes of daily life with 27 KBS are covered by various photographs of balloons being inflated, balloons ascending and balloons tied down on their beds and shielded by camouflage screens and in one instance a ruined house; also members of the unit walking an inflated balloon cross-country and another showing men rolling a balloon to enable maintenance or cleaning to be undertaken. There are also photographs taken in the Section's camp showing a cookhouse, mosquito proof hut, tents, billets in a Macedonia village and Nissen Huts in a village, pay parade in progress and an anti-aircraft Lewis gun position. One photograph even shows a kite balloon observers view of a camp. The collection also includes a small number of photographs taken at the RFCs Salonika Aircraft Park showing a parade; maintenance being undertaken on a Bristol M1 monoplane; an RFC tender and its driver; burn-out wreckage of a crashed aircraft; a crashed French Nieuport 24 scout and a captured German DFW C.V two-seater. Other photographs taken in Macedonia include one of a French kite balloon tied down on its balloon bed; a group of RAMC personnel, possibly those attached to either 17 or 27 KBS; a Holt caterpillar tractor towing a 3-ton lorry; a Leyland 3-ton lorry used by the RFC; a mule hauled two-wheeled covered stretcher; RFC personnel with local children; a bullock cart at an RFC camp, two Macedonian shepherd boys; RFC men dancing with locals and Greek soldiers; a wrecked railway bridge with locomotives; the Bulgarian Devil's Eye observation bunker on the summit of the Grand Couronne overlooking Lake Doiran (photograph taken after the Bulgarian armistice at the end of September 1918) and the Grave of Airman 2nd Class J Johnson (27 KBS) who died on 30 March 1918 (Johnson is buried in Sarigol Military Cemetery in Macedonia). Also included in the collection are a number of index prints to aerial photographic reconnaissance mosaics produced by 16 Wing (RFC) in Macedonia. These are as follows: 1) Butkovo - Cajir Mah: taken on 4 July 1917 by 17 Squadron (RFC) covering prints 6480 - 6497. 2) Ernekoj: taken on 2 June 1917 by 17 Squadron (RFC) covering prints 0217 - 0225. 3) Hristian Kamila - Homondos: taken on 1 August 1917 by 17 Squadron (RFC) covering prints 6922 - 6949. 4) Mirsla: taken on 16 August 1917 by 17 Squadron (RFC) covering prints 7240 - 7246. 5) Pobreg - Stojakovo and towards Bogorodica (including the Bulgarian strongpoint known as the Trapeze de Stojakovo): taken 23 September 1917 by 47 Squadron (RFC) covering prints 7697 - 7714 (of these prints 7697 - 7707 & 7709, 7713 - 7714 form part of the collection). 6) Subaskoj - Zili & Topoljani - Sarmusakli salient (near Kakara and Tumba): taken 31 May 1917 by 17 Squadron (RFC) covering prints 6189 - 6223. The collection also contains ten photographic postcards collected by Finch during the First World War. These show French landing quays at Salonika (a card sent home by Finch to his mother on 5 July 1918); a house at Ville-sur-Ancre on the Somme (card sent to Finch on 15 June 1917); three cards showing the Italian warships AMALFI (Pisa Class armoured cruiser), LEONARDO DA VINCI (Cavour Class battleship) and VETTOR PISANI (Vettor Pisani Class armoured cruiser) at Taranto; five cards of German origin: Indian soldiers having a meal; Bavarian troops marching through a town to entrain for the front; a group of German NCOs and other ranks in the Champagne region of France; a full-length portrait of a mounted German officer of Reserve Infantry Regiment 111 and a patriotic postcard espousing solidarity in the war effort between German farmers and the fighting soldiers at the front. Finally, there are four miscellaneous items: a group photograph of the personnel forming No.3 Office, Royal Artillery Section, 3rd Echelon, GHQ France (July 1917); a hand-drawn and watercoloured invitation card for Captain McKenna to dine with Captain EJE Hawkins and officers of 3 KBS on 1 September 1916, the scene on the card shows an observation officer in the basket of a kite balloon; a 'Good Luck' card made for Finch by Nora and sent to him at Christmas (no year given), the card has the face of a black cat within a horseshoe through which there is also a four-leafed clover; a souvenir pamphlet 'Who Won the War and Why' a humorous piece written on 1 October 1918 by a member of the British Salonika Force GHQ concert party stating how the BSF won the First World War. The whole collection was contained in a handmade waterproof canvas wallet measuring 22cm (width) x 19cm (height). The wallet has a single pocket and a single button fastening.