Alan Douglas Carden, DSO (July 1874 – April 1964) was a British pioneer aviator who rose to the rank of Colonel in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

. He gained his pilot's licence and served with the RFC in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, despite having only one hand.

Family life

Alan Douglas Carden was born in

St. Helier St Helier (; Jèrriais: ; ) is the capital of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. It is the most populous of the twelve parishes of Jersey, with a population of 35,822, over one-third of the island's total popul ...

, Jersey, in July 1874, to Major-General George Carden of the 5th (Northumberland) Fusiliers and Mary Gertrude Blaine. He was the fifth son among eleven children. He was educated at Charterhouse. On 2 January 1913 he married Elizabeth Nie Constance Mary, widow of Captain J. D. Dauncey of the Dorsetshire Regiment. She was the granddaughter of Ernest Curzon, 52nd Oxfordshire Light Infantry, son of the 1st Earl Howe. They had a daughter, Anne Crystal Brudenell Carden, born 7 July 1922. Nie died in May 1949.

Royal Engineers

In December 1894 he joined the

. He initially specialised in submarine mining and electric lighting, rising to become C.O. of the West India Submarine Mining Company, R.E., in Jamaica.RE Obit. In 1907 he returned to the UK and was appointed Assistant Superintendent of the Army Balloon Factory at Farnborough, under Col.

John Capper Major General Sir John Edward Capper, (7 December 1861 − 24 May 1955) was a senior officer of the British Army during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who served on the North-West Frontier of British India, in South Africa a ...

, RE. Early on, he had a bad accident while visiting

Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies within the county of Wiltshire, but st ...

and lost the end of his left arm. Nevertheless, he continued to work on both the dirigible balloons or

airships An airship, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding ai ...

and heavier-than air

aeroplanes An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, ...

under development. These included the first Army airship, Nulli Secundus, the first UK-built aeroplane to fly, S.F. Cody's

British Army Aeroplane No.1 The British Army Aeroplane No 1 or sometimes Cody 1 was a biplane built by Samuel Franklin Cody in 1907 at the Army Balloon Factory at Farnborough. It made the first recognised powered and sustained flight in the United Kingdom on 16 October ...

, and the tailless types designed by Lt.

J. W. Dunne John William Dunne (2 December 1875 – 24 August 1949) was a British soldier, aeronautical engineer and philosopher. As a young man he fought in the Second Boer War, before becoming a pioneering aeroplane designer in the early years of the 20t ...

. Following the termination of Dunne's work in 1909, Capt. Carden joined Dunne's Blair Atholl Aeroplane Syndicate and bought the first D.8 biplane so that he could learn to fly. The Dunne type was tailless and had only two controls, in the form of levers each controlling an elevon on that side. Carden attached a ring prosthesis over the stump of his injured arm and found that he could operate the lever satisfactorily. In this way he obtained his pilot's certificate to become one of very few one-handed pilots ever to fly.

Royal Flying Corps and WWI

The

Air Battalion Royal Engineers The Air Battalion Royal Engineers (ABRE) was the first flying unit of the British Armed Forces to make use of heavier-than-air craft. Founded in 1911, the battalion in 1912 became part of the Royal Flying Corps, which in turn evolved into the Ro ...

was formed in 1911, with Carden appointed its Experimental Officer. Two years later the battalion was dissolved and reformed as the Royal Flying Corps, and Carden rose to Squadron-Leader with the (initially temporary) rank of Major. On the outbreak of war he went to France and established the RFC's central aircraft park, including the Engine Repair Shop (ERS).Douglas R. Taylor; ''Boxkite to Jet: The Remarkable Career of Frank B. Halford'', Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust, 1999. p.35. In 1915 he joined the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and was subsequently awarded the DSO. By the end of hostilities he had risen to the rank of Wing Commander/Lieut-Colonel.

Later years

Carden retired from the Army in 1930. He presently returned to Farnborough, which was now the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

, and worked there until he was 80.

Death

Carden died in Chippenham, Wiltshire, in April 1964, aged 90.

References

Notes

Bibliography

*"Colonel A. D. Carden, DSO" (Obit.); ''The Royal Engineers Journal'', Vol. LXXVIII (78), No. 2, June 1964. pp. 211–

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carden, Alan Douglas 1874 births 1964 deaths People educated at Charterhouse School Royal Engineers officers British Army personnel of World War I Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Royal Flying Corps officers