My name is George Dunk but I actually served as George Duke which, to an outsider, would suggest that I had something to hide. May be I did, may be I didn't, but spelling and transcription errors were not unknown with so many men enlisting at this time. I was most likely born in Sussex in about 1871 but even this cannot be confirmed.
Despite my age, I was already in my 40s, I joined the Royal Flying Corps as G. DUKE on 7th August 1914. So I didn't waste time in doing my bit for King and Country.
I served in the 4TDS (Training Depot Station) Unit which moved from Tern Hill, Shropshire to Hooton Park, Cheshire on 19th September 1917.
On 1st April 1918, when the Royal Flying Corps became the Royal Air Force, the Day 1 Roll for the new Royal Air Force records show that I was an Air Mechanic 2, a rank to which I had been promoted on 12th November 1917. So I must have been doing a good job. In the R.A.F my rank now became Air Mechanic 3rd Class and my trade was given as upholsterer.
The 4TDS (Training Depot Station) Unit was disbanded in 1919 after the end of the Great War. Sadly I was already dead by then. The 1918 Bucks Absent Voter’s List has my home as St Mary Street, High Wycombe but I was evidently still away in the Royal Air Force when the list was taken. I was still in the RAF when I died from a cerebral haemorrhage at the V.A.D hospital in High Wycombe, just across the road from here. Hence this Commonwealth War Grave.
Hopefully friends and family were able to visit me in hospital but I would have been unaware of their presence. I died on the 21st September 1918 and my burial took place three days later on the 24th September.
Researched by Ruth Bowler, Flackwell Local Area History Group
