seaplanes and history at Stenness, Orkney

[Tony Walker]

Here's some naval postal history with some decidedly not postal history for a change.  I'll start with the postal history :

It is a PPC of Finstown in Orkney, not far from Stenness where
 
  2 Private Clarkson RAF,
  Stenness Seaplane Station
  c/o AMO Inverness
  c/o H.M.S. Imperieuse

was stationed.

Cancelled by the FPOa machine on board the Fleet Post Office at Scapa Flow, for most of the war on board HMS Imperieuse (as Clarkson assumed) anchored off Longhope.  However late in the war FPOa transferred to HMS Victorious with the cancellation from Victorious identified by the omission of the time slugs in the centre (8.30 AM for instance).  This card, dated 14 July 1918 is the earliest date I have for the Victorious cancel, but that's not the reason for this Forum post.

The censor mark is Gould 4C302 from Stenness.

Private Clarkson would certainly have been in the Royal Naval Air Service up in Orkney, but the RNAS formed part of the newly created RAF on 1 April 1918 when they amalgamated with the Army's Royal Flying Corps.  I wonder when he was stationed at Stenness, probably transferred from nearby Houton.

Stenness seaplane station at Stenness on Loch Stenness was established as part of the strengthening of the Navy's force of the 'Large America' type seaplane to conduct intensive anti-submarine patrols.  The large number of planes needed meant some had to be stationed at Stenness without any sheds or maintenance equipment which was all located at Houton on the north shores of Scapa Flow.  Flying began in May 1918 but it was soon found that the loch was too shallow and exposed.

Although the station had a complement of 198 officers and men and occupied nearly 5 hectares with a motor transport shed, petrol store, offices, power house and a slipway, the 18 seaplanes intended to be based there never reached this total before the station was suspended and flying activities transferred to Houton. Standing Stones Hotel in Stenness where the officers were accommodated remained in use for longer.

If anyone has other mail from Stenness I would be pleased to know as I have in mind an article about naval aircraft and their association with Orkney in WWI.

OK, for the obsessed postal historian read no more.

Last year my partner and I spent Christmas on Orkney.  Travelling back from Kitchener's memorial on the headland at the Brough of Birsay in the afternoon one day, we approached Stenness from the north, passing the Stones of Stenness archaeological site, within the circle of which a number of people were congregating.  We had not realised it was the Winter Solstice and the stone circle had been erected some 5000 years ago to celebrate this event as the sun sank down between the 'V' created by two distant mountains, and aligned with a single marker stone in the distance.  So I joined the Druids in the circle, who conducted a simple and moving ceremony as we watched the brilliant sunset.  It was indeed an experience I shall remember for a long while, especially knowing some 5000 years earlier people had been there doing the same thing.

The photograph does not do justice to the occasion. 

Cheers
Tony