ABOUT

A general circulation coin that celebrates the formation of the Royal Flying Corps in 1917

The coin depicts two airmen of the RFC performing a reconnaissance flight over an area of The Battle of Arras in April 1917. Significantly this period of time was known as Bloody April. Named so due to the particularly heavy casualties (4 to 1) that were suffered by the Royal Flying Corps at the hands of the German Luftstreitkräfte.
Despite the losses inflicted, the German Air Service failed to stop the RFC carrying out its prime objectives thus hastening the successful Allied Offensive.
This design is a homage to those young airmen who, when compared to their enemy, were inadequately trained and flying in inferior aircraft. Yet they performed their roles successfully knowing that as a new airman their life expectancy could be terrifyingly short.