Stow Maries Great War Aerodrome Frontline: Faces and Spaces

The popular seminar returns!

A one-day focused history seminar, on an original Great War site, in an original great War Building?

Tell me more!

Frontline is a opportunity and an annual, must-go event for the Great War history enthusiast. You will join a restricted number of your peers as you explore a specific area of this wide ranging and complicated field.

With talks in previous seminars ranging from the tribulations of recreating a Great War Aircraft (from drawing board to actual flight) to the challenges of excavating a totally buried Royal Flying Corps Camp, you can guarantee an interesting an exciting day, beginning when you arrive at the museum at 0900hrs.

The exact timings of the day will be confirmed to registered delegates, but you can expect to be finished by 1700hrs.

For 2026, year, the theme is 'Faces and Spaces'.

The day includes up-close and personal tours of aircraft & object handling sessions, as well as lunch in the original 1917 Airmen's Mess.

Finishing off the day with that Q&A session with our experts, you will leave informed, educated and excited about a day well spent.

Propeller Members are eligible for a reduced admission fee to this event. Please contact the Propeller Club team to arrange this.

In 2026, following a broad and comprehensive assessment of the applications received, we are happy to confim that we will be joined by the following speakers:

Peter Hart has worked for some 40 years as the oral historian for the Department of Sound Records, Imperial War Museum where he interviewed countless veterans. He has written several books on the First and Second World Wars, is an experienced civilian/military tours guide and has appeared in numerous television documentaries.

His books include;The Somme, Jutland 1916, Bloody April, Passchendaele, Aces Falling, 1918 - A Very British Victory and Gallipoli. He is a regular contributor to Britain at War magazine.

In recent years, Hart has been a frequent visitor to the Gallipoli Peninsular, accompanying group tours of the battlefields.

After retiring from the Imperial War Museum, Peter launched "Pete & Gary's Military History" podcast. The debut podcast was made available in February 2020.

Peter's Talk is titled: I'm Out: Escape from German POW Camps, 1914-18

Nobody really expected to be made a prisoner of war but once captured it was a cruel, hard world, especially if they weren’t officers. At the mercy of bullying captors, often existing on a minimal diet that left them suffering from malnutrition, forced to work long hours in appalling conditions, many were too damn exhausted to try and escape. But a few roused themselves and devoted countless hours to escape plans, some taking opportunistic advantage of any brief opening, others engaging in the hard graft of tunnelling. But escape was no guarantee of liberty; many were all too soon caught, to be ignominiously dragged back to the POW camps. For such men failure was only a spur to greater efforts as they try, try, tried again. This is a story of courage and endurance we should not forget.

Steve Erskine is the Regimental Researcher at the Green Howards Museum and a Freelance Battlefield Guide. He holds a master’s degree (with Merit) in British First World War Studies from Birmingham University (2008).

Steve is a regular feature on the public speaking circuit, he was a Keynote speaker at the Peace & Security conference in Catania, Sicily in July 2023 contributing to the islands’ commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the landings on Sicily. In September 2023, he was a speaker at the We Have Ways history festival, again talking about the Green Howards role in the liberation of Sicily, where he shared the stage with the likes of David Olusoga, Frank McDonough and James Holland, and he has appeared as guest on the WW2 podcast hosted by Angus Wallace (broadcast on 15th January).

Steve will be a speaker at the Thirtieth Annual War College of the Seven Years' War at Fort Ticonderoga in New York State in May 2026, when he will talk about the capture of Belle Île in 1761 and the beginnings of Britain’s Mediterranean strategy.

He is acknowledged as a research contributor in several titles including:

Shooting the front - Aerial Reconnaissance in the First World War. Terrance J. Finnegan (2006) – Steve and Terry Finnegan together spoke at the 2015 Hendon Conference and at RAF Wyton, home of the National Centre for Geospatial Intelligence (NCGI) on the subject of early military reconnaissance.

Somme – Into the Breach. Hugh Sebag-Montefiori (2016).

Zero Hour, Z Day: XV Corps operations between Mametz and Fricourt – Volume 2. Jonathan Porter (2020).

He has also written for Britain at War Magazine. He is an experienced battlefield guide, having conducted tours of the Dunkirk, Normandy, Somme, and Ypres battlefields.

Steve's Talk is titled: A loyal and simple soldier. Lt.-Gen. Sir David Henderson, father of the RAF?

Most people are aware of men like Hugh Trenchard, the man usually identified as the founding father of Britain's Air Force, how many have heard of Henderson? It was Henderson who directed the creation of the Royal Flying Corps. It was he who took it to France and commanded it during the first year of the war, and it was he who advised Jan Smuts during his investigations into the possible creation of a single national air arm which led, on 1st April 1918, to the creation of the RAF. Henderson even had a hand in designing the iconic RAF wings insignia. This talk brings Henderson out from the shadows.

Kelsey Ellington is a public historian and researcher specialising in First World War aviation and the human experience of flight. Her work explores pilot training, masculinity, and the psychological and physiological challenges faced by early military aviators. She has worked with museums and heritage organisations and regularly shares research-led public history through digital media.

Kelsey's talk is titled : What Makes a Good Pilot? Dr Martin Flack and the Search for the Right Mind to Fly

In the early years of military aviation, flying exposed the limits of the human body and mind in unprecedented ways. As aircraft climbed higher, and entered combat, it became clear that technical skill and bravery alone were not enough. Exhaustion, or an inability to cope with the stresses of flight, were some factors that held back the otherwise capable pilots.

This talk explores how British physiologist Dr Martin Flack attempted to answer a pressing wartime question: what makes a good pilot? Drawing on Flack’s research for the Royal Flying Corps and early Royal Air Force, Iit will explore how physiological testing was examined, and how Dr Flack, along with the Air Medical Investigation Committee, grappled with ideas of nervous stability, and suitability for flight.

Rather than presenting a simple biography, the talk looks at Flack’s work to explore broader themes of pilot selection, and the human toll of early flight. It also considers the limits of these early approaches, and how Flack’s ideas foreshadow later developments in aviation psychology and grounded the research for the fighter pilots of today.

As part of your delegate's admission, you will enjoy a behind-the-rope tour of the Aircraft collection, showcasing the rare Albatros, Tabloid, Avro and BE2e aircraft. During the tour, you will be free to take photographs and ask questions.

Handling Sessions You will have a chance to get hands-on with a selection of our Objects, drawn from the collections indivudually for this year's event.

Lunch

Lunch will be a buffet style affair, with refreshments, as part of your admission. It will be served in the1917 Airmen's Mess. Yes - you will eat where the personnel of 37 Sqn, RFC (later RAF) ate!

You will be able to purchase additional drinks and snacks during the day from our Cafe.

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Host or Publisher Stow Marie Great War Aerodrome Trust