THE take off and landing has the most potential for danger in any air flight and this is made all the harder when your airfield is a lake.

A century ago the waters of Windermere claimed the life of 23-year-old pilot Harold Alexander Bower in a flying accident to one of a new breed of aeroplane wanted by the naval authorities as spotters for the battle fleets.

The story of the young flight lieutenant emerged after Colin Fenn went to see the First World War displays at the Ruskin Museum, in Yewdale Road, Coniston.

Mr Fenn is the author of West Norwood Cemetery's Great War Connections and told museum curator Vicky Slowe about one of the men to feature in his book.

Flt-Lt Bower was born in Rotherhithe, London, on July 11 in 1893.

He was the son of Alexander F. Bower and Emily Alice Bower of 14 Berwyn Road, Herne Hill.

Bower was taken on as a probationary flight sub-lieutenant on May 12 in 1915 and trained as a naval pilot in small flying boats.

His aviator certificate was gained from the Royal Aero club on January 18 in 1916 when he was flying a Maurice Farman Biplane at Chingford’s Royal Naval Air Service station.

He was promoted to the rank of flight lieutenant on June 30 in 1916 and transferred to the Lake District, where the Royal Naval Air Service had established a flying boat Station at Hill of Oaks on the east shore of the lake.

At 6.10pm on September 2 in 1916 Bower took off in a small two-seater FBA Type A flying boat with Flight Sub-Lt Ernest Guy Forsyth Thompson as a pupil.

When they approached the base the craft suddenly broke up in the air and fell into the lake.

Thompson suffered minor injuries, but there was no trace of Bower. His body was recovered five days later and an inquest returned a verdict of accidental death.

The body was taken to Windermere railway station from where it was sent for burial at Norwood, near to where his parents lived.

The family purchased a private grave and marked it with a Calvary Cross inscribed to “Our darling son – Killed in a seaplane accident – Nearer my God to Thee”.

This memorial was replaced with a standard Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone around 1990.

He left £311 in his will.