Life on the Aerodrome

Hi, there!
I've been popping in intermittently with questions for some time now, and have found the people here to be extremely helpful.
I'm still working on a book (though the end of the rough draft is at last in sight!) about a group of friends during the first world war, a few of whom find themselves in the RFC.
The current question: How would a soldier or pilot find out the status of another soldier or pilot during this era? In the situation we have, a pilot's close friend from home has just gone missing. The pilot does not yet knw it. Would the pilot have to find out from the friend's family, would it have turned up in newspaper casualty lists that someone who gets the paper from home might post (and how long before these lists were published?), or was there some official list the squadron secretary would put up daily, and how long would it take for new information to get there?
Hope someone has some idea either of the answer to this or where I can find the answer!
--Bookworm51

[stephen]

Not sure I can answer the question, but it will help alot if we know whether the missing friend served in the infantry or as a pilot.

If the missing soldier was not in the RFC, and not Commissioned, the most likely sceneraio is from a Newspaper from home.

Cheers
Jim

Sorry, I should have specified.
This particular friend is also a pilot, in a different squadron.

[Butch]

We always heard gossip from friends when someone put his name up in lights, or got caught doing something he should not have been doing. They did have some sort of land line and the mail was delivered more regularly in those days. In period books there is always a premium paid to purge a man's letters. Squadron mates functioned as the missing man's delete key. A mail system we do not know may be your answer.
Pete

[rainbase]

Might the information turn up in "Comic Cuts", the weekly RFC Communique? I know sometimes pilot's deed were mentioned in here; would some casualties be here too?

Hmm. Judging by the title, I'd have assumed not. I figured, and at least one of the books I've gone through suggested that, Comic Cuts was a theoretically humorous paper (although the author suggested that the humor tended to be weak). I did one brief search for it online to see if I could get a feel for what it would have printed, and didn't find anything helpful, but I'll look into it further.
No other ideas?
Does anyone know how casualty lists were published in general, then?

[rainbase]

Hi Bookworm. "Comic Cuts" was the pilot's name for the official weekly communique issued by the RFC beginning in 1915. It served as a summary of the weekly operations performed by the corps. This information would be compiled from the daily reports submitted by the various squadrons.

The Communiques can be read in their entirety in at least two published modern editions. Here's a link to Royal Flying Corps Communiques 1915-1916 edited and annotated by Christopher Cole from my online bibliography.
http://www.raindesert.com/great_war/...cole_chris.htm

I don't know that this helps at all, but I do know that Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, in their book Falcons of France, talk about daily checking a listing of casualties posted by the unit to keep track of friends in other units. The book was about service in a French Escadrille, but both men actually served in the Lafayette Flying Corps and I strongly suspect that this was an accurate reflection of their experience in that organization. It would make sense that the RFC would do the same, but sense may have nothing to do with it! Its a good book, by the way. An easy read and with a good feel for the realities of life. They later wrote the Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy, of course. Hope this is of some minor help.

Matt

[Nieuport28]

In readings concerning the British trained contingent of U.S.. WWI flyers~ It can be noted that an American, one of the "Camel Drivers" (it might have been Clay) who was then flying with an American squadron under British command, wrote to his parents, in June of 1918, that any reports of Americans operating in squadron strength elsewhere were inaccurate and that the two squadons flying 'Camels' with the British were the only American units operating at the front~
The belief was offered even though the American 'First Pursuit Group'~ ie. at that time~ the 94th,95th and 27th Pursuit squadrons~ had been well-established and operational several months earlier~

Lee