Lieutenant Raymond Tenney Balch was born December 8th 1894 in Newbury Port, Essex County, Massachusetts, USA to William Balch (1869-1957) and Nellie Bruce Stevens Balch (1872-1946). He entered Phillips Academy in 1912, but left before completing his course.
After some business training with the American Trust Company of Boston and with Blake Brothers of Boston and New York where he worked as a Broker’s Clerk, he enlisted in the Massachusetts Naval Cadet School, from which he graduated on March 24th, 1917 with the rank of Ensign.
He was ordered to duty with the 9th Deck Division, but was prevented by a physical defect from going into active service. Disappointed in his hopes, he joined the Royal Flying Corps in Toronto and trained at Bayside and Fort Worth Texas, where he was commissioned Second Lieutenant on November 26th 1917.
Going overseas in December, Raymond Balch was assigned to the No.74 Training Squadron at Castle Bromwich aerodrome. In February the next year he won his First-Class Pilot’s licence and was promoted to First Lieutenant on 1st April 1918.
On May 25th 1918, two days before he expected to go across the Channel for combat duty, his airplane collapsed while he was at aerial target practice over Sutton Park and he fell to his death near Castle Bromwich, England. 84 other former students of Phillips Academy also died in service during WW1.
There is a headstone to his memory by the new gate in Castle Bromwich Graveyard, but Raymond Balch himself is buried elsewhere in the graveyard.
