Early Life :

Family :

Education & Career :

Iriquois Indian Chief known as Sawatis Tawanladah.

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

Accidents were a minor factor in the casualty list. Our definition is deaths resulting from activities that were not directly associated with 'active service'. We have excluded Naval Accidents which are seperately identified because of their numbers and impact. Many accidents involved the aviators, operating at the the limits of technology.

Detail :

Excerpt from Flight Global - 3rd January, 1918

SAVVATIS TAWANLADAH, the chief of the famous Iroquois Indians of Canada, has, it is announced, put himself into training for the R.F.C., and is now in process of working for his wings, "S.T.," who has already, whilst serving in the Canadian Infantry, had a taste of fighting on the Western front, is prosaically and officially known in the Army as Lieut. J. R. Stacey.

Quote from Flight Global - April 18th, 1918 Edition:

So Sawatis Tawanladah, the "chief" of the famous Iroquois Indians of Canada and of five other North American tribes, has passed away to his happy hunting grounds. Last January.it will be remembered, in this column we mentioned this Indian chief and the fact of his joining up with the R.F.C. in this country. Now it is announced that Lieut. John Randolph Stacey - which was Sawatis Tawanladah's name in the British army - was killed in a flying accident at Hounslow last Monday. And so passes away another of the
ancient links of the past, through the medium of the most modern science of the age.

The Ontario and Quebec Iroquois reserves of Grand River and Kahnawake were notable in that they were home to the only three Canadian Indians who would hold commissions as flying officers in the British flying services during the First World War. Although direct enrolments to pilot training within the Royal Flying Corps were periodically available, the more common route to pilot wings for aspiring aviators was a secondment from another branch of service, and a period of duty as an air observer, before being accepted for pilot training. This latter scenario was the route followed by James David Moses and Oliver Milton Martin of Grand River, and John Randolph STACEY of Kahnawake. The three had previously served as infantry officers with the 114th and 107th Battalions, two formations largely manned and officered by Indians and M?tis from Quebec, Ontario, and the prairie provinces. Moses and Stacey would not survive the war, while Martin would rise to the rank of brigadier during the Second World War. Two days before his death, his aircraft shot down by anti-aircraft fire, Moses, an observer at the time, wrote home: Dear Dad ... Just a few lines to let you know that I am getting along O.K. ... My pilot and I have had some very thrilling experiences just lately. We bombed the German troops from a very low height and had the pleasure of shooting hundreds of rounds into dense masses of them with my machine gun. They simply scattered and tumbled in all directions. Needless to say we got it pretty hot and when we got back to the aerodrome found that our machine was pretty well shot up. Stacey, the pilot referred to in Moses's letter, was killed in a flying accident in the spring of 1918. Source: http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection/D61-16-2004E.pdf

Masonic :

Was initiated and passed in Elstree Lodge No. 3092, but owing to the accident was unable to be raised.

Discrepancies (Require checks, clarity or further research) :

Various documents show differing dates of birth. One thing that remains constant is the 5th March, but there are trace entries which show year as 1888 and others as 1890.

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley