True joined the Royal Flying Corps as a student pilot in 1915, training at a flying school in Gosport, Hampshire.Crimes of Horror p. 112 Contemporary records indicate his performance was substandard. He is known to have crashed his plane on his first solo cross-country trial flight in Farnborough in February 1916, suffering severe concussion and remaining unconscious for two days.The Murders of the Black Museum: 1870-1970 p. 235 The following month, he again crashed his plane—this time in Gosport—suffering only minor cuts and bruises. Shortly after this second accident, he suffered a nervous breakdown. Seven months later, in October 1916, True was discharged from the Royal Flying Corps. Just weeks later, he would be briefly hospitalised following his collapse inside a Southsea theatre. True himself would later ascribe this period of hospitalisation to his having contracted syphilis.
