Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees

Group Captain Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees VC, OBE, MC, AFC

On 1 July 1916, alone in a single-seat fighter over the Western Front, Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees attacked a formation of about ten enemy aircraft, fought on after being wounded in the thigh, and returned safely only after exhausting his ammunition. The extraordinary action earned the Welsh flying ace the Victoria Cross and secured his place among the most distinguished combat aviators of the First World War. Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees was born in Caernarfon, Wales, on 31 July 1884, the son of Colonel Charles Herbert Rees and Leonora Maria Davids. He attended Eastbourne College before entering the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a gentleman cadet, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery on 23 December 1903. His early postings included service with the 9th Company at Gibraltar and the 50th Company in Sierra Leone. Fascinated by the emerging possibilities of military aviation, Rees paid for his own flying instruction at the Bristol School at Larkhill and gained Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate No. 392 on 7 January 1913. Following the outbreak of the First World War, he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps on 10 August 1914.

After serving as an instructor at the Central Flying School at Upavon, Rees became a Flight Commander with No. 11 Squadron Royal Flying Corps. The squadron deployed to France in July 1915 equipped with the Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus, one of Britain's earliest purpose-built fighting aircraft. Rees was ultimately credited with eight confirmed aerial victories, several of his most notable combats being fought with Flight Sergeant James McKinley Hargreaves as his gunner. On 28 July 1915 he forced down an enemy aircraft, and on 31 August he fought an LVG two-seater for approximately 45 minutes before driving it down. On 21 September 1915, Rees and Hargreaves attacked a large German two-seater over Herbecourt and forced it to descend behind the enemy lines. His repeated gallantry and skill in aerial combat were recognized with the award of the Military Cross, published in The London Gazette on 29 October 1915. By the end of his period with No. 11 Squadron, Rees had established himself as one of the most successful pilots associated with the Vickers Gunbus.

Promoted to temporary Major on 1 December 1915, Rees was appointed to command the newly formed No. 32 Squadron in January 1916. The squadron deployed to France in May equipped with the Airco DH.2 single-seat fighter. On 1 July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, Rees was flying alone near Double Crassieurs when he saw what he initially believed to be a formation of British aircraft returning from a bombing operation. Closing to escort them, he discovered instead a formation of about ten enemy machines. Rees immediately attacked. He damaged one aircraft and dispersed several others before pursuing two machines heading west. During the combat he was wounded in the thigh and briefly lost control of his DH.2, but recovered and continued the attack at extremely close range until his ammunition was exhausted. He then succeeded in landing safely within the British lines. Rees was initially recommended for the Distinguished Service Order, but Major General Hugh Trenchard, commanding the Royal Flying Corps in France, considered the action worthy of the highest recognition for gallantry. The award of the Victoria Cross was published in The London Gazette on 4 August 1916.

King George V presented Rees with the Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace on 16 December 1916. Although he recovered from his wound, it left him with a permanent slight limp. Promoted to temporary Lieutenant-Colonel on 1 May 1917, he was sent to the United States as a technical aviation adviser and assisted with the development of American military aviation. After returning to Britain, Rees commanded the No. 1 School of Aerial Fighting at Turnberry and Ayr, where his experience as a combat pilot was applied to the training of a new generation of airmen. His flying and instructional service was recognized with the award of the Air Force Cross, published in The London Gazette on 1 November 1918. He was further appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1919 Birthday Honours.

With the creation of the independent Royal Air Force, Rees continued his career as a Wing Commander. In June 1920 he was appointed to command the Flying Wing at the RAF College Cranwell, becoming Assistant Commandant of the College in March 1923. Promoted to Group Captain on 1 January 1925, he later served as Deputy Director of Training at the Air Ministry and as an additional Air Aide-de-Camp to King George V. On 1 October 1926 he assumed command of Headquarters RAF Transjordan and Palestine at Amman, overseeing Royal Air Force operations across the mandate territories until November 1928. His time in the Middle East also reflected his wide-ranging intellectual interests. Rees conducted aerial observation and photography of archaeological sites in Transjordan, contributing to the early development of aerial archaeology, and published his study "The Transjordan Desert" in the journal Antiquity in 1929. He retired from the Royal Air Force on 31 July 1931.

Rees's appetite for adventure did not end with his military career. In the autumn of 1933, he sailed the small Loch Fyne ketch May single-handed from England across the Atlantic, reaching Nassau in January 1934. The voyage earned him the Cruising Club of America's prestigious 1934 Blue Water Medal. When the Second World War began, Rees again offered his services to the Air Ministry and returned to active duty as a Wing Commander in December 1940. He travelled to Egypt in January 1941 and took command of RAF El Adem in Libya the following month, before assuming command of RAF Helwan near Cairo in March 1941. Ill health eventually forced his return to Britain, and in February 1942 he began the journey home through Takoradi in West Africa. His wartime service ended in November 1942, when he reverted to the rank of Group Captain on the retired list.

After the war, Rees settled on Andros in the Bahamas, where he lived as a citrus farmer. His life had carried him from the artillery batteries of the British Empire to the earliest years of military aviation, from close-range aerial combat over the Western Front to senior command in the Royal Air Force, and from pioneering aerial archaeology in the Middle East to a single-handed Atlantic crossing. Diagnosed with leukaemia in the early 1950s, Group Captain Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees VC, OBE, MC, AFC died at Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau on 28 September 1955. He was buried in Nassau War Cemetery. His legacy remains that of a remarkable Welsh soldier, airman, Victoria Cross recipient, pioneering military aviator and adventurer whose career spanned the formative decades of British military aviation.