Richard Bell Davies

Few Royal Navy officers had a career that so completely spanned the birth and maturation of naval aviation as Richard Bell Davies. He learned to fly when aircraft were still fragile experimental machines, won the Victoria Cross while flying from an island base during the First World War, helped develop the techniques required for aircraft to operate from ships, and returned from retirement during the Second World War to serve once again at sea. By the end of his career he had risen to vice-admiral and had become one of the most highly decorated pioneers of British naval flying.

Richard Bell Davies was born in Kensington, London, on 19 May 1886, the son of civil engineer William Bell Davies and Mary Emma Beale. Orphaned while still a young child, he was brought up by his uncle, Dr Edwin Clifford Beale, and educated at Bradfield College in Berkshire. On 20 April 1901 he entered the Royal Navy as a cadet aboard HMS Britannia. His early career included service in cruisers and battleships of the Mediterranean and Home Fleets. He was appointed acting sub-lieutenant in December 1905 and promoted lieutenant on 30 June 1908. As a commissioned Royal Navy officer of his generation, he did not have the numerical service number normally associated with naval ratings; official records identified officers principally by name, rank and seniority.

Davies's fascination with aviation developed before the Royal Navy possessed an independent air service. After becoming interested in the possibilities of flight, he paid for flying instruction himself at Claude Grahame-White's flying school at Hendon. On 30 May 1911 he gained Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate No. 90 there while flying a Farman biplane. The Fleet Air Arm Officers Association records that his training cost him £50, with a further £25 deposited against possible damage to the aircraft. In 1913 he joined the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps and was associated with the Royal Navy's early flying establishment at Eastchurch. When the Royal Naval Air Service was formally established in July 1914, Davies was already among the officers prepared to take naval aviation into war.

The outbreak of the First World War quickly placed him in combat. Serving with No. 3 Squadron RNAS on the Belgian coast, Davies took part in repeated attacks against German naval installations at Ostend and Zeebrugge. On 23 January 1915, during an attack on submarines alongside the mole at Zeebrugge, he was severely wounded in the thigh by a bullet at the beginning of the flight. Despite pain and loss of blood, he continued the mission, released eight bombs at close range and handled his aircraft for approximately an hour before returning. His conduct brought appointment as a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order. The official account emphasised not a single isolated act, but Davies's repeated attacks under heavy and accurate enemy fire.

After recovering, Davies was sent to the eastern Mediterranean, where No. 3 Squadron operated from Tenedos and later Imbros during the Gallipoli campaign. Following Bulgaria's entry into the war in October 1915, the RNAS was ordered to attack railway communications linking the Central Powers with the Ottoman Empire. One of the principal objectives was the railway system around Ferrijik Junction, near the Maritsa River, where destruction of the line could impede the movement of supplies and reinforcements.

On 19 November 1915 Davies took part in a raid on Ferrijik Junction with Flight Sub-Lieutenant Gilbert Formby Smylie. Smylie's aircraft was hit by heavy ground fire and forced down in marshland. After landing, Smylie set fire to his machine so that it would not fall intact into enemy hands, but one bomb had failed to release. Seeing Davies descending nearby, Smylie returned and detonated the bomb with a pistol shot before Davies landed. With enemy troops approaching, Davies took Smylie aboard his own aircraft and succeeded in getting airborne and returning to the aerodrome. The official Victoria Cross citation described the rescue as "a feat of airmanship that can seldom have been equalled for skill and gallantry." Davies received the Victoria Cross, while Smylie was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

The improvised rescue became one of the defining episodes of early military aviation. Smylie had to squeeze into the confined space of Davies's aircraft before they could escape under enemy fire. The action is widely regarded as the first combat rescue of a downed airman carried out by another aircraft, and the Fleet Air Arm continues to treat Davies's achievement as an important precursor of modern combat search and rescue. It was an unplanned act rather than a formal rescue operation, but its essential features were unmistakable: an airman down behind enemy lines, hostile troops closing in, and another pilot deliberately landing to recover him.

Davies continued in senior flying appointments after Gallipoli. In 1916 he became associated with No. 3 Wing RNAS in France, whose aircraft conducted long-range bombing operations against German industrial targets. In June 1917 he was appointed Senior Flying Officer with the Grand Fleet, with duties involving naval aviation units associated with HMS Campania. His 1917 service in Campania formed part of the wider development of aircraft operations with the fleet, but it should not be confused with his later work aboard the new through-deck carrier HMS Argus.

That distinction is important to Davies's place in carrier history. In 1918 he participated in alighting trials aboard HMS Argus, the Royal Navy's pioneering flush-deck aircraft carrier. Imperial War Museums film of the trials identifies Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Bell Davies, VC, DSO, as the pilot of a Sopwith 1½ Strutter shown taking off from and landing aboard Argus. Navy Wings describes Davies's 1918 achievement as the first true aircraft-carrier landing. These trials, rather than his 1917 appointment in Campania, provide the strongest documentary connection between Davies and the development of practical through-deck carrier operations.

The creation of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918 absorbed the RNAS, and Davies temporarily held RAF rank before returning to the Royal Navy in 1919. He was awarded the Air Force Cross that year. His First World War service also brought important foreign recognition. France appointed him a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur and awarded him the Croix de Guerre with Palm. Romania conferred upon him the Order of Michael the Brave, 3rd Class, an award specifically recorded as having been made to Davies in March 1919. He was also Mentioned in Despatches for his wartime service.

Davies remained closely involved with naval aviation during the interwar years. He served as First Lieutenant of HMS Lion in 1919 and 1920, headed the Air Section of the Naval Staff from 1920 to 1924 and again after his promotion to captain, and served as Executive Officer of HMS Royal Sovereign. He later became Chief Staff Officer to the Rear-Admiral commanding the 1st Cruiser Squadron, served as the Fleet Air Arm liaison officer at the Air Ministry from 1931 to 1933, and commanded HMS Cornwall on the China Station from 1933 to 1935. He subsequently commanded the Royal Naval Barracks at Devonport. Promoted rear-admiral in January 1938, he became Rear Admiral, Naval Air Stations, responsible for major Fleet Air Arm establishments as control of naval aviation returned fully to the Admiralty. He was appointed a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1939.

Davies retired from the regular Royal Navy on 29 May 1941 and was promoted vice-admiral on the retired list, but retirement did not end his wartime service. He returned in the Royal Naval Reserve at a lower active-service rank and served as a convoy commodore before being appointed to the escort carrier HMS Dasher. Davies was the ship's commissioning captain when Dasher entered Royal Navy service at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 2 July 1942. He supervised her initial trials and flying work-up, including deck-landing exercises in Long Island Sound. His command ended in August 1942, when Commander Charles Nugent Lentaigne succeeded him. Consequently, although Dasher later served in Operation Torch in November 1942, Davies was not her commanding officer during that operation.

In March 1943 Davies assumed command of HMS Pretoria Castle, which was employed as a trials and training carrier. He remained with the ship until October 1944, participating in the continuing development of carrier aviation during a period when the Fleet Air Arm was introducing increasingly capable aircraft and refining deck-operating techniques. His final medal entitlement for the Second World War included the 1939-45 Star, Atlantic Star, Defence Medal and War Medal 1939-45, according to the present VC & GC Association record. His surviving medal group, including his Victoria Cross, is preserved by the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton.

Vice-Admiral Richard Bell Davies, VC, CB, DSO, AFC, died at the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar, on 26 February 1966, aged seventy-nine. His career had begun when powered flight was little more than an experiment and ended after aircraft carriers had become central instruments of naval warfare. Yet his most enduring distinction remained the decision he made over the marshes near Ferrijik in November 1915. Faced with the choice of leaving a fellow airman to capture or attempting a landing beside advancing enemy troops, Davies chose to land. That act earned the Victoria Cross and secured his place not only in the history of the Royal Navy, but in the history of military aviation itself.