Lionel Rees

Group Captain Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees VC, OBE, MC, AFC, RAF was a Welsh recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was credited with eight confirmed aerial victories, comprising one enemy aircraft captured, one destroyed, one forced to land and five driven down. Rees and his gunner, Flight Sergeant James McKinley Hargreaves, were the only two airmen to become aces flying the earliest purposebuilt British fighter airplane, the Vickers Gunbus.

Rees was born atCastle Street, Caernarfon, in 1884 the son of Charles Herbert Rees, a solicitor and honorary colonel in the Royal Welch Fusilers and his wife Leonara. Rees attended Eastbourne College before entering the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1902. He was commissioned in onDecember 1903 into the Royal Garrison Artillery and was posted to Gibraltar. Promoted to lieutenant in 1906 he moved to Sierra Leone in 1908 and in May 1913 was seconded to the Southern Nigeria Regiment.

Source: Wikipedia