Lionel Rees
| Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees | |
|---|---|
Lionel Rees c.1918
|
|
| Born |
31 July 1884 Caernarfon, Carnarvonshire, Wales |
| Died | 28 September 1955 (aged 71) Nassau, Bahamas |
| Buried at | Nassau War Cemetery, Bahamas |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch |
British Army Royal Air Force |
| Years of service | 1903–1931 c.1939–1942 |
| Rank | Group Captain |
| Unit |
Royal Garrison Artillery Royal Flying Corps |
| Commands held |
No. 11 Squadron RFC No. 32 Squadron RFC |
| Battles/wars | Second World War |
| Awards |
Victoria Cross Officer of the Order of the British Empire Military Cross Air Force Cross |
Group Captain Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees VC, OBE, MC, AFC, RAF (rtd.) (31 July 1884 – 28 September 1955) 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 purpose-built British fighter airplane, the Vickers Gunbus.
Rees also had a keen interest in archaeology. While flying from Cairo to Baghdad in the 1920s, he took some of the earliest archaeological aerial photographs of sites in eastern Transjordan (now Jordan), and published several articles in Antiquity and the journal of the Palestine Exploration Fund. He is considered a father of the archaeological studies of this remote area, and a pioneer of aerial archaeology. He was also an accomplished sailor.
Rees was born at 5 Castle 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 on 23 December 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.
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