Page 137 - They Also Served

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William Leefe Robinson 1914.
William Leefe Robinson was born
in Coorg, India, on 14th July 1895,
spending his early years on his parents’
coffee-plantation and at prep school
in Bangalore. His later education was
in England at the Dragon School and
St Bees in Cumbria. Commissioned
from Sandhurst in December 1914
into the Worcestershire Regiment, he
volunteered for service with the RFC and
was sent to France as an observer. After
being wounded in action over Lille, he
returned to the UK and undertook pilot
training before being posted to 39 (Home Defence) Squadron based in Essex.
Just after midnight on 3rd September 1916, Robinson, flying a BE2c night fighter, spotted a German Zeppelin, SL11, one of 16 that had set out to bomb Britain in the largest raid of the war to date. At 3,500 metres and periodically losing the immense airship in clouds, he made two passes, raking it with incendiary bullets from his Lewis gun. Loading his final ammunition drum, he attacked again, this time from below and from a range of only 150 metres, concentrating his fire on one spot. Finally, the Zeppelin burst into flames, crashing at Cuffley in Hertfordshire. His combat report dryly states: ‘On landing, I found the Zeppelin gunners had pierced the main spar of my aircraft several times’. The falling airship was witnessed by thousands of Londoners, who cheered and sang the national anthem – the burned-out mass of tangled aluminium was visited by tens of thousands more over the coming days. The event caused a huge surge in morale as it proved that the silent menace from the air could be defeated.
Robinson awoke the next morning to find himself a national hero. Two days later, he was awarded the Victoria Cross – the fastest award on record and the first to be awarded for service in the UK. He received the medal from the king on 9th September at Windsor Castle. He also received a £3,500 prize for his feat, over £215,000 in today’s money. A week later, he took off on another night patrol and crashed the aircraft. Although he survived uninjured, he was too valuable a national figure to lose,
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