Page 66 - They Also Served

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Lionel Charlton 1898.
The son of a diplomat, Lionel Evelyn Oswald Charlton was born in London on 7th July 1879. From 1882 to 1884 he lived with his parents in Washington DC before attending a Catholic boarding school in Birmingham and later Brighton College as a day-boy. In December 1894, he enrolled into a military crammer, designed to prepare boys for the Sandhurst entry exam, and was commissioned into the Lancashire Fusiliers on 28th September 1898.
The following year, while serving with his regiment on the island of Crete, Charlton rescued a soldier from drowning and was awarded the Royal Humane Society Bronze Medal, the ribbon of which can be seen in the photograph on the right breast of his tunic. During the Boer War, the Lancashire Fusiliers were involved in the relief of Ladysmith and, later, the disastrous battle of Spion Kop, where Charlton was among the 1,250 British wounded. Awarded the DSO and later MiD, he was wounded again in the latter stages of the war while commanding a company of mounted infantry.
Unimpressed with peacetime soldiering in the UK, Charlton volunteered for secondment to the Gold Coast Regiment in what is now modern Ghana and served as ADC to the governor of the Leeward Islands before attending the Staff College. Still seeking fresh challenges, he learned to fly privately and was awarded his Royal Aero Club Aviator’s Certificate (609) in August 1913. Seconded to the RFC, he landed in France immediately after the declaration of war. Advancing between various staff appointments as the RFC grew, he finished the war in command of an RFC brigade and was further decorated for his services.
After the war, Charlton served as the air attaché in the USA and as an air commodore in the RAF, as the principal staff officer to the commander in Iraq. Here, he was deeply moved by the sight of maimed women and children in the hospital at Diwaniya and consequently appalled by the British policy of bombing recalcitrant tribal villages.
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