100 Kiwi Stories: Pilot first to win Victoria Cross

William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse.

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He was a dashing English gent of Maori descent with a daring need for speed, who became the first airman to win a Victoria Cross in World War I.

William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse was born into London aristocracy, with his mother coming from prominent settlers and Wellington iwi. "He typified the type of young man drawn to engines, cars and aeroplanes in the pre-World War I period, some of whom went on to join the RFC [Royal Flying Corps]. He had a colourful lifestyle, and his love of speed sometimes brought him into conflict with the law," said Simon Moody, research officer at Wigram Air Force Museum.

In 1907, while racing a motorcycle on Brighton beach towards the Waimakariri River mouth, the 19-year old Rhodes-Moorhouse knocked down and killed an 8-year-old local boy. He was charged with manslaughter but it appears the prosecution was dropped.

Soon after, he returned to England where he dropped out of the University of Cambridge to race motorcycles in Europe and become a pioneering, record-breaking airman.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Rhodes-Moorhouse joined the RFC before being posted to No 2 Squadron RFC based at Merville, France, in March 1915.

Before his fatal mission, he wrote letters to his wife Linda and son William Henry which predicted his death: "I am off on a trip from which I don't expect to return but which I hope will shorten the war a bit."

On April 24, 1915, he was ordered to attack a rail junction at Courtrai, Belgium which was vital for the supply of German troops massing after the first gas attack on the Western Front days earlier.

"His slow but stable BE.2c aircraft proved an easy target for the enemy on the ground and a machine gun in the church tower and he was struck in the thigh," Mr Moody said.

"He successfully bombed the target, also damaging his own aircraft in the process as he was so low."

Rhodes-Moorhouse made for home but was hit by more ground fire, in the hand and abdomen.

He managed to land at Merville but refused medical attention until he had made a full report. His aircraft was riddled with 95 bullet and shrapnel holes. He died on April 27, 1915.

British commander Sir John French said the mission involved delivering "the most important bomb dropped in the war so far".

Rhodes-Moorhouse was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross - the first to be awarded to an airman.

His son William Henry was a fighter pilot during World War II's Battle of Britain. William Henry won the Distinguished Flying Cross before being shot down and killed over Kent on September 6, 1940. He is buried beside his father at the family seat in Beaminster, Dorset.