Orders, Decorations and Medals

A ‘Defence of Great Britain’ M.C. group of four awarded to Captain R. C. L. Holme, Somerset Light Infantry, Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force

Military Cross, G.V.R.; 1914-15 Star (2.Lieut., Som. L.I.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt., R.A.F.) good very fine (4) £1200-1500

M.C. London Gazette 24 January 1917.

M.I.D. London Gazette 25 January 1917.

Captain Robert Charles Lyon Holme, of Norton-sub-Hampden, Somerset, was born in 1896 and was educated at Repton and Sandhurst, and was commissioned into Prince Albert’s Somerset Light Infantry in November 1914. He went to France the same year and on 28 August 1915 qualified on a Maurice Farman for F.I.A. Aviator’s Certificate No. 1665 at the British Flying School, Le Crotoy. In October 1915 he was officially seconded as Flying Officer (Observer) to the R.F.C., and by early 1916 was carrying out pilot duties.

In April 1916 he returned to the U.K. on Home Defence duties with No. 39 Squadron at Hounslow, and, flying from Sutton’s Farm on the night of the 25th / 26th, attempted an attack on Zeppelin LZ97 with Captain Harris and Lieutenant Robinson. The latter were both unsuccessful, and Holme took up the pursuit but encountering a fuel problem was forced to make a dead-stick landing at Chingford. He was appointed Flight Commander with rank of Temporary Captain at the start of July 1916, and on the foggy night of the 28th / 29th when six Imperial Navy Zeppelins crossed the east coast, Holme was the only pilot of his new unit, No. 33 Squadron at Bramham Moor, to get airborne. The bad weather however forced him to abandon his attempt to stalk Kapitanleutnant Koch’s L24 which had been reported in the Hull area. On the night 2 / 3 August, operating from Beverley, he was again airborne against an east coast raid but also without result. Exactly a month later, on the night of Leefe-Robinson’s V.C. victory over SL11, Holme crashed on take-off in B.E.2c 2661 at one o’clock in the morning whilst attempting to intercept Zeppelin 122 which had bombed Humberston. For his determination in the Defence of Great Britain he was awarded the M.C.

On his return to France, Holme joined 29 Squadron (S.E.5a’s) and in July 1918 just failed to attain ‘ace’ status owing perhaps to his over-generosity. On the 2nd he destroyed a Fokker biplane, confirmed by A.A as having crashed near Merris; on the 14th he destroyed a kite balloon; and on the 28th was credited with a two-seater driven down out of control. Then on the 31st he fired 150 rounds into a 2-seater which Lieutenant H.C. Rath finished off with 100 rounds - the victory being credited as destroyed and being shared between them. Next day Holme met a D.F.W. over Bailleul and, chasing it eastwards, sent it down out of control. Ending the war with 4 victories and 1 shared, Holme resigned from the Regular Army on 1 August 1919 on being granted a Permanent Commision in the R.A.F. He went to Iraq as a Flight Lieutenant and died in Bagdad in 1922 of injuries and burns sustained in the crash of a 1 Squadron Vickers Vernon in which he was a passenger, the aircraft having taken off with its controls locked in.