Louis Blériot and escort him back to Dover in a re-enactment of the first crossing of the English Channel 20 years earlier. On 9 October 1930, Following the R101 Airship disaster in Beauvais, France, 41 Squadron pilots and ground crew formed a part of the Guard of Honour for the Lying-in-State of the 48 victims in the Palace of Westminster. Amongst the dead were the Secretary of State for Air, Brig. Gen. Lord Christopher Thomson PC CBE DSO, and the Director of Civil Aviation, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Sefton Brancker KCB AFC. Thousands filed past to pay their last respects. During the 1930s, displays, sports, competitions, tactical exercises and flying practice were a part of regular activity. In the summer of 1934, 41 Squadron even performed a flying display for South Bucks Mothers' Union. On 1 July 1935, 41 Squadron escorted an Imperial Airways aircraft to Brussels, with the Duke and Duchess of York on board, where they attend functions for British Week at the International Exhibition. During this period, 41 Squadron was also visited by a number of British and foreign government and military dignitaries. One of the first was Japanese General Matsui Iwane who, after World War II, was held accountable and executed for the 1937 'Rape of Nanjing', in which his armies murdered an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians. British dignitaries included Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, the Chief of Air Services, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Trenchard GCB DSO, the Air Officer Commanding in Chief Air Defence of Great Britain, Air Marshal Sir Edward Ellington KCB CMG CBE, and the Air Officer Commanding Fighting Area, Air Defence of Great Britain, Air Vice-Marshal Hugh Dowding, CB CMG. In October 1935, the squadron was sent to the Aden Protectorate, to help provide a presence in the region during the Abyssinian crisis of 1935–36, and returned to the United Kingdom in August 1936. They were then based at RAF Catterick, Yorkshire, from September 1936, where they remained until May 1940. In April 1937, 41 Squadron's badge and motto, "Seek and Destroy", are unveiled for the first time and presented to the squadron by the AOC in C, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding KCB CMG. The badge takes the form of a red double-armed cross on a white background, adapted from the arms of the French town of St. Omer, the location of the squadron's first operational overseas posting, in