Group Captain Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees, (31 July 1884 – 28 September 1955) was a Welsh aviator, flying ace, and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was credited with eight confirmed aerial victories, comprising one enemy aircraft captured, one destroyed, one "forced to land" and five "driven down". Rees and his gunner, Flight Sergeant James McKinley Hargreaves, were the only two airmen to become aces flying the earliest purpose-built British fighter aeroplane, the Vickers Gunbus. Rees also had a keen interest in archaeology. While flying from Cairo to Baghdad in the 1920s, he took some of the earliest archaeological aerial photographs of sites in eastern Transjordan (now Jordan), and published several articles in Antiquity and the journal of the Palestine Exploration Fund. He is considered a father of the archaeological studies of this remote area, and a pioneer of aerial archaeology. He was also an accomplished sailor. Early life Rees was born at 5 Castle Street, Caernarfon, on 31 July 1884, the son of Charles Herbert Rees, a solicitor and honorary colonel in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and his wife Leonara. Rees attended Eastbourne College before entering the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1902. He was commissioned on 23 December 1903 into the Royal Garrison Artillery and was posted to Gibraltar. Promoted to lieutenant in 1906, he moved to Sierra Leone in 1908 and in May 1913 was seconded to the Southern Nigeria Regiment. First World War Rees was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Garrison Artillery, a branch of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. In 1912, Rees learned to fly at his own expense, receiving his Aviator's Certificate (no. 392) in January 1913. By 1913–14, Rees was attached to the West African Frontier Force when he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in August 1914, initially as an instructor at Upavon, he was promoted to captain in October 1914. In early 1915 he took command of the newly formed No. 11 Squadron at Netheravon and in July they moved to France. He first saw action flying the Vickers Gunbus with No. 11 Squadron in mid-1915, earning a reputation as an aggressive pilot and an above average marksman. Military Cross Rees was awarded the Military Cross for his actions in 1915, gazetted as follows: By this