Last WWI RFC pilot dies at 106

Last World War I flying ace dies quietly at 106
Sep 20 2002
Ian Cameron Newsdesk@Wme.Co.Uk, The Western Mail


THE only surviving pilot from the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War has
died at the age of 106.

Flying ace Hubert Williams was the last of a breed of pilots who risked their
lives every time they flew their biplanes into combat. They were in danger both
from the enemy and from the flimsiness of their own aircraft.

Great-great grandfather Hubert died quietly in a Cardiff nursing home 84 years
after his last mission over enemy lines.

Tributes were paid yesterday to Hubert and his colleagues in the Royal Flying
Corps, which became the Royal Air Force in 1918.

Hubert cheated death when he was 22 years of age - he was shot down over
Macedonia in Northern Greece in his Sopwith Camel biplane.

He was pulled unconscious from the wreckage by villagers before being taken to
a hospital in Malta where his life hung by a thread.

It took him nine months to recover before he was able to return home to
Britain.

Hubert had been transferred to the Eastern Mediterranean after spending much of
the conflict bombing German trenches on the Western Front in France and
Belgium.

Widower Hubert said of his exploits, "I'm no hero - I just consider myself a
remarkably lucky man to have survived."

Many of his fellow air pioneers were killed but Hubert was proud to survive to
see the age of supersonic flight.

One of the highlights of his long life came when he took the controls of
Concorde on a flight to New York to mark his 100th birthday.

At the age of 102 he received the Legion D'Honneur award from the French
Government.

The RAF will pay tribute to Hubert at his funeral next week.

A wreath displaying the Royal Flying Corps badge will be laid at the ceremony
by a senior officer.

World War One Veterans Association chairman Dennis Goodwin said yesterday,
"Hubert was the last Royal Flying Corps pilot still alive.

"It is truly the end of an era and

marks the passing away of the band of pioneering pilots who were brave beyond
the call of duty.

"They knew that every time they went into the air that the odds against them
returning alive were heavily stacked against them.

"Britain owes a great deal to these gallant men who were prepared to lay their
life on the line for their country."

Hubert joined the RAF in World War II, training pilots to fly and reaching the
rank of squadron leader.

After the war he worked for 42 years running a successful electrical business
in Cardiff.

Hubert was just 20 when he signed up in 1915 to fly over the trenches even
though he was told life expectancy was "only hours".

He joined up because the pay of two shillings and eight pence a day was better
than the army and navy.

Within weeks he began his flying "training" - seven hours flying around a field
in a glider.

He was stationed first at Avignon and then saw his first action flying over the
trenches during the Battle of Somme in July 1916.

He said at the time of his French award, "I can remember the bombing, the
shrapnel, shells going off all around, the guns flashing.

"It was terrible. There was smoke everywhere. I could hear people screaming and
there was masses of blood.

"I lost a lot of my friends. I can remember waving to one colleague as we were
flying and the next second he was a ball of flames.

"He had been shot down by a German plane and I expected the same thing to
happen to me at any second."

Hubert was flying a Sopwith 2F1 Camel which was equipped with two bombs
suspended by wire and two machine guns.The plane was made of wood and could fly
at only 65mph at an altitude of 5,000ft but only for an hour at a time before
its fuel ran out.

If the plane's wings were damaged by gunfire it would be patched up using a
mixture of Irish linen and cellulose.

Hubert's daughter, Mrs Marcia Cornish, 70, said, "The family is very proud of
him.

"He was a modest man who never spoke of his time in the Royal Flying Corps
until the last few years of his life."

Although the airplane had never been used in combat before World War I, it
greatly influenced the course of the war.
:'(