Fighting Airmen of Two World Wars—Part 4 of 4: British and Allied Airmen, Senior Citizens

[Editor's note:  This series has been presented on each of the Thursdays during October 2022. MH]

By Adrian Roberts

Part 1 of this series looked at some German airmen who saw aerial combat in both World Wars. The remaining parts will deal with some well-known Allied airmen. The RAF was stricter than the Germans about the age limits of combat fliers, so the definition of combat in the following examples will be broader.

Part 4 looks at two who were the oldest aircrew of WWII, having also seen aerial action in WWI. It seems that the British were less strict about age if you had the right connections!

 

William Wedgewood Benn was born in 1877, and was a high-achiever. Although his family were politically active and reasonably affluent, he was not a member of the Eton/Oxbridge Establishment, but he nevertheless became a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) at the age of 29. 

He was also a captain in a Territorial Army unit, and although aged 37 at the outbreak of WWI, and remaining an MP throughout, he volunteered for military service overseas, and served as a staff officer at Gallipoli. He managed to get trained as an air observer with the Royal Naval Air Service, and was posted to the seaplane carrier HMS Ben-My-Chree. He made many flights over Turkish-held territory in Short 184 seaplanes, and also re-organised the intelligence system for processing information gained from the flights. He was wounded in the foot by ground fire on one occasion. 

In 1917 he trained as a pilot, acting as a liaison officer with the Italian air service and flew on several bombing raids over the Alps, and also flew the first aeroplane to drop an agent by parachute at night. After the war he continued his political career, joining the Labour Party in 1924; he was Secretary of State for India from 1929–31 and was created Viscount Stansgate in 1942. 

He served again with the RAF in WWII, in the rank of air commodore and was head of RAF public relations from 1942–43. Around that time, at the age of about 65, he flew on several bomber operations as an air gunner. He was secretary of state for air in the Attlee administration from 1945–46. He died in 1958. His eldest son, Michael, was killed in a Mosquito crash during the war; his second son was the Labour MP and Cabinet Minister Anthony “Tony” Wedgewood Benn. 

However, he may not have been the oldest person to fly in action in WWII. I don’t have the exact dates for their operations, but there is another candidate for that honor:

 

Lionel Cohen, known as “Sos,” was two years older than Wedgewood Benn. Shown at the right in this pre-mission WWII photo, he fought in four wars! He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north of England, and the family moved to London when he was about 12. He enlisted in the Royal Marines at the age of 14, lying about his age, and it was three months before his family retrieved him. They packed him off to his uncle in South Africa, and he joined up again aged 18 and fought in the Matabele War of 1893, in what is now Zimbabwe. 

He remained in Africa for another 30 years, seeing much adventure and gaining and losing several fortunes in mining and speculation. During the South African War of 1899–1902, he led several of what would today be called special operations in Boer territory, and a Boer general ordered that if he was captured he should be covered in honey and buried in an ant-hill. 

During the First World War, he joined the South African Horse, aged 40, and took part in the campaign in East Africa against the forces of German General von Lettow-Vorbeck; again he led operations deep in enemy territory. In 1916, the Royal Naval Air Service provided some basic aerial observation capability, using Voisin and BE2c aeroplanes that were obsolete on the Western Front. Cohen was attached to the RNAS as an observer and became highly regarded. There was no aerial opposition, but when one aircraft force-landed, the crew were killed by native Askari troops loyal to von Lettow-Vorbeck. 

Cohen returned to England in the 1920s, and having made influential contacts, formed the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1937, providing a vital pool of extra aircrew when WW2 started. Cohen flew several operations as an air gunner with Coastal Command, with the rank of Wing Commander, being wounded in the head during an attack on the cruiser Lutzow, and on another occasion becoming so cold that he had to be prised out of his turret on landing. He was certainly the oldest recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, in 1944 aged 69, and was also awarded the American Air Operations Medal. He died in 1960 aged 85.

Photos from author's collection (Benn) and A Dash of Courage: A Tribute to P/O Charles Grevill-Heygate DFC (Cohen)