Beschreibung:

Captain Leefe Robinson. R.F.C. Pilot. 1895-1918. Presentation silver cup to Captain Leefe Robinson, from Charles F. Wright (a fellow pilot.) [London; September 1916.] A two-handled British silver drinking cup, engraved with the insignia of the R.F.C. and inscribed, "Presented to Captain Flight Commander W. Leefe Robinson V.C. in commemoration of his achievement on September 3rd 1916 from Charles F Wright and a few friends in Shoreditch, two small dents on one side. Diameter including handles 200 mm. (8 inches). Height 160 mm. Provenance; Captain Leefe Robinson; Norm Flayderman, his Aviation History sale, Butterfields November 2000; bought by the present owner. Together with a WWI red and blue lithographic recruitment poster, with Rex Warneford (the first British pilot to shoot down a Zeppelin over Belgium in May 1915), inviting new recruits to the Sportsman Battalion, a pals Battalion of famous sporting personalities. 500 x 750 mm. (20 x29.5 inches.) Framed and glazed. An historic silver cup presented by his flying colleagues, to Captain Leefe Robinson, the second flyer to receive a Victoria Cross, and the first flyer to shoot down a German airship over British territory. Robinson managed to drop his bombs on the top of the dirigible, and the airship exploded. This kill was only the second time that a pilot had brought down a airship. Both Warneford and Robinson received a VC within a few days, but Warneford died in an air accident a few weeks later, while Robinson, now considered a celebrity pilot, spent much of the war in a desk job, so he that he could attend RFC events, Robinson died in December 1918, during the Spanish Flu pandemic.