About: Les Holden   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : dbkwik:resource/57M61t8UhqnTfVDn1WHt-A==, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

Leslie Hubert (Les) Holden MC, AFC (6 March 1895 – 18 September 1932) was an Australian fighter ace of World War I and later a commercial aviator. A South Australian, he joined the Light Horse in May 1915, serving in Egypt and France. In December 1916, he volunteered for the Australian Flying Corps and qualified as a pilot. As a member of No. 2 Squadron on the Western Front, he gained the sobriquets "Lucky Les" and "the homing pigeon" after a brace of incidents saw him limping back to base in bullet-riddled aircraft. He was awarded the Military Cross, and went on to achieve five aerial victories flying Airco DH.5s and Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5s.

AttributesValues
rdf:type
rdfs:label
  • Les Holden
rdfs:comment
  • Leslie Hubert (Les) Holden MC, AFC (6 March 1895 – 18 September 1932) was an Australian fighter ace of World War I and later a commercial aviator. A South Australian, he joined the Light Horse in May 1915, serving in Egypt and France. In December 1916, he volunteered for the Australian Flying Corps and qualified as a pilot. As a member of No. 2 Squadron on the Western Front, he gained the sobriquets "Lucky Les" and "the homing pigeon" after a brace of incidents saw him limping back to base in bullet-riddled aircraft. He was awarded the Military Cross, and went on to achieve five aerial victories flying Airco DH.5s and Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5s.
sameAs
Unit
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:military/pr...iPageUsesTemplate
serviceyears
  • 1915(xsd:integer)
Birth Date
  • 1895-03-06(xsd:date)
Branch
death place
  • Byron Bay, New South Wales
Nickname
  • "Lucky Les"; "the homing pigeon"
Name
  • Leslie Hubert Holden
Caption
  • Les Holden at Mascot, after finding the Southern Cross in 1929
Birth Place
  • East Adelaide, South Australia
Awards
death date
  • 1932-09-18(xsd:date)
Rank
Image size
  • 260(xsd:integer)
Battles
  • World War I *Middle East *Western Front *Battle of Cambrai *Spring Offensive
Alt
  • Informal half portrait of man in flying suit with cap and googles emerging from the open cockpit of an aeroplane
laterwork
  • Office manager; commercial pilot
abstract
  • Leslie Hubert (Les) Holden MC, AFC (6 March 1895 – 18 September 1932) was an Australian fighter ace of World War I and later a commercial aviator. A South Australian, he joined the Light Horse in May 1915, serving in Egypt and France. In December 1916, he volunteered for the Australian Flying Corps and qualified as a pilot. As a member of No. 2 Squadron on the Western Front, he gained the sobriquets "Lucky Les" and "the homing pigeon" after a brace of incidents saw him limping back to base in bullet-riddled aircraft. He was awarded the Military Cross, and went on to achieve five aerial victories flying Airco DH.5s and Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5s. Promoted to captain, Holden finished the war as an instructor with No. 6 (Training) Squadron in England, where his work earned him the Air Force Cross. After leaving the Australian Flying Corps in 1919, he became a manager at the family firm of Holden's Motor Body Builders, before setting up as a commercial pilot and establishing his own air service. In 1929, he located Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm in the north-west Australian desert after the pair was reported missing on a flight to England in the Southern Cross. Holden was killed in a passenger plane crash in September 1932, at the age of thirty-seven.
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