Personnel Index - Detail
Awareded the DFC and the Croix de Guerre.
Gordon Fox Rule DFC was the son of a Brazilian father and British mother. He was born in Brazil but raised in England.
He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and was posted to 49 squadron in January 1918, becoming a flight commander and Captain on the 15th May 1918.
By 14th August 1918 he had scored seven victories flying DH4 and DH9 aircraft and was awarded a DFC.
The citation stated:
‘Whilst on a bombing raid, this officer dived to 100 feet and obtained a direct hit on a bridge, completely destroying it.
Seeing a body of the enemy on the bank of the river he attacked them, causing them to disperse in disorder.
He was then attacked by five biplanes; these he drove off, though his observer had been hit twice and he landed safely at a French aerodrome.
In all, he has taken part in thirty bomb raids and ten photographic reconnaissances, invariably displaying a marked offensive spirit.’
Image (by artist Jack Pelling) shows Gordon Fox Rule in his DH9 when he shot down two enemy Albatross aircraft.
He was also awarded the Croix de Guerre avec Palme by the French. In 1921, serving in Ireland, he was hospitalised during the troubles and resigned his commission.
At the age of thirty, Fox-Rule, who was fluent in Portuguese returned to Brazil and owned property in São Paulo, where a street was named in his honour.
In 1925 he was responsible for introducing rugby football into Brazil.
Before his death in 1987, he donated his First World War photo albums to the imperial War Museum in London.
They constitute an extraordinarily detailed record of his war and of his Royal Flying Corps colleagues.
Fox-Rule died on the 10th June 1987 aged 89.
Text courtesy of the Eastbournian Society.