David Samuel Anthony Lord

David Samuel Anthony Lord was born in Cork on 18 October 1913, the son of a warrant officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and spent part of his childhood in British India before being educated in Wales and training for a time for the priesthood in Spain. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1936 and qualified as a pilot in 1939, going on to fly transport aircraft with No. 31 Squadron in India and over the North-West Frontier, and later carrying supplies through the North African and Burma campaigns — work that brought him a mention in despatches and, in 1943, the Distinguished Flying Cross. In January 1944 he joined No. 271 Squadron at RAF Down Ampney, flying the Douglas Dakota, and on D-Day dropped paratroops into Normandy.

On the afternoon of 19 September 1944, during the Battle of Arnhem, Lord captained Dakota KG374 on a supply drop to the airborne troops, who were by then surrounded and ringed with anti-aircraft guns. Twice hit by flak, with his starboard engine on fire, he held the burning aircraft steady at 900 feet to drop his load accurately; told that two containers still remained, he turned and made a second run over the same guns rather than leave the men below without them. With the wing liable to collapse at any moment he ordered his crew to bail out and stayed at the controls to give them the chance; the Dakota crashed in flames moments later. Only the navigator, Flying Officer Harold King, survived, as a prisoner of war, and it was from his account after the war that the full story emerged. Lord was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, gazetted on 9 November 1945, and is buried in the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery. His was the only Victoria Cross awarded to RAF Transport Command in the Second World War.