We’ve all seen, driven past or even eaten in the Leefe Robinson restaurant on the Uxbridge Road, but did you know that Leefe was a real life hero, buried just yards from the restaurant that bears his name, who was instrumental in combatting the threat to London and the home counties from the German airship menace. His name was William Leefe Robinson and this is his story.
Upbringing
William Leefe Robinson, was the youngest of seven children of Horace Robinson and his wife Elizabeth Leefe. Young William ’Billy’ was bought up along with his siblings on his parent’s coffee plantation in Coorg southern India. The Robinsons had three sons and four daughters, and when Billy was just 14, he returned to England with his older brother Harold, they were schooled at St. Bees School in Cumberland. From an early age at St. Bees, Leefe showed leadership skills becoming Head of Eaglesfield House in 1913, Captained the Rugby 1st XV and became a sergeant in the school Officer Training Corps.
Military Life
After leaving school the three sons pursued careers in the armed forces, Ernest went to the military academy at Sandhurst and served in the Indian Army. Harold was attached to 103 Grenadiers but was killed in action in 1916 fighting the Ottoman army during the First Battle of Kut, in Iraq.
William also enrolled at Sandhurst just ten days after the outbreak of World War I on 14th August 1914. By 16th December he was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the 5th Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment. Three months later, on 29th March 1915, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as an observer for flying duties, and was posted to France. It was during a routine reconnaissance flight over Lille he was shot at. Wounding him in the arm.
After a spot of R&R in Britain he applied for pilot training, and in June 1915 stated flying lessons at South Farnborough. A gifted student and quick learner Robinson qualified for his Royal Aero Club Certificate, and just two months later, on 15th September 1915 gained his Royal Flying Corps “wings”.
It was about this time that the Germans had begun sending airships over Britain. They had been causing havoc over the British Isles since the first attack occurred in 1915. Our population had never experienced bombardment from the sky before, although their bombing methods were low tech, they were having the desired effect by spreading terror. Reporting to Suttons Farm airfield in Essex, William joined the 39 Home Defence Squadron, a strategic group that would patrol the night skies of Britain to counter the ever-threating peril of the German Zeppelins. As it happened young William didn’t have to wait long for his first encounter with a Zeppelin.
Whilst on patrol on the night of 26th April 1916, Leefe spotted an airship and began to close in. The airship was the LZ97, flying at about 10,000 feet. Only able to climb to 8,000 feet, he caught up with the LZ97 over Seven Kings and opened fire from a distance. The airship released part of its ballast, and rose swiftly, out of sight through the clouds, and escaped.
The 2nd September 1916
Up until now aircraft and their pilots were equipped with small personal weapons, all of these even machine guns and shotguns were quite useless against the airships as the projectiles would simply pass through the outer skin and do little harm. But the British boffins had a little trick up their sleeves, explosive shells! These would detonate on impact and hopefully ignite the hydrogen gas that was keeping the airship afloat.
On the 2 September 1916 the German air force launched their largest ever airship raid over Great Britain. In total 16 airships had set off from bases in Germany to attack southern England. Robinson had already been flying for a couple of hours before he spotted one over Cuffley Hertfordshire. For many years these airships were misidentified as a Zeppelins, but it was in fact, a wooden framed Schütte-Lanz SL 11 and this particular one was captained by Commander Hauptmann Wilhelm Schramm and his 15-man crew.
Robinson gave chase in his biplane, a converted B.E.2c night fighter, the airship chugging through the clouds to escape, he made contact again and let rip with his machine gun, emptying the drum of incendiary bullets but to no avail, he brought his pane around a second time and emptied another drum of machine gun bullets, night tracers could be seen hitting the fleeing airship, but this was also unsuccessful. He had one ammunition drum left and he had to make it count, Robinson again made contact and attacked the airship at an altitude of 11,500 feet, approaching from below and closing to within 500 feet raking the airship with machine-gun fire, this time concentrating his ammunition on just one spot on the airship. As he turned his plane around, he saw a faint glow of orange, within seconds the Schütte-Lanz burst into flames rapidly descending and came crashing down in a field behind the Plough Inn at Cuffley.
It was said by an eye witness who saw the airship crash that night that "Railway whistles blew, factory hooters were sounded, people poured onto the streets, singing and dancing, and some even broke out into spontaneous renditions of God Save the King and Rule Britannia". The undefeatable airships, suddenly seemed a lot less invincible.
Robinson landed his damaged aircraft at Suttons Farm airfield at approximately 2.45 a.m. and immediately wrote his combat report. The next morning, he woke up to find that he had become a national celebrity, news had travelled the length and breadth of the country, and his face was splashed across all the major newspapers. The previous evening, thousands of people had witnessed the action, as searchlights from the ground had lit up William’s plane as he chased the German airship. The next day, which was later referred to as “Zepp Sunday”, the site of the wrecked SL11 at Cuffley had become a tourist attraction for hundreds of people, travelling from London and Hertfordshire.
Just two days later at a special investiture in Windsor Castle William received The Victoria Cross from King George V the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy".
As well as the medal, Robinson was also awarded over £3,500 in prize money some of which he used to purchase a new car A Vauxhall ’Prince Henry’ the ’prize money’ was put up by a consortium of businessmen for the first man to destroy a ’Zeppelin over Britain’, he was also given a silver cup donated by the people of Hornchurch.
Combat Technique
The combat technique used by Robinson that night was so successful it marked a turning point in the air war and became standard practice dealing with the airship menace. To put it simply, it was using incendiary bullets targeting just one spot on the ship from below, at close range.
More were shot down, on 23 September 1916 Frederick Sowrey also of 39 Squadron, shot down the Zeppelin L.32. On the night of 2 October 1916, 2nd Lieutenant W. L. Tempest of 39 Squadron, flying a B.E.2c, spotted the Zeppelin L.31, illuminated by searchlights over southwest London, and shot it down, in all, five more German airships were destroyed by Home Defence B.E.2c interceptors between October and December 1916. Proving that the airships were far from invincible, which did wonders for boosting the moral of British civilians and Londoners suffering under the nightly German bombardment. For Germany too the raids were to prove too costly both in airship production and in airmen’s lives.
Back to the Front
The propaganda value of this success was enormous to the British Government, as it indicated that the German airship threat could be countered. William had become too valuable to the war effort to lose, and his senior officers were reluctant to give him another flying role, but due to his continued insistence he was allowed to return to active service, with another posting in France in April 1917. He took to the sky’s in a brand-new Bristol F.2 Fighter, but in the first week was shot down wounded and captured. His regiment along with friends and family presumed Robinson as killed in action, he was alive, just and being held in a prisoner of war camp.
As is every serviceman’s duty, he planned his escape. At the first camp he and three fellow comrades decided to dig their way to freedom, unfortunaly after many days of digging the tunnel came to nothing. Robinson had slightly better luck on his next attempt, he actually escaped in broad daylight and enjoyed about four days of freedom heading towards the border they were recaptured and sent to Freiburg. He was court martialled and sentenced to a month’s solitary confinement. Until the end of the war Robinson was moved to various camps, each time the famous ’Zeppelin buster’ was singled out for heavy handed treatment which took a toll on his body, and his health took a turn for the worst.
Home
A broken man, Robinson was repatriated to England on 14 December 1918. A frail figure he was able to spend Christmas with his friends and family in Stanmore. Gravely ill, he became a bed patient in the home of a colleague, Captain Noel Clifton who lived in Lavender cottage, Gordon Avenue.
The time spent in a POW camps had taken its toll on Williams body, leaving him particularly susceptible to infection. So when William contracted Spanish Flu a few days later he succumbed to his illness and died of heart failure on New Year’s Eve 1918 with his fiancée, Joan Whipple, and a sister by his bedside, he was just 23.
Funeral
William was buried with full military honours, in All Saints Churchyard Extension in Harrow Weald. Thousands turned up to line the route of the procession, which was led by the Central Band of the Royal Air Force. The morning of the funeral a flight of aircraft, led by Brigadier Higgins, the Commander of the South East Home Defence Squadrons during 1916, flew overhead, one of aircraft dropped a wreath with pin point precision into the front garden of Lavender cottage. It was placed on his coffin along with many other floral tributes that had been sent that morning.
The funeral cortege slowly left Lavender cottage, the coffin placed on an Air Force trailer, it snaked its way up to the Uxbridge Road to the small church yard. The entire routed packed with silent mourners who had turned up that day to see William off. The bells of All Saints church rang out 720 ’Grandsire Doubles,’ and Sergeant Major Murrell, Chief R.A.F. trumpeter, sounded the last post.
Memorials
There are a number of memorials to William, the main one being at Cuffley where the airship came down. The monument is a huge obelisk 17 ft high, made of Cornish granite; it bears the insignia of the Royal Flying corps with the inscription:
’ To the memory of Captain William Leefe Robinson VC, Worcs. Regt and R.F.C. who on 3 September 1916 above this spot brought down SL11, the first German airship destroyed on British soil ’.
The site of the former Suttons Farm airfield, in Hornchurch, Essex has been largely developed, but one Road, near to where William took off that night, now bears his name Robinson Close. Leefe’s name appears on the triple VC memorial in St Bees School chapel, which was dedicated in 1932. His name also appears on the memorial at the museum in Coorg, now called Madikeri .
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Great Northern Route extension that connects Grange Park to Cuffley, a train was named after him. At a ceremony on the 27 April 2010, the First Capital Connect rail company unveiled their Class 313 electrical multiple unit No. 313054 with the Inscription ’ Captain William Leefe Robinson VC ’
In addition to his VC, he was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal 1914-20 and Victory Medal 1914-19 with Mentioned in Despatches oakleaf. The medals were held privately until November 1988 when at an auction at Christie’s in London, Michael Ashcroft purchased the medal group for £92,000 and they are now part of the Ashcroft Collection in the Imperial War Museum.
Grave
The grave of Leefe Robinson has been designated Grade II listed status.
It consists of a granite cross with an inscribed sword on the face. The inscription reads: TO THE EVER-LOVING MEMORY OF/ WILLIAM LEEFE ROBINSON. V.C./ CAPTAIN Vth BATTALION WORCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT/ ATTACHED ROYAL FLYING CORPS./ BORN JULY 14th 1895, IN SOUTH COORG, SOUTH INDIA/ DIED DECEMBER 31st 1918 AT HARROW
The grave is surrounded by a granite kerb. the right-hand side of the kerb is inscribed: ’He was the first airman to attack a Zeppelin at night. after a most daring single-handed fight he brought down L21 a flaming/ wreck at Cuffley on the 3rd September 1916. thus he led the way against the German Zeppelin peril threatening England’.
The left-hand side is inscribed with verse three of ’Epilogue’ by Robert Browning: ’One who never turned his back but march ’d breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, never dream’d though right/ were worsted, wrong would triumph, held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake. – BROWNING.’
The foot of the kerb bears the inscription’ God quickeneth the dead and calleth those which/ are not, as though they were.. ROMANS IV 17.’
In the week leading up to Remembrance Day 2014, the grave had been restored to its former glory by a specialist restoration company Minerva, Harrow Council had invested £80,000 to restore memorials across the borough for the centenary of the First World War.
Leefe Robinson Restaurant.
Locally here he is remembered by the Restaurant that bears his name on the Uxbridge Road, just a stone’s throw from his final resting place.
The Leefe, was first opened in 1954, a simple building with a corrugated roof, it contained many of Robison’s artifacts and mementoes including the propeller from his biplane. The original building was damaged in a fire, but was rebuilt and enlarged. It went through many hands, as a Berni Inn, a Beefeater restaurant, and its latest incarnation as a Miller and Carter steakhouse.
One of the first things that Miller and Carter did during their renovation to the restaurant was to drop the name ’Leefe Robinson VC ’ from the front of the building and replace it with their own. The community here, outraged by the disrespect, took their complaints to the company and the local council. Local Councillor Tony Ferrari, whose ward the pub is in, took up the case. He wrote to Miller and Carter to ask them to reverse the decision, and reinstate the name. Happily, Birmingham-based pub group responded by adding Leefe Robinson VC to the front of the pub to continue the historical link.
Cllr Ferrari said: “I am proud to have helped ensure we remember such a great hero and welcome the decision of Miller and Carter. “We must never forget the sacrifice others have made so we can enjoy the freedom we all too often take for granted.”
We must never forget the selflessness of all those who sacrificed so much during both world wars to keep us free, so, if you are passing the Leefe Robinson restaurant, why not pop in to their bar for a drink, raise a glass for William and of course the many millions at home and abroad that gave so much to ensure we can all enjoy the freedom we have today.
“TO THOSE WHO GAVE SO MUCH, WE THANK YOU.”