SERJEANT THOMAS MOTTERSHEAD VC
ROYAL FLYING CORPS
12TH JANUARY 1917 AGE 27
BURIED: BALLEUL COMMUNAL CEMETERY AND EXTENSION, FRANCE
Serjeant Mottershead was awarded the Victoria Cross for safely bringing his burning aircraft back to land behind Allied lines, thus saving the life of his observer. Mottershead however was caught beneath his burning plane and died of his injuries five days later. He was the only non-commissioned RFC officer to win a VC in the First World War.
His inscription is a quotation from Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, which emphasises that greatness lies in quietly doing your duty. The following is the extract from which the quotation is taken.
Yea, let all good things await
Him who cares not to be great,
But as he saves or serves the state.
Not once or twice in our rough island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory:
He that walks it, only thirsting
For the right, and learns to deaden
Love of self, before his journey closes,
He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting
Into glossy purples, which outredden
All voluptuous garden-roses.