Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson, a member of the RFC No. 39 Home Defence Squadron, shot down a German airship on 2nd September 1916 above Hertfordshire. The British public had feared that German airships were impregnable and Leefe Robinson's feat earned him his Victoria Cross shortly afterwards. He met a premature death shortly after the Armistice when he succumbed to the Spanish flu epidemic in December 1918. The Tatler comments that, "Like all really good men, he is extremely modest about his achievement, and his remark, "I strafed teh blighter all right," is typical both of the man and of the fine service to which he belongs.'