Sheppey flying ace Major James “Jimmy” McCudden has been honoured in a two-day ceremony in France.

At the start of the First World War in 1914 he was a lowly private working as a mechanic in the embryonic Royal Flying Corps later to become the Royal Air Force.

But within four years he was commanding a front-line squadron and had chalked up 57 aerial victories.

Despite this, he still wrote of his adventures in a memoir, Fighting Fury, before he died in a flying accident in France on July 9, 1918.

He was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery.

The French tribute was organised by Englishman Keith Dobson, who lives in Boffles where the major had been heading to join his new squadron before he crashed and died.

Mr Dobson said “He got lost and landed nearby to ask for directions. But as he took off again the plane crashed into a wood and burst into flames.

“I wanted the French community to understand how important Boffles was. They did not even know there had been an aerodrome here. So I set out to prove it."

He created a Facebook page and when the local council saw it they invited him to discuss ways of using the information to increase British tourism to the area.

The memorial weekend was attended by Richard Benns from Staplehurst who is the great nephew of McCudden.

The celebrations included a champagne reception at the town hall hosted by the Mayor of Boffles followed by a ball for 100 guests on Saturday.

The town hall had an exhibition of Major McCudden’s life and showed a tribute film of McCudden’s exploits.

On the Sunday, 150 guests took part in an historical tour along a disused railway line where injured British soldiers were transported from the front line of the Somme.

They visited the British War Cemetery in Beauvoir-Wavans where Mr Dobson laid a wreath and a minute’s silence was held.

Background

James Thomas Byford McCudden, VC, DSO and Bar, MC and Bar, MM, one of six children, was born in Gillingham on March 28, 1895, to Sergeant-Major William H McCudden and Amelia Byford.

He died aged 23 in France as one of the most highly decorated airmen in British military history.

In 1909 his father moved the family to Sheerness when he retired from the Royal Engineers. It was where James, known as Jimmy, first developed his love of flying.

His great nephew Richard Benns said: “Uncle Jimmy and his elder brother Willie would spend hours utterly spellbound spying on the early planes as they took off from a field at Eastchurch and both solemnly vowed to become pilots.”

At 14, James left the Island’s Garrison School and took a job as a telegram boy at Sheerness Post Office to augment the family income. A year later, in 1910, he followed in his father and elder brother’s footsteps by enlisting as a bugler in the Royal Engineers.

Three years later he transferred to the fledgling Royal Flying Corps, later to become the Royal Air Force, as a mechanic. It was an inauspicious start. One of the planes he was looking after taxied out of control rippling the wing off one plane and destroying his commanding officer’s car.

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he flew as an observer before training to become a fighter pilot in 1916.

He claimed his first victory in September 1916 and his fifth victory—making him a “flying ace”—on February 15, 1917. For the next six months he served as an instructor over London before returning to the frontline in the summer of 1917 when he dispatched a further 31 enemy aircraft.

Thanks to publicity, mainly in the Daily Mail, McCudden became one of the most famous airmen in Britain. At the time of his death he had chalked up 57 victories in the air.

The night before his final flight to France he had dinner with his sister Cis.

Mr Benns said: “Whether it was a premonition is open to conjecture but I remember Cis (our grandmother) saying she was convinced it was.

“She said that during their dinner and completely out of the blue Jimmy handed her a package containing all his medals and other treasured possessions for ‘safe-keeping.’

In 1968 Cis bequeathed all the family the medals to the Royal Engineers Museum in Gillingham.