A MEMORIAL service to commemorate the 100th anniversary of an RAF airman's Victoria Cross-winning flight has taken place at his burial site in Sunningdale.

Air Commodore Ferdinand Maurice Felix West, VC, CBE, who is buried in Holy Trinity Churchyard, received the Victoria Cross (VC) when he was just 22 following his heroics in battle.

On August 12, 1918, the British Army was due to start a major offensive, but needed information about enemy positions. Captain West, who was at the time stationed with No.8 squadron, set off at dawn with his observer, Lt William Haslam. The pair, flying in an Armstrong Whitworth FK 8, spotted an enemy concentration through the mist, and almost immediately came under attack from several German fighter aircraft.

West sustained an injury to his leg, and his radio transmitter was smashed in the attack. Despite his injury, he was able to manoeuvre his craft to allow Lt Haslam to hold off the enemy fighters. Stemming his wound with a tourniquet fashioned from his trouser leg, CaptainWest only headed back to his own line when he was sure the enemy fighters had been driven back.

Once on Allied soil, he insisted on reporting his findings despite being in excruciating agony. He had sustained five wounds, shattered his femur and severed the femoral artery, and later had his leg amputated.

Captain West was invalided back to Britain, where he was awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroic actions on November 9. He was fitted with a Swiss-designed artificial leg, and returned to combat in 1939 when he commanded No.50 Wing in France. He went on to assist Allied airmen as part of the British Legation in Berne in 1940. At the end of the war he was appointed a CBE for his work, and went on to achieve the rank of air commodore.

He retired from the RAF at the end of the Second World War, and joined J. Arthur Rank Overseas Film Distributors in January 1946, later becoming Chairman before his retirement in 1958.

He died on July 8, 1988.

RAF officers and members of 8 Squadron came together on Sunday, August 12 to commemorate his valiant actions, and to lay wreaths on his grave.