Final Flight
During the next three weeks, Rhys-Davids would gain five more victories, his last on 11 October 1917. On 1 October 1917 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. It was announced in the London Gazette on the 18 March 1918;
2nd Lt. Arthur Percival Foley Rhys Davids, M.C., R.F.C., Spec Res. For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in bringing down nine enemy aircraft in nine weeks. He is a magnificent fighter, never failing to locate enemy aircraft and invariably attacking regardless of the numbers against him.
The same day Rhys-Davids was selected by Hugh Trenchard and Maurice Baring to have his portrait sketched by artist William Orpen. Orpen remembered "he hated fighting, hated flying, loved books and was terribly anxious for the war to be over, so that he could get to Oxford".
His final tally was 27 enemy aircraft; one shot down in flames, one 'destroyed in flames', one 'driven down', two 'forced to land', 15 'out of control' and seven destroyed. His fighting spirite won admiration from his commanding officer James McCudden;
If one was over the salient in the autumn of 1917 and saw an SE5 fighting like hell amidst a heap of huns, one would find nine times out of ten the SE5 was flown by Rhys-Davids.
On 27 October 1917 Rhys-Davids was promoted to lieutenant, backdated to the 1 September 1917. That same day he took off on a routine patrol and was last seen flying east of Roeselare chasing a group of German Albatros fighters. The Luftstreitkräfte (German Air Service) credited Karl Gallwitz with shooting him down. It was not until the 29 December 1917 that a report came through that a German aircraft had dropped a note to inform the RFC of Rhys-Davids's death.
In March 1920 Rhys-Davids's mother presented the rudder from the plane of Werner Voss—the ace shot down by Rhys-Davids a month before his own death—to the Imperial War Museum. It had been brought back from France by Gerald Maxwell in July 1918. In October 1920 the Secretary of the War Office secured the effects of Rhys-Davids from Germany through diplomatic channels. Rhys-Davids has no known grave but his name is engraved on the Air Services Memorial at Arras, France.
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