World War I
The son of Major Arthur Kerr Slessor and Adelaide Slessor (née Cotesworth), Slessor was educated at Haileybury. Lame in both legs as a result of polio, he was rejected for army service in 1914 and only received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps on 6 July 1915 with the help of family connections. He was appointed to the special reserve as a flying officer on 9 September 1915. He saw action with No. 17 Squadron in Egypt and the Sudan, where he was credited with arresting the escape of Sultan Ali Dinar with 2,000 men on 23 May 1916, following the Sultan's defeat at Beringia. He was mentioned in despatches on 25 October 1916 before being wounded in the thigh and invalided back to England.
Slessor was promoted to the temporary rank of captain on 1 December 1916. Awarded the Military Cross on 1 January 1917, he returned to combat in April 1917 as a flight commander with No. 5 Squadron on the Western Front. Promoted to the substantive rank of lieutenant on 1 July 1917, he was appointed a Knight of the Belgian Commander of the Order of Leopold on 24 September 1917 and awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre on 11 March 1918. Slessor joined the newly formed Royal Air Force in April 1918 and, having been promoted to the temporary rank of major on 3 July 1918, he was posted to the Central Flying School as an instructor on 14 July 1918.
Read more about this topic: John Slessor
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