First World War Service
Leckie learned to fly in Toronto and joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1915. During the First World War he flew anti-submarine patrols over the North Sea. Flying a Curtiss H12 flying boat on reconnaissance, Leckie downed the German zeppelin L22 near Terschelling on 14 May 1917. Fifteen months later, during a nighttime raid on 6 August 1918, a German zeppelin formation under the command of Führer der Luftschiffe (FdL.) (Admiral, 2nd class) Peter Strasser attacked Boston, Norwich, and the Humber estuary. Flying in a DH.4 biplane, Major Egbert Cadbury (pilot) and Leckie (gunner) took part in the interception engagement and were credited with downing Zeppelin L70 just north of Wells-next-the-Sea on the Norfolk coast. FdL. Strasser, head of the Imperial German Navy's zeppelin forces, was on board L70 and did not survive. By the end of the war, Leckie was a Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force (RAF).
Read more about this topic: Robert Leckie (RCAF Officer)
Famous quotes containing the words world, war and/or service:
“OUR WORLD IS TOPPLING. AFFECTIONATELY YOURS.”
—Josephine Baker (1906–1975)
“In time of war you know much more what children feel than in time of peace, not that children feel more but you have to know more about what they feel. In time of peace what children feel concerns the lives of children as children but in time of war there is a mingling there is not children’s lives and grown up lives there is just lives and so quite naturally you have to know what children feel.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“O good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)