Cecil Arthur Lewis MC (29 March 1898 – 27 January 1997) was a British fighter ace who flew with No.

He went on to be a founding executive of the British Broadcasting Company and to enjoy a long career as a writer, notably of the aviation classic Sagittarius Rising, some scenes from which were represented in the film Aces High.

[7][8] Flying over the battlefield on the First day on the Somme (1 July 1916) to report on British troop movements, Lewis witnessed the blowing of the mines at La Boiselle.

We were to watch the opening of the attack, coordinate the infantry flare (the job we have been rehearsing for months) and stay over the lines for two and a half hours.It had been arranged that continuous overlapping patrols would fly throughout the day.

As he watched from above the village of Thiepval, almost two miles from where the mines exploded, Lewis saw a remarkable sight, At Boiselle the earth heaved and flashed, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up into the sky.

He also described his most frightening experience of the war: a reconnaissance flight at 1,000 feet during the initial bombardment before the battle of the Somme.

In Peking in 1921 Lewis married Evdekia Dmitrievna Horvath, known as Doushka (1902–2005), the daughter of a Russian general.

In 1931, he co-wrote and directed a short film adaptation of the George Bernard Shaw play How He Lied to Her Husband.

[17] Lewis joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in early 1939 as a pilot officer and served in the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II, rising to the rank of squadron leader.

[23] After his last job, Lewis moved to Corfu, where he spent the rest of his life, continuing to write until well into his nineties.

[13][25] Through Shaw, who became Lewis's mentor, the Lewises met T. E. Lawrence, Noël Coward, Paul Robeson, Sybil Thorndike, and H. G. Wells.

On the strength of the success of Sagittarius Rising (1936), Lewis moved to Hollywood but Doushka returned to Peking, to stay with her mother.

[13] After Hollywood, Lewis went to Tahiti to find a simpler life, which he recorded in The Trumpet is Mine (1938), then to Italy to write Challenge of the Night (1938).