Major (Honorary Air Commodore) Sir Egbert "Bertie" Cadbury DSC, DFC, JP, DL (20 April 1893 – 12 January 1967) was a British businessman, a member of the Cadbury family, who as a First World War pilot shot down two Zeppelins over the North Sea: L.21 on 28 November 1916, and L.70 on 6 August 1918: the latter while flying a De Havilland DH.4 with Robert Leckie as observer/gunner.
[2] The Cadburys were Quakers, and thus pacifists,[3] but on the outbreak of the war, Cadbury left Cambridge and volunteered to join the Royal Navy, serving as a seaman aboard the HMY Zarifa, a yacht converted to an armed patrol vessel, manned mainly by Cambridge graduates, while his older brother Laurence joined the Friends' Ambulance Unit.
[6][7] Cadbury was posted to the Naval Air Station at South Denes, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where one of his ground crew was Henry Allingham.
One, the L.21, crossed the English coast at Atwick at 21:20, and then turned north to evade patrolling aircraft before heading to Leeds, where it was driven off by heavy anti-aircraft fire.
An effective blackout shielded Barnsley from attack, so the airship headed southwest to the Potteries where it dropped a number of bombs on industrial targets in Stoke, causing some damage, but no casualties.
However, reports of the L.21's movements had reached Great Yarmouth, so at dawn Cadbury and Flight Sub Lieutenant Gerard W. R. Fane took off in their B.E.2c fighters to intercept.
At the same time one of the other pilots was flying over the Zeppelin and to his horror he saw a man in the machine-gun pit run to the other side and leap overboard.
Cadbury drove back to the airfield, where he was informed that three Zeppelins had been reported about 50 miles (80 km) to the north-east, and knowing there was only one aircraft available, an Airco DH.4, he grabbed his flying kit and ran for it, beating a rival pilot to the cockpit by a split-second.
With Captain Robert Leckie in the rear gunner's seat, Cadbury climbed up to over 16,000 feet (4,900 m) by jettisoning his reserve fuel and some small bombs, where he saw three Zeppelins ahead and above him.
[10] Cadbury and Leckie and another pilot, Lieutenant Ralph Edmund Keys, then attacked and damaged another Zeppelin, which promptly turned and headed for home.
The Commodore of Lowestoft recommended Cadbury for a Victoria Cross for attacking two airships 30 to 40 miles (48 to 64 km) out to sea in a landplane in such bad weather.
[17] Cadbury wrote to his father the next day: "You will have heard probably before this reaches you that my lucky star has again been in the ascendant, and that another Zeppelin has gone to destruction, sent there by a perfectly peaceful live-and-let-live citizen, who has no lust for blood or fearful war spirit in his veins.
[24] Cadbury was awarded a knighthood in the 1957 New Years Honours List for his "public services in Somerset and Gloucestershire",[25] receiving his accolade from the Queen at Buckingham Palace on 12 February.
[2][10] In October 2013, the shooting down of the L.70 was commemorated with a blue plaque fixed to Cadbury's lodgings in Kimberly Terrace, now part of the Carlton Hotel.