Captain John Herbert Towne Letts MC (10 June 1897 – 11 October 1918) was a British First World War flying ace credited with thirteen confirmed victories.
He was educated at Aldeburgh Lodge, Suffolk, Roydon Hall, Norfolk, and at Lancing College, Sussex, where he excelled in sport, representing the school in swimming, football and cricket, and was a sergeant in the Officers' Training Corps.
[2][3] In mid-1915 he left school to attend the Royal Military College, Sandhurst,[3] and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Lincolnshire Regiment on 26 January 1916.
[2] On 5 April Letts was appointed a flight commander with the rank of temporary captain,[6] replacing William Leefe-Robinson, who had been shot down and captured.
The next day he claimed two more enemy aircraft, driving down an Albatros D.III over Beaumont with 2nd Lt. Jameson in the morning, and another D.III driven down over Izel with Lt. Allen in the afternoon, bringing his total to six.
The citation read: Letts, with observer Lieutenant C. A. Malcomson, shared with Smithers and Jameson in the destruction of another Albatros D.III over Douai on 27 May.
[8] On 22 August, flying with observer Lieutenant Henry Richard Power, Letts and two other Bristol Fighters intercepted ten Gotha bombers off Zeebrugge, returning from a raid on the English coast.
[3] In the battle that followed Power was hit by enemy fire, and the barrel of his gun swung round and struck Letts on the head.
[1][2] Letts returned to England on 19 September, briefly serving at the Aeroplane Experimental Station at Martlesham Heath, and then as an instructor at the School of Air Fighting from October 1917.