Air Chief Marshal Sir Lewis Macdonald Hodges, KCB, CBE, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, DL (1 March 1918 – 4 January 2007) was a pilot for Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the Second World War, and later achieved high command in the Royal Air Force and NATO.
Known as "Bob" Hodges, he was commissioned into the RAF as a pilot officer in December 1938, joining Bomber Command and flying Vickers Wellesleys with No.
[1] He and a gunner named John Hugh Wyatt who had not bailed out attempted to escape to Spain, but were arrested by the Vichy police near Marseilles.
He escaped from custody at Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort, near Nîmes, and crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, only to be arrested and imprisoned at Miranda del Ebro.
161 (Special Duties) Squadron at RAF Tempsford later in 1942, commanding a flight of Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys and Handley Page Halifaxes on SOE operations.
[1] In addition to other operations, such as parachute drops, he landed Westland Lysanders and Lockheed Hudsons in occupied France several times, bringing Vincent Auriol and François Mitterrand back to England.
[1] He was selected to serve in the Far East as a staff officer to Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory.
357 (Special Duties) Squadron at RAF Jessore near Calcutta in December 1944,[1] flying Liberators, Dakotas and Lysanders in support of SOE's Force 136 in Burma and other resistance groups in Thailand and Malaya.
He attended the Imperial Defence College in 1963, was promoted to air vice marshal, and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath, and then served at SHAPE headquarters.