Group Captain Lionel Wilmot Brabazon Rees, VC, OBE, MC, AFC (31 July 1884 – 28 September 1955) was a Welsh aviator, flying ace, and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

He was credited with eight confirmed aerial victories, comprising one enemy aircraft captured, one destroyed, one "forced to land" and five "driven down".

[1] Rees and his gunner, Flight Sergeant James McKinley Hargreaves, were the only two airmen to become aces flying the earliest purpose-built British fighter aeroplane, the Vickers Gunbus.

While flying from Cairo to Baghdad in the 1920s, he took some of the earliest archaeological aerial photographs of sites in eastern Transjordan (now Jordan), and published several articles in Antiquity and the journal of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

By 1913–14, Rees was attached to the West African Frontier Force when he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in August 1914, initially as an instructor at Upavon, he was promoted to captain in October 1914.

Despite this, Captain Rees pressed his attack and apparently succeeded in hitting the enemy's engine, for the machine made a quick turn, glided some distance and finally fell just inside the German lines near Herbecourt.

On 31 August, accompanied by Flight-Sergeant Hargreaves, he fought a German machine more powerful than his own for three-quarters of an hour, then returned for more ammunition and went out to the attack again, finally bringing the enemy's machine down apparently wrecked.By this time he had claimed one aircraft captured, one destroyed, one "forced to land" and five "driven down".

[1] Rees returned to England at the end of 1915, where he took command of the Central Flying School Flight at Upavon.

Its citation reads:[13] On 1 July 1916 at Double Crassieurs, France, Major Rees, whilst on flying duties, sighted what he thought was a bombing party of our machines returning home, but were in fact enemy aircraft.

[14]He convalesced for a while due to his injuries from the 1 July action, and went on a War Office mission to the United States, becoming a temporary lieutenant colonel in May 1917.

[4] For the remainder of hostilities Rees commanded a School of Aerial Fighting based at RAF Turnberry.

[4][15] On 2 November 1918 Rees was awarded the Air Force Cross in recognition of valuable flying services.

[20] When the Second World War broke out, Rees returned to the United Kingdom from the Bahamas and once again joined the RAF.

[22] Rees returned home to the Bahamas and on 12 August 1947, aged 62, he married Sylvia Williams, a young local woman.

[4] Described as a real gentleman, during his time in Transjordan and possibly during other parts of his career, Rees was known to give his pay to service charities.