On 4 August 1914, Britain declared war on Germany following the German violation of Belgian neutrality, which the United Kingdom had guaranteed in 1839.

Cotton booked a passage to England on board the ocean liner Maloja, the majority of whose passengers were young Australians like himself determined to "do their bit" for king and country.

After the war he spent time in Tasmania where he worked as the manager of an apple-drying factory owned by his father, and then returned to England, where he continued his passion for flying.

[2] In 1920, he embarked on an unsuccessful attempt to fly from England to South Africa, and also made a lucky escape from a crash at the Aerial Derby.

[2] From this time up until the outbreak of the Second World War, Cotton led a colourful and eventful life; he took part in various business activities, including an airborne seal-spotting service as well as aerial search and rescue operations for lost explorers in Newfoundland and Greenland.

[2] In 1931, Cotton found and rescued the British Arctic explorer Augustine Courtauld who had been trapped in an ice field in Greenland.

[2] At a time when most photographs were in black and white, Cotton purchased the rights to sell outside of France a French colour film called Dufaycolor, which led him to engage in frequent travels.

[2] In September 1938 during the Sudetenland crisis, Cotton was approached by agents of the Deuxième Bureau (the French intelligence department) to undertake spy flights over Germany.

[5] In April 1939, Cotton was recruited by Fred Winterbotham of MI6 to take clandestine aerial photographs of the German military buildup.

[5] Cotton's mission was the same as before, using flights for the Aeronautical Research and Sales Corporation as a cover for espionage with the only difference being that his paymasters were MI6 instead of the Deuxième Bureau.

On the eve of war, he even managed to engineer a joy-ride over German military airfields on one occasion, accompanied by senior Luftwaffe officer Albert Kesselring.

[6] That Hitler had given orders on 27 March to have Fall Weiss (Case White), the codename for the invasion of Poland, launched on 26 August 1939 (later pushed back to 1 September) was a very closely guarded secret that only a few people were aware of, and most people during the Danzig crisis believed that Hitler was only considering invading Poland if Danzig was not allowed to rejoin Germany.

[7] Cotton believed if only Chamberlain and Göring could meet in secret that it was possible to work out a peaceful solution to the crisis and avoid a war where millions would die.

Commissioned in the RAF as a substantive squadron leader and acting wing commander on 22 September 1939, in the same period, Cotton was recruited to head up the fledgling Photo Photographic Development Unit (PDU) at Heston Aerodrome.

The PDU was originally equipped with Bristol Blenheims, but Cotton considered these quite unsuitable, being far too slow, and he consequently wheedled a couple of Supermarine Spitfires.

In 1940, Cotton also personally made another important reconnaissance flight with his Lockheed 12A over Soviet Azerbaijan via Iraq as part of the preparations for Operation Pike.

Cotton revelled in his reputation as unorthodox, and even had a special badge struck bearing the initials CC-11 that signified the 11th commandment – "Thou shalt not be found out.

"[10] At the request of Naval Intelligence, Cotton photographed the German fleet at anchor at its base in Wilhelmshaven, which led him to meet Ian Fleming.

Together with other members of the 1 PDU, he pioneered the techniques of high-altitude, high-speed stereoscopic photography that were instrumental in revealing the locations of many crucial military and intelligence targets.

By mid-1940 however, Cotton had clashed with senior officials in the Air Ministry over his participation in the evacuation of British agents from France under the cover name of Special Survey Flights.

After his return from France couriering Marcel Boussac, the head of the Christian Dior garment and perfume empire, for a fee, he was removed from his post and banned from any involvement with air operations.

During the first India-Pakistan War, Cotton undertook airlifts of weapons, supplies and medicines from Hyderabad to Pakistan, using unarmed Avro Lancastrian transport aircraft.

[21] Cotton served at least partly as the basis for the James Bond character created by his friend Ian Fleming, most notably in his womanising and a general disdain for authority.

[22] In his obituary in 1969, The Times of London declared that Cotton had established "a record of ruggedly individualistic, superbly unconventional behavior, second only to his reputation for courage and resourcefulness".