Captain Walter Alexander Tyrrell MC (23 August 1898 – 9 June 1918) was a British First World War flying ace credited with seventeen aerial victories.
[3] Tyrrell joined the Royal Flying Corps as an officer cadet at Farnborough on 4 April 1917,[1] and was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant (on probation) on 21 June.
On 21 March the Germans launched their Spring Offensive on the Somme Front, and on 7 April Tyrrell claimed three enemy fighters shot down over Lamotte.
32 Squadron RAF[note 1] was assigned to operations further north over the Lys Front,[6] where Tyrrell gained two more victories, on 11 and 12 April.
32 Squadron was then tasked with flying as bomber escorts,[7] and on 3 May Tyrrell drove down two Fokker Dr.I's over Frelinghien, and forced down and captured an LVG reconnaissance aircraft near Poperinghe.
[17] His oldest brother William Tyrrell (RAF officer) was a rugby player and also served as an army doctor, becoming highly decorated with the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Military Cross and the Belgian Croix de Guerre.