Reggie Marix’s aviation career began in 1912, when he was appointed to HMS Actaeon as Sub-Lieutenant for aviation duties which was part of the newly formed Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. A year later he obtained his Royal Aero Club certificate no. 403 at the Bristol School on Salisbury Plain.

A month after war with Germany was declared Reggie was posted to Antwerp as a member of the RNAS ‘bomb dropping squadron’. Antwerp was chosen because it was less than 120 miles away from the Zeppelin workshops in Dusseldorf and Cologne and they expected almost immediately Zeppelin raids on London.

On 8 October 1914 Reggie Marix and Spencer Grey each flying a Sopwith Tabloid aircraft left Antwerp with Grey heading for Cologne and Marix for Dusseldorf. Grey was unable to locate the Zeppelin shed at Cologne and dropped his bombs instead on the railway station before returning safely to Antwerp.

When Marix reached Dusseldorf he descended from 3000ft through the clouds to find the Düsseldorf Zeppelin shed below him. He dropped his two bombs from a height of 600 feet and scored a direct hit as there was a massive explosion which set fire to Zeppelin inside the shed.
He said afterwards ‘as I pulled out of my dive I looked over my shoulder and was rewarded with the sight of enormous sheets of flame pouring out of the shed, it was a magnificent sight’

Marix encountered heavy machine gun fire during the raid and his aeroplane was hit in numerous places. On his return Marix ran out of petrol 20 miles short of Antwerp and had to complete his journey by bicycle and railway engine.

The impact of the raid on the Zeppelins was dramatic considering Britain had only been at war for less than two months; with the exploits of the RNAS and Reggie Marix splashed across all the popular newspapers and journals.

Marix was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for this mission, the first successful bombing raid of the war and he later served in the Gallipoli campaign before being posted to home defence duties in October 1915. He continued to rise through the ranks but In December 1916 an aeroplane he was testing in Paris broke up in the air and the crash resulted in the amputation of his left leg which ended his active flying career. Nevertheless, he remained in the service and in 1918 was granted a permanent commission in the RAF. Air-Vice Marshall Reginald Marix retired from the RAF in 1945, having served in two World wars.