Valentine Baker

Captain Valentine Henry Baker MC AFC (24 August 1888 – 12 September 1942), nicknamed "Bake", served in all three of the British Armed Forces during the First World War. After the war he became a civilian flight instructor, and co-founder of the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company. He was the father of novelist Denys Val Baker.

Military career Born in Llanfairfechan, Wales, Baker joined the Royal Navy ("for land service") on 27 October 1914, and was immediately rated petty officer mechanic, and assigned to the Royal Naval Air Service Armoured Car Section as a despatch rider. At the time he joined up he was described as being five feet eight and four-fifths inches tall, with a thirty-eight inch chest, "medium brown" hair, blue eyes and a "medium" complexion.

Baker was assigned to 41 Squadron, with which he spent his entire nine-month combat flying career, during which time he was reputed to have shot down several German aircraft.

The RFC decided that his skills as a flying ace would be best used to train new pilots, and in June 1917 he became a flight instructor, teaching at Turnberry, Catterick, and Cramlington. During this period, his son was born, and he was successively promoted to temporary lieutenant, and captain on 27 August 1917.

Baker transferred to the new Royal Air Force on its formation as a merger of the RFC and RNAS on 1 April 1918. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in the 1918 King's Birthday Honours; the announcement was made the same day that the medal was instituted. Because Baker was first in the alphabetically ordered list of recipients, His final job for the military was in the Secret Codes Department, Air Ministry, from May 1920 until he resigned his commission on 1 October 1921, and was permitted to retain the rank of captain.

Civilian life Baker's first civilian job was for Vickers Limited, which took him to the Dutch East Indies. There, he became affiliated with the Netherlands Naval Aviation Service and worked for them as an instructor for three years. However, his wife became ill and they returned to England. Soon after, he took another job for Vickers, this time to Chile where he demonstrated the company's aircraft as well as trained Chilean pilots. Lord Londonderry of the Air Ministry, Lord Lloyd, Amy Johnson, Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay. so much so that pilot safety became Martin's primary focus and led to the reorganisation of the company to focus on ejection seats.