Cuthbert Orde Captain Cuthbert Julian Orde ( 18 December 1888 – 19 December 1968 ) was an artist and First World War pilot . He is best known for his war art , especially his portraits of Allied Battle of Britain pilots . Family background . Orde was born on 18 December 1888 in Norfolk , the second of five children . He attended Framlingham College 1902 - 07 . His parents were Sir Julian Walter Orde ( 14 January 1861 – 17 June 1929 ) and Alice Georgiana Orde ( née Archdale ) ( 1862 – 1945 ) of Hopton House , Hopton , Norfolk . Sir Julian was the long - serving - at least 1903 - 1914 - Secretary of the Automobile Car Club of Britain and Ireland ( which became the Royal Automobile Club ) . In response to the Motor Car Act 1903 raising the speed limit to a mere 20 mph , in 1904 he went to the Isle of Man where , with permission of his cousin the Governor , he started the TT races . He was also an early member of the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom , serving on its committees as early as 1909 . It may be from here that his sons got their impetus to join the Royal Flying Corps . The family had a strong military tradition going back several centuries . Orde ’ s great - grandfather was Major - General James Orde . Military career . Orde served throughout the First World War , starting by becoming a Second Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps on 15 August 1914 . He was a Lieutenant when he qualified as a pilot for the Royal Flying Corps in a Maurice Farman biplane on 10 May 1916 . Accordingly , on 10 June 1916 he was promoted from Flying Officer ( Observer ) to Flying Officer . On 1 August 1917 he was promoted to Flight Commander . Because he had served in the early part of the war , he was awarded the 1914 Star . He was a Captain by time of his application for the medal in December 1917 . His home address for delivery of the medal was given as Apsley House , Piccadilly - his father - in - law the Duke of Wellington ’ s house on Hyde Park Corner , now in the care of English Heritage . He was given the rank of temporary Major on 16 August 1918 . He relinquished his commission on 15 January 1919 on grounds of ill health , and retained the rank of Captain . Both of Orde ’ s brothers served in the war , and both died in a five - year period . His younger brother Herbert Walter Julian Orde joined the navy before the war . An episode of bravery aboard HMS Helmuth in November 1914 saw him awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in April 1915 . He died a month later when HMS Goliath was torpedoed off the Dardanelles . Their elder brother Michael Amyas Julian Orde - like Cuthbert a Second Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps - qualified as a pilot a few months before Orde , on 27 Oct 1915 . He was shot down and listed as missing on 14 March 1916 . He was taken prisoner and held until the end of the war . He died on 6 August 1920 in a flying accident on Salisbury Plain . He was 32 . Artistic career . Throughout his life Orde strongly identified himself as an artist . In the early 1920s he had a painting studio in Paris . His entries in phone directories for forty years – 1929 up to his death in 1968 – register him as him ‘ Orde , Cuthbert ; Artist ’ . In his book " Pilots Of Fighter Command : Sixty Four Portraits " , Orde wrote an essay explaining the circumstances of his portraits of World War II pilots . Having been hired to produce illustrations of bomber stations in the summer of 1940 , Air Commodore Harald Peake from the Air Ministry saw some of Orde ’ s drawings was impressed by his portraiture . It was the height of the Battle of Britain and public attention was focused on the fighter pilots . Peake asked Orde to make a large number of portraits of them , Orde enthusiastically agreed , and at the start of September set off to work . It is unclear how many portraits he drew in the year or so with Fighter Command . Some sources say up to 300 , though Orde only lists 160 in his book " Pilots Of Fighter Command " . What is clear is that he only drew a small fraction of The Few . In no case did I choose the sitter myself . He was selected either by Group Headquarters or by the station commander and , generally speaking , four or five in each squadron were chosen , the four or five who were considered the most valuable . So it was for them rather in the nature of a mention in dispatches , I merely being the scribe who wrote out the dispatch . Taking around two hours per picture , Orde drew men whose names have become familiar to those interested in the history of the Battle ; Douglas Bader , Sailor Malan , Robert Stanford Tuck , Johnnie Johnson , Archie McKellar , John Freeborn . He usually created monochrome pictures of the men using charcoal and white chalk , though some colour portraits were painted , such as that of Bob Stanford Tuck and a second portrait of Sailor Malan . In drawing the cream of the pilots , names and uniforms soon became out of date as subjects were promoted and decorated . On finishing his drawing of Hugh Dundas , Orde joked , ‘ I ' ve left room for the DFC . The people I draw always seem to get it ’ . Four days later Dundas did . The daily peril of these men ’ s lives was apparent . Orde states that some choices were killed before he had chance to draw them . Many did not live much longer after their portrait was done . John Drummond was drawn on 5 October 1940 , shortly after landing from what turned out to be his final kill , and is pictured still in his aviator jacket instead of the uniformed outfit Orde commonly depicted . He died five days later . However , having flown in combat himself and lost both his brothers in military incidents twenty years earlier , the proximity of death will not have been new to Orde . Although all the pilots were lauded , Orde was clear that there was an elite among them . I think a squadron of pilots can be divided into three groups : natural leaders and fighters at the top ; then the main body of solid talent containing the germ of leaders of the future , chaps whose qualities will develop with experience ; and then I suppose the tail , two or three perhaps , who will never be quite good enough to earn distinction but who nevertheless are pulling their weight for all it may be worth . Despite this , he was adamant that the airmen ' s extraordinary deeds were the doings of ordinary people . I have often been asked if I have found a definite type of Fighter pilot … I have thought about this a lot , but I feel sure that the answer is ‘ No ’ … The most striking thing about the Fighter pilots – ‘ operational Fighter pilots ’ , grand title that , isn ’ t it ? – is their ordinariness . Just ‘ You , I , Us and Co . ’ , ordinary sons of ordinary parents from ordinary homes . So when you wonder where they come from , dear reader , whoever you may be , contemplate your own home , your profession and your background , and you have the answer . You have everything in common with them , or at least I hope you have , for they are just people who read the poster that reads ‘ It all depends on YOU ’ . They are not a race apart . The drawings had already appeared in magazines even before the book was published , and have been continually reprinted in a wide variety of publications ever since . Orde remained a professional artist , and was still taking commissions for military portraits long after the war , such as one of Air Chief Marshal Sir James Robb in 1958 . He was an inaugural painter - member of the Society of Aviation Artists , formed in 1955 . In 1962 Flight International magazine declared in stilted grammar , ‘ Cuthbert Orde , than whom no - one has managed to convey more effectively the character and courage of RAF fighter pilots ’ . Family . Orde married Lady Eileen Wellesley ( 13 February 1887 – 31 October 1952 ) , daughter of Arthur Wellesley , 4th Duke of Wellington , on 11 September 1916 at St Bartholomew - the - Great , Smithfield , London . They had two children . A daughter , Julian , was born on 31 December 1917 . Julian had been a common name in the Orde family for generations , for both boys and girls . A second daughter , Jane , was born on 6 March 1921 . The National Portrait Gallery has several photographs of Eileen and the children taken in May 1921 . Julian became a poet , writer and actor . She married Ralph Abercrombie in London in 1949 . She died in 1974 , aged 56 . Jane married David Henry Macindoe ( 1 Sept 1917 - 3 March 1986 ) , Vice - Provost of Eton College , in 1944 . She died on 7 July 1995 , aged 74 . They had four children , Peter ( who died in infancy ) , Sophia , Angus and Catriona . Eileen Orde died on 31 October 1952 , aged 65 . Orde was remarried a year later , to Alexandra Dalziel . She was born on 6 June 1907 , and died in London almost thirty years after her husband in May 1997 , aged 89 .