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Flight Commander 203 Squadron, Royal Air Force. Formerly Royal Naval Air Service. Died 27 May 1918.

Enlisted 1915.

He was 22 and one of the four children of James Little, a Canadian of Scots descent, who came to Melbourne in the late 1880’s. James lived at Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, with his Victoria-born wife Susan, formerly Smith, née Solomon.  James was an importer and seller of medical and surgical books.

He was educated at Camberwell Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne, where he was a swimming medallist. His younger brother James also attended Scotch College.

Robert failed to impress academically, leaving school while still 15 to join his father as a commercial traveller. At school he took extra lessons in boxing and French. Given the Imperial indoctrination of the age (a Scotch College historian described the school as ‘ultra-Imperialistic’), it is no surprise that Robert wanted to join the tens of thousands volunteering to fight.  There’s no evidence to confirm one story that he painted his Sopwith Triplane [N5493 'Blymp' ] in Scotch College colours, although it appears he did (once only, as a young pilot) fly with the school colours - cardinal, gold and blue fluttering from his wingtips.

He was living with his family at Windsor when World War I broke out in August 1914.

He was the husband of Vera Getrude Little [nee Field] of “Centreway,” 263 Collins Street, Melbourne. Their marriage was solemnized at the Congregational Church in Dover, Kent on 16th September 1916. (He married Vera during convalescence after a month in hospital with pleurisy )

Aged twenty-two, he left a widow and a son, Robert J.A. [Alec]; in accordance with her husband's wishes, Vera travelled back to Australia to settle in Melbourne with the help of the Little family to raise the boy. Vera remarried in the 1920s; Alec junior grew up to head the electronics laboratory at Melbourne university. He never married, living with his mother until his death in 1976. Vera died a year later.

He is remembered on the war memorial at St. Margaret's at Cliffe- a three-part village situated just off the coast road between Deal and Dover in Kent, England. His wife was from Dover and they set up home in Drovewat Gardens. The parish tribute inside the St Margaret’s church is in the form of a large marble tablet with red lettering.

The Cadet accommodation block at the Australian Defence Force Academy [ADFA] opened in 1986 was named after him.

The propeller blade from Little's Sopwith Triplane was fitted with a clock in its hub by his fellow officers, who presented it to his widow; she transported it back to Australia in three pieces and it later went on display at the Australian War Memorial, along with his awards and the wooden cross of his original burial place at Nœux.