Robert Stanford-Tuck

At the age of 19 he accepted a short - servicecommission in the Royal Air Force in September, 1935, after having had two years at sea as a cadet. He was bored and wanted to fly. After training at No. 3 F.T.S. at Grantham, flying the Avro Tutor, Hawker Hart, Hawker Fury and the Bristol Bulldog, he was glad to pass out with the highest rating available "exceptional" in his log-book. In July 1936, he was posted to his first Fighter Squadron, No. 65(F) at Hornchurch where he flew Hawker Demons, which were replaced by Gloster Gauntletts, then Gloster Gladiators, and finally Spitfires, which they received in late 1938, being one of the first Squadrons to be equipped with this revolutionary aircraft. Consequently, by the outbreak of war he had flown several hundred hours on Spitfires and was thoroughly familiar and confident in it. A tremendous advantage later when going into combat. On the 16th May 1940, he was instructed on a top secret order to fly to Hendon with two other Spitfires. They were to act as fighter escort to an unarmed twin engined Flamingo, carrying Winston Churchill and a small staff to Le Bourget, for his final attempt to prevail on the French to hold out a little longer. Churchill realised the evacuation of the B.E.F. from Dunkirk was imminent. After the retum flight to Hendon the next day, Winston thanked them for their escort, but from his expression he left them in no doubt that he had been unsuccessful. His first aerial combat took place over Dunkirk on 23 May 1940, as a flight commander in 92 (F) Squadron. He couldn't have got off to a better start when he destroyed an Me 109; later the same day he shot down two further enemy aircraft, both Me 11O's. He continued to serve with No. 92 Squadron on Spitfires, commanding one of the Flights throughout the Dunkirk battles, the large air battles which followed over the Channel in the build up to the Battle of Britain. He was still with 92, during the first half of the Battle of Britain, when he was posted to take over command of No. 257 Hurricane Squadron, which up until this time had suffered heavy casualties. He commanded this squadron until half way through 1941, when he was given command of the Fighter Wing at Duxford. He spent October 1941 in the U.S.A. lecturing on air combat, and flying all the American fighters as part of an Air Ministry assessment for the Lend-Lease programme. He returned to the U.K. to take command of the Biggin Hill wing of four Spitfire Squadrons. His air combat career finished when he was shot down by ground fire during a low level attack over Northem France, in January 1942 and was taken prisoner by the Germans. He was credited with 29 air victories. However, in 1978, the Aircraft Recovery Group excavated the remains of an Me 109 22 ft deep in the marshes, (sadly still containing the remains of the pilot, Lt. Wemer Knittle), and subsequently, after considerable research at the M.0.D., it was decided that it was an aircraft he had shot down, but had only claimed as "probable" at the time. It was duly accredited to him, bringing his total to 30. He spent the next three years as a P.O.W., but managed to escape in January, 1945, and made his way via Poland to meet up with the advancing Russian Army. Back in England by April 1945, he completed a refresher course on the North American Harvard trainer at Digby before flying the new jet fighters de Havilland Vampire and Gloster Meteor at Tangmere and West Raynham. In 1946 he became Station Commander at Coltishall, and after a spell in Singapore, retired from the R.A.F. in 1949.