Battle of Britain hero dies aged 98

Only six of The Few now survive after death of Birmingham-born fighter pilot

ONE of the last Battle of Britain pilots has died at the age of 98. Wing Commander Tim Elkington, who was born in Birmingham, was the only RAF pilot whose own mother saw his plane shot down during a dog-fight.

It was Luftwaffe ace Major Helmut Wick’s 18th ‘kill’ of the 1940 conflict upon which Britain’s future hung.

Elkington later took some comfort from the fact that he had been downed by such a famous foe. “He was quite an experienced chap, so I’m not too put out!” he said.

Elkington’s death on February 1, following a fall, leaves just six surviving Battle of Britain pilots – Churchill’s famous Few – from a band of 3,000.

Born John Francis Durham Elkington in Edgbaston, the hero attended Hockley Heath’s Packwood Haugh Prep School.

He gained a place at RAF College Cranwell, Lincolnshire, in 1920. After a spell as an instructor, Elkington was sent to Russia in 1941 to deliver Hurricanes to the Soviet air force and train its pilots and ground staff.

On his return home from Russia, Elkington hit a 44,000-volt power cable, strung across the Tyne. He survived, but towns below were plunged into darkness.

Another narrow escape

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wit- nessed by his own mother – took place on August 16, 1940. Several RAF squadrons were scrambled to intercept a massive raid by a group of Stuka dive bombers and 100 Messerschmitt Bf 109s on the RAF base at Tangmere, West Sussex.

The aerial armada was met over the coast. Ten thousand feet below, from her house on Hayling Island, Isabel Elkington trained her binoculars on a lone Hurricane being pursued by three Bf 109s.

She knew at once that it was her 19-year-old son’s because of the bright yellow figure of “Eugene the Jeep” on its nose. Her son had painted his plane with a picture of the Popeye cartoon character for good luck.

Cannon fire tore through the Hurricane’s starboard fuel tank and the injured Elkington was forced to bail out. He didn’t have time to inflate his life jacket before losing consciousness, but was saved by the flying skills of his flight leader, Sergeant Pilot Fred Berry.

In an amazing feat of airmanship Berry used the slipstream of his aircraft to blow Elkington ashore. He was taken to hospital in Chichester and his mother was at his bedside within the hour.

On leaving hospital Elkington tried to contact Berry to thank him. He was told his saviour had been shot down and killed weeks earlier.

After the war he stayed in the services, commanding RAF Turnhouse, Edinburgh, before serving in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and Christmas Island, and in the Pacific during British nuclear tests in the 1950s.

He retired in 1975, the same year the Hurricane he bailed out of 35 years earlier was found by an archaeologist near West Wittering beach, near Chichester.

Elkington was given the vertical speed indicator memento.

In 2016, he attended a tea in Clarence House hosted by the Prince of Wales, patron of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association.

And last year, Elkington was one of five Battle of Britain pilots, along with Geoffrey Wellum, Tom Neil, Paul Farnes and John Hemingway, to have their portraits drawn by artist Jeremy Houghton.

Son John said: “My father grew up in a different world. An only child, sent away to school when he was six, he jumped at joining the RAF shortly before the war.

“He would later stress that, while he was one of The Few, they in turn were supported by The Many. The ground crew, radar plotters, the merchantmen and tanker crews running the gauntlet of the U-boat wolf-packs. And, critically, the ordinary Britons who endured the Blitz.

“In recent years, he was an extraordinary ambassador for his generation.”

Elkington, who spent his latter years in Little Rissington, Gloucestershire, is survived by wife Pat and children John, Caroline, Gray and Tessa. plane’s

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