Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
International band of brothers
out,” he recalls. “Remembering the enemy were shooting at parachutists, I did a delayed drop as far as the cloud before opening my parachute. I landed in Pitsea Marshes where the local Home Guard was, but I speak reasonably good English, so they didn’t shoot me.
“My sinus just about killed me for about four days.”
By September, the squadron was so decimated it was withdrawn.
John says: “Peter Townsend was in hospital, wounded, our commanders and their deputies were dead, and I think there were just seven of us still fully active out of the 18 starters.” The
RAF lost 1,250 aircraft in the battle, but their superior radar and flying technology helped win victory. That month, Hitler gave up Operation Sealion, but the war was far from over for John, who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1941.
As a squadron leader in Italy, his Spitfire was hit by German ground fire in April 1945 and he bailed out again.
He was saved by Italian partisans who smuggled him to safety dressed in peasant’s clothing. A local family lent him one of their children to walk him through a German checkpoint.
John survived the war and married wife Bridget. They had three children and she died in 1998. John retired from the RAF in 1969 as a Group Captain.
Pressed again how he managed to survive, John resists any acknowledgment of skill. Today, he maybe fragile, but that stiff upper lip remains firm. “Training gave you the right instincts to stay alive,” is all he will say.
The RAF Benevolent Fund supports serving and retired RAF personnel and their families. It will launch a Battle of Britain podcast on July 10 which explores the history of the conflict. To find out more go to rafbf.org
IT wasn’t just British airmen who fought to defend Britain and defeat the Nazis during the summer of 1940.
A fifth of Fighter Command’s aircrew came from overseas and 16 nations were represented in its squadrons, including 574 foreign pilots.
They included 126 New Zealanders, 98 Canadians, 33 Australians, 25
South Africans, three from Rhodesia, a Jamaican and a Barbadian.
Other airmen who had escaped German-occupied Europe included 145
Poles, 88 Czechoslovaks, 29 Belgians, 13 Frenchmen and an Austrian. And although their countries were still neutral at the time, 10 Irish and 11 Americans also volunteered to fight.
During the battle, 188 pilots became “aces” after bringing down five or more enemy aircraft, while four were awarded the title of “ace in a day”.
By the end of the battle, 544 RAF pilots and aircrew had died. They are remembered on two Battle of Britain monuments in Kent and London.