An RAF hero who wa killed in cold blood
Flight Lieutenant Sandy Gunn was shot down in Norway
Sandy Gunn from Auchterarder became a top-notch elite Spitfire pilot who flew on highly dangerous missions, including photographing the German pocket battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord.
He took part in the ‘Great Escape’ and was subsequently cruelly murdered on the orders of Adolf Hitler.
Work is being done to repair his Spitfire and make it into a living relic to remember the bravery of RAF pilots and crew.
During its 22-week operational life, Sandy’s final Spitfire aircraft, AA810, had at least seven pilots, including the Welsh champion jockey and 1940 Grand National winner Mervyn Anthony Jones, and the Indian-born English motor racing star, Alfred Fane Peers Agabeg.
Jones and Agabeg both lost their lives flying missions for the RAF’s Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU).
The Operation Record Book for 1 PRU shows that Spitfire AA810 flew for a total 49 hours and 47 minutes.
The PRU employed modified supermarine Spitfires which were unarmed, stripped of armour plating, armoured windscreens, and even their radio. They were, however, fitted with additional fuel tanks giving them four times the range of a conventional Spitfire.
Some PRU Spitfires – which were meant to fly just under cloud cover, at sunset and sunrise, when the clouds took on a pinkish hue – were painted pink, rendering them almost invisible. These got the nickname ‘Pink Spitfires’.
On average, each PRU Spitfire had a life expectancy of just 14 weeks.
When Spitfire AA810 crashed in Norway, it was piloted for the PRU by Gunn.
Gunn was born on September 27, 1919 at ‘Deansland’, Auchterarder, to well-loved surgeon James Turner Gunn,
MB, ChB, FRCS and Adelaide Lucy Frances Gunn.
He was schooled at Cargilfield School and Fettes College
(both in Edinburgh) before undertaking an engineering apprenticeship at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Govan.
He then went on to Pembroke College (University of Cambridge) to study mechanical sciences.
Gunn enlisted in the RAF on February 22, 1940 and commenced active service on June 22, 1940 as an aircrew candidate, airman second class.
On January 18, 1941, he received his pilot’s brevet (an honorary high rank that rewards merit or gallantry, but without authority) and was promoted to sergeant.