Spitfire ace

SIR – Although the Spitfires that my relative, Flight Lieutenant Eric Lock, flew were not the Mark V (report, September 22), his achievements are worth remembering.

He was a Shropshire farmer’s son awarded the DFC for destroying nine enemy aircraft, eight of those in a week, during the Battle of Britain.

A bar was then added for destroying 15 Luftwaffe planes in 19 days, plus eight probables, between September and October 1940. This was followed by a DSO in the December, which made him, aged 21, the youngest recipient at the time. The American magazine Life named him “Britain’s greatest air ace of the war”.

After his Spitfire was hit he spent months in hospital, undergoing 16 operations. On July 25 1941 he was recalled to operational duties, but on August 3 was reported “missing in action”. For the sake of national morale no official announcement was made until December 1941. Neither “Sawnoff Lockie” nor his plane was recovered.

He was 22, with a recognised tally of 25 kills – one of the Few to whom we owe so much. A J Mawdsley

Bridgnorth, Shropshire