The RAF’S longhaired boys who flew in the face of danger
The flying aces of No 63 (City of Edinburgh) squadron played a vital role in the Battle of Britain 80 years ago, and their stories are told in a new book on style and youth culture in the Second World War by Caroline Young
Seventy seven years ago, The Scotsman reported the death of one of the heroes of the Battle of Britain, Richard Hillary, who found fame for his wartime memoir, The Last Enemy. His plane crashed onto Crunklaw Farm in the Scottish Borders during a night-time training exercise on 7 January 1943.
Reporting his death, the paper wrote, ‘Hillary called himself, in mock disparagement, the “last of the long-haired boys”. He used the term to describe a band of Oxford undergraduates who all joined the RAF together and of who he was the sole survivor.’
In the summer of 1939, Hillary and his friends from Oxford University, Peter Pease, Peter Howes, and Colin Pinckney signed up to the RAF Volunteer Reserves, choosing to fight in the coming war rather than complete their studies. They earned their nickname from the longer hair they sported, which touched the edges of their collars, and they relished the attention they would receive from their pilot’s wings now sewn onto their tunics. They all felt the thrill and promise of adventure, yet none would survive the end of the war.
After completing RAF training at the base at Kinloss in May 1940, they were posted to Montrose as part of 603 Squadron, where they spent the first months of the war. To pass the time as they trained and practiced flying moves, they regularly entertained the local children in the hamlet of Tarfside. The names of legendary flyers like Richard Hillary, Gerald ‘Stapme’ Stapleton, and Ronald ‘Ras’ Berry, would be remembered by the children for the rest of their lives.
But when 603 Squadron were sent to Hornchurch, as the Battle of Britain raged in August 1940, it proved to be a baptism of fire. The day after they arrived, they lost three of their men.
In the summer of 1939, Tony Bartley trained at No 13 Flying School in Drem, East Lothian. He and his friends bought a sailboat they named Pimms No. 4. He went into Edinburgh every Saturday for ‘drink safaris’, flew right under the Forth Road Bridge and ‘fell madly in love with the Lord Provost’s daughter’.
Bartley, who would marry Scottish actress Deborah Kerr after the war, was another of the Scottish trained heroes of the war, and as part of the infamous 92 Fighter Squadron, he fought off the Luftwaffe in air battles multiple times a day. The squadron then headed to London’s nightspots in fast cars powered by aviation fuel to drink away their stress.
They were, as Bartley wrote: ‘a generation born to war, as a generation earlier our fathers were. Some of us were men, but most still boys …we were fit and fearless, in the beginning. By the end, we were old and tired, and knew what fear was …We expected to die, but, in the meantime were determined to live every minute of each day. Aeroplanes were our first love, followed by girls and alcohol. All three were indispensable to our existence.’
According to Cecil Beaton, who carried out a photographic study of the RAF, bomber pilots seemed ‘to possess a reserve born of their great responsibility to their crew’, while fighter pilots were ‘the gay, more reckless ones, more temperamental, perhaps a bit selfish’. Members of Fighter Command left the top button of their uniform tunic undone, which became known as ‘Fighter Boy style’.
As well as being nicknamed the ‘Glamour Boys’ for the way they wore their uniform with desirable panache, they were also called the ‘Brylcreem Boys’, because of their moviestar hairstyles. County Chemicals of Birmingham, who produced Brylcreem, jumped on the association and used an RAF man in tunic and cap to advertise their products.
Their blue uniforms, with the silver wings sewn onto the tunic, were incredibly alluring. Colin ‘Hoppy’ Hodgkinson, an acquaintance of Hillary’s, lost both legs in an air accident in 1938, and after being posted into 131 Squadron in 1942 he felt rehabilitated by his new uniform. He wrote in his autobiography, ‘Air Force Blue, at that time the most famous colour in the world … I smoothed the wings above my left breast pocket, prinked like a mannequin up and down before a glass. My God! Nothing could stop me now. I was irresistible!’
The prestige of their uniform also meant they could be arrogant – they referred to the boys in the army as ‘the brown jobs’ for their poorly fitting khaki uniforms and for their lack of freedom in comparison. The RAF had a reputation for not contravening uniform regulations, growing their hair and generally looking scruffy.
In his memoirs, Richard Hillary described how ‘Stapme’ Stapleton was ‘always losing buttons off his uniform and had a pair of patched trousers which the rest of the Squadron swore he slept in’. Another fashion was for a moustache, which was an attempt to pay homage to the established RAF pilots of a generation before.
Despite the individualism, there was also a certain degree of conformity and tribalism in the RAF. In the briefing rooms, bombers all tended to
“We expected to die, but, in the meantime were determined to live every minute of each day. Aeroplanes were our first love, followed by girls and alcohol. All three were indispensable to our existence”
wear rollneck pullovers. 601 Squadron lined their tunics with bright red silk, as did Hillary. In a pastel portrait, Eric Kennington depicted him with his battledress deliberately left open revealing a slash of luxurious red lining.
Sometimes the choice to go without the full gear could prove hazardous. Like other fighter pilots, Hillary felt claustrophobic wearing his goggles, so he slipped them up onto his forehead when flying. Richard also chose not to wear his leather gloves and RAF silk liners underneath, and for this, like many other pilots, he would pay a stiff price.
Richard’s plane was hit on 3 September 1940, and after managing to escape the burning plane despite terrible injuries to his face and hands, he was rescued from the English Channel. His severe burns allowed him entry into the so-called ‘Guinea Pig Club’, a group of RAF men who had suffered disfiguring burns to their hands and faces, from not wearing the protective gear. They were treated by pioneering plastic surgeon Archie Mcindoe at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.
Richard, who had grown up with the reassurance of his own good looks, was now faced with painful and life-changing injuries as his eyelids, cheeks and lips had been destroyed. In his memoir, he recalled that his mother, sitting by his bedside, told him that he should be glad this happened to him, as ‘too many people told you how attractive you were and you believed them. You were well on the way to becoming something of a cad. Now you’ll find out who your real friends are.’
During his time recovering in hospital, Richard received the news, one by one, that his friends were killed – first Peter Pease and Peter Howes, then Noel Agazarian, and Colin Pinckney in January 1942. ‘That left only me – the last of the long-haired boys. I was horrified to find that I felt no emotion at all.’
● Kitted Out: Style and Youth Culture in the Second World War, published by The History Press is out now.