Kenneth Lee DFC: Battle of Britain & Desert Air Force Fighter Ace

By Nick Thomas

The heroic life of the pilot who became an ace with one of the most successful fighter squadrons in the RAF and a captive in a notorious Nazi POW camp.

Following training, Lee received his commission and was posted to 501 Squadron which was sent to support the Expeditionary Force in France, arriving on 10 May, only hours after the Blitzkrieg had been launched. Lee quickly opened his score, claiming several bombers during the first week of operations. Having been wounded when his Hurricane exploded following a dogfight, Lee was briefly rested but soon rejoined the Squadron before they moved to their first Battle of Britain base at Middle Wallop. Lee scored more damaged and destroyed enemy aircraft and by the end of July he was Mentioned in Dispatches. Lee was forced to take to his parachute for the second time, learning of the richly deserved award of his DFC while still recovering from his wounds. He later recalled how each of the Squadrons aces, even Ginger Lacey, had been shot down at least twice during that summer.

Lee was later posted to 112 (Shark) Squadron, flying Curtis Kittyhawks on Fighter and Fighter-Bomber missions in North Africa and then to 260 Squadron which was heavily involved in the lead-up to the battle of El Alamein, seeking out and destroying enemy troop columns and fighting off the Luftwaffe which still had air superiority. In March 1943, 123 Squadron began Fighter-Bomber operations against Mediterranean targets. During one Lee was hit by AA and made a forced landing in an olive grove. He was captured and sent to Stalag Luft III just in time to play a key role in the Great Escape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781844683567

Book preview

Introduction

Born in Erdington in 1915, Kenneth Lee saw little of his father during his early years: like so many families, his was separated by war. Raised by his parents in a comfortable middle-class suburb of Birmingham, Lee attended King Edward VI School, Five Ways. Here he had his first taste of the military life with the Cadets, becoming a crack shot under the guidance of the school’s own Great War heroes. Other influences were afoot, and Kenneth loved nothing better than listening to the wartime exploits of family friend Harry Lewis, who had served as an officer with the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in France, Flanders, Greece and the Middle East.

Like all schoolboys of his generation, Kenneth was captivated by the exploits of fighter aces such as ‘Billy’ Bishop, ‘Mick’ Mannock and Albert Ball. When the opportunity arose, he applied to join the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as a ‘weekend pilot’. In 1939, Kenneth left his job with the Birmingham firm Merry and Minton, and became a full-time flyer.

Two days after war was declared, Lee found himself posted to No. 501 (City of Gloucester) Squadron, then flying Hawker Hurricanes and stationed at RAF Filton. On being made operational, the squadron was posted to RAF Tangmere, Sussex. From here it flew regular patrols and escorts throughout the winter and spring before learning of its posting to Norway, which was later cancelled – it was to go to France.

Lee’s squadron was to fly to Betheniville on 10 May 1940, operating out of a succession of grass-strip airfields until the Fall of France some five weeks later, during which time Lee had become an ace with one of the most successful fighter squadrons in the RAF, as No. 501 Squadron had the honour of being one of the first in action and the last to leave the fray.

Following regrouping at Croydon, No. 501 operated out of RAF Middle Wallop, using the advanced landing-ground at Warmwell, and flying in defence of the Channel Ports and the convoys. The squadron later transferred to Gravesend and then Kenley, and was not withdrawn from combat until the winter of 1940/41, Kenneth concluding his tour of operations in mid-November.

Lee had been shot down twice and wounded on both occasions, but had come back fighting, adding further victories to his tally. He was twice mentioned-in-dispatches, and received the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross, which was presented to him at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

Posted to an Operational Training Unit, Lee once more excelled – one of his proudest achievements was not losing a single pupil throughout his six months as an instructor, at a time when more fighter pilots died during training than in combat. Next followed a spell flying on the West African Reinforcement route, before a posting to No. 112 ‘Shark’ Squadron. Lee was also to fly Curtis Kittyhawks with No. 260 Squadron during the height of the El Alamein campaign, contributing to the eighteen enemy aircraft destroyed by his unit during the battle, before being given his own squadron.

It was while commanding No. 123 Squadron on Operation Thesis, the raid on Crete, that Lee was shot down by ground fire, becoming a PoW. He was to spend the remainder of the war in Stalag Luft III, the scene of ‘The Great Escape’.

Here Kenneth aced as one of the ‘Penguins’, distributing the hundred-plus tons of yellow sand excavated from ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’, an operation which went undetected by the guards.

The war ended for Lee and the PoWs of Stalag Luft III with a gruelling march to freedom. Their guards had orders to shoot all of the PoWs if they failed to cross the Elbe ahead of the British advance – fortunately they disobeyed their superiors.

Known for much of his service life as ‘Hawkeye’ Lee, Ken was an exceptional flyer, described by his fellow pilots as ‘nerveless’ and ‘a phenomenal shot’, but in his retirement from the Service he was a quiet, unassuming hero.

Often described as plain speaking, Lee had a keen sense of fun and never took himself too seriously. He was flamboyant and debonair, and even in his 90s he was a snappy dresser and wore a jacket or blazer and a well-ironed shirt.

Kenneth had a very wide circle of close friends. He was a good correspondent and kept in touch with many of his childhood friends throughout his life. Others, who lost touch during the war, fearing him dead, were delighted when they were able to renew old acquaintances.

Modest about his wartime achievements, few of Lee’s post-war friends ever learned of his exploits, and fewer still knew that he was awarded the DFC, one of three gallantry awards that he earned during the summer of 1940.

Recorded in full for the first time, Lee’s story is one that ranks with those of the most exalted fighter pilots of his generation.

CHAPTER 1

Early Beginnings

Kenneth Norman Thomson Lee was born in Erdington, Birmingham, on 23 June 1915, to Yorkshire parents, Norman and Ellen Margaret ‘Nellie’ Lee. His mother, Nellie Lee (née Thomson), was originally from Masham in the Lower Wensleydale countryside. Following the death of her father, who was a shop-keeper, the family had moved to Harrogate, and it was here that she first met her future husband. Born in Leeds in 1888, and three years her senior, Norman Lee was raised at No. 142 Briggate Street, Leeds, better known as the Albion Hotel. Managed by his parents, Samuel and Hannah Lee, the premises had a licensed bar, which appears at times to have provided their main income.

Norman had two sisters – Ethel, who was one year older than him, and Doris May, who was born in 1893. The three children were partly raised by their nurse, Kate Hunter, while the hotel was always full of friendly faces, as it supported eight female bar-staff and domestic servants, as well as a porter.

Widowed in 1897, Hannah moved to Harrogate, where she remained a hotel proprietress, the family residing in St. James Coffee House, Cambridge Street, which, despite its name, was a hotel and bar. As the business continued to thrive, the family moved into the leafy suburbs at No. 41 Harlow Moor Drive. In the meantime, Hannah had ensured all of her children had had the benefit of a first-class education, both Ethel and her brother attending the Royal Commercial Travellers’ School in Pinner, Middlesex . On leaving school when turning 18, Norman found employment as an insurance agent, a job at which he was well adept.

By his mid-20s, Norman had moved out of the family home and was sharing a Victorian terraced town-house in Blenheim Square, Leeds. Here he became firm friends with fellow tenants, Henry S. ‘Harry’ Lewis and Richard L. Woosnam. Norman, however, had been courting and was already engaged to Nellie, who was then teaching, the couple marrying in Leeds on 13 June 1914.

The Lees followed Norman’s work to Birmingham, where they settled first in the Erdington area. Within months of their marriage Great Britain went to war with Germany and her allies. Norman saw active service as a junior officer in the Royal Navy and was twice torpedoed. With Norman at sea, Kenneth’s mother had to rely on their savings and marriage allowance to cover the household bills. On demobilization he settled back into Civvy Street and furthered his career, becoming sales manager for a wholesale clothing manufacturer in the city.

The family had moved to a smart semi-detached house in Pershore Road, opposite Ragland Road, in an affluent area of Edgbaston. The house, which lay adjacent to the church of St Mary and St Ambrose, was set back from the road, with ample gardens to front and rear, allowing plenty of space for a toddler to explore and play. Not far beyond the realms of his own back garden lay the delights of Calthorpe Park, where Kenneth loved to roam as a young boy.

Kenneth’s earliest memories of Birmingham were naturally vague. An adventurous child, he once scaled the highest tree in his neighbourhood. This act of bravado back-fired, however, when the uppermost branch gave way and a startled Lee fell a full twenty or thirty feet. Miraculously he only broke his wrist, but it was a salutary lesson.

Academically bright, Kenneth initially attended a council school before moving to one of the local church schools, where his abilities were allowed to develop. His hard work paid off, and with the support and encouragement of his parents, he passed the written entrance exam for King Edward VI School, Five Ways, Birmingham.

Housed in the former Edgbaston Proprietary School buildings, King Edward’s could accommodate up to 500 pupils. Behind the grand Victorian façade the building extended into nearby houses that served as science rooms and the school library. These study areas were augmented by a temporary classroom situated in the playground.

Entrants were generally 11–12 years old, the pupils working on a four- or five-year course towards a School Certificate, although the headmaster’s recommendation was considered sufficient qualification for any white-collar position. The school’s Sixth Form, which never numbered more than thirty, fed pupils into Oxbridge.

Lee recalled:

The regime was very rigid at times. We sat in classes of thirty-plus, all arranged in alphabetical order, with the teacher sitting on a raised platform at the head of the class.

Here Kenneth continued to excel in his studies, most evenings poring over his textbooks to complete the expected three-to-four hours of homework, no doubt his mother lending a guiding hand to his studies. Under the austere, humourless headmaster, Mr Arthur Ernst Baker, the children were expected to achieve perfection in every aspect of their education. Assembly could be a particularly traumatic affair. Every pupil was expected to learn a piece of prose, and Baker would choose five or six at random and have them line up on stage to recite the work between them verbatim; they were harangued at the slightest hesitation.

Outside the classroom, order was maintained by the prefects, who dished out summary punishments for minor offences. Reprimand forms were sent direct to parents. These had to be signed and returned before pupils attended afternoon or Saturday detention.

On the lighter side, the school ran a number of clubs, including a Chess Club, Photographic Society and Cinematography Society, as well as sports groups where pupils could enjoy lawn tennis, table tennis, and boxing; from 1928 the school had its own purpose-built gymnasium.

The teachers were devoted to their charges and fostered talent where it showed itself. One of Lee’s contemporaries, C.E. Hare, had shown early promise on the grass courts, and was to become the Junior Champion at Wimbledon in 1931, and represented Great Britain in the Davis Cup seven years later.

In time Kenneth mastered languages as well as algebra, geometry and trigonometry. The boys were taught moral lessons too, learning Aesop’s Fables in French: even to his dying days, Kenneth could remember lengthy tracts and was word perfect.

With his father’s naval background and his school’s strict regimes, it was not surprising that Kenneth was a strong swimmer. The school used the Kent Street baths and held an inter-house competition every September. On the sports field Lee enjoyed playing both rugby and cricket, although he freely admitted to having never really troubled the scorer while at the crease, despite his later demonstration of supreme hand–eye co-ordination as a fighter pilot:

If you weren’t a member of the Sports Club, then you couldn’t go on the school field in Portland Road or the adjacent rugby pitch. The Headmaster’s wife would watch over the fields from her room and report back. The school employed a groundsman who marked the pitches and maintained the wicket and the rugby posts. There was no mower, but the school owned a horse which kept the grass down.

In late May the school held its highly competitive sports days. King Edward’s was a member of the Birmingham District Joint Sports Association, with regular meetings held at Portland Road, and after 1930, the new Alexander Stadium at Perry Bar. Five Ways was runner-up in the 1927 competition, the young Lee contributing towards the team’s score. Meanwhile, throughout the year the school regularly played its neighbours at rugby and cricket.

With the Edgbaston Cricket Ground quite literally a stone’s throw away from the family home, Kenneth was able to enjoy seeing many of his first-class cricket heroes in action. The stadium of Warwickshire County Cricket Club, the ground had attained Test status way back in 1902, but Lee would have to go further afield to watch the England Eleven in action.

The first Ashes series that caught Lee’s imagination was played in England during the rainy 1926 season. Unfortunately most of the games proved a wash-out, and it was left to the Fifth Test at Lords to decide the series – the game was to be played to a conclusion and without time limit. England won comfortably. Kenneth followed the match’s progress on the radio and watching the newsreel highlights at the cinema.

The 1928 series was fought in Australia, England winning four out of the five matches – English cricket was on a high, Kenneth and his school friends sharing in the nation’s feelings of pride.

During the 1930 season Australia and Donald Bradman stole the series 2:1, winning the decider at Lords.

The 1932 series was not one that Kenneth and his fellow pupils would emulate on the school cricket pitch – it was the year of Douglas Jardine and ‘bodyline’. Despite winning the series, the England side returned to controversy.

As with many schoolboys of his generation, Kenneth was fascinated to read stories of the pioneering fighter pilots of the Great War – men like ‘Billy’ Bishop, ‘Mick’ Mannock, ‘Taffy’ Jones and Albert Ball. He could recount how each preferred to take on his opponents, how many ‘Huns’ they were credited with shooting down, and list their gallantry awards; he could even recollect their medal citations:

Of course, I always remembered Gp Capt Taffy Jones MC, DFC, MM, RAF, and his Gung ho motto – ‘Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their bloody eyes!’

Unlike Lee’s cricketing heroes, the reputations of these men, some of whom had earned their Victoria Crosses posthumously, remained untarnished.

Later, like his contemporaries, Lee would become an avid reader of the Captain James Bigglesworth (‘Biggles’) books created by author and former First World War fighter ace, W.E. Johns. Largely ignored by modern generations, Biggles was the essential read for the pre-war youth. First christened in Popular Flying magazine in 1932, the serial came out in book form later that year.

Kenneth knew that neither he nor his father would ever be able to afford for him to take private flying lessons, and so, in the hope of one day emulating his childhood heroes, Kenneth had joined his school’s Cadet Corps, enjoying the Field Days and Annual Camps. The Cadets received instruction from the staff, including ‘Jimmy’ James, who had won the MC at Passchendaele. Kenneth learnt to shoot with the Cadets, and quickly established himself as a crack shot with the rifle. Excelling at his studies, and with a clear objective, Kenneth gained an ‘A’ certificate, which entitled him to officer rank should he later elect to join the Services.

Among the other members of the Cadets was the school’s first casualty of the Second World War, John Hardacre, who was killed in action on 30 September 1940, while serving as a flying officer with the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Another contemporary of Lee was a young Leslie Robinson who, as John Kenneally, earned the VC during the assault on Tunis in 1943, while serving with the Irish Guards.

In about 1927/8 Norman’s old friend Harry Lewis had moved to Birmingham with his work. Harry, who was still an apprentice engineer when he and Norman had last met, had enlisted in the Army during the Great War, serving as a second lieutenant with the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in France, Flanders, Greece and the Middle East.

On demobilization he had married Eva Daley, who was from Bishop’s Aukland, Co. Durham. The couple had emigrated to Bangkok, where he worked as a residential engineer with Samuel Smith & Sons. It was here that their daughter Ruth was born in 1920. Three years later the family was forced to return to England after Harry lost his position due to recurring malaria. Returning to work in Leeds, Harry was later transferred to his firm’s West Midlands branch. Having kept in touch by letter since their days in Leeds, Norman and Harry welcomed the opportunity to become reacquainted. Both of their spouses instantly hit it off and the four quickly became a tight unit.

Saturday mornings, the Lee and Lewis families used to meet in Birmingham for coffee, as Ruth, who was four years Kenneth’s junior, later explained:

We grew up together; Ken was like my older brother. He used to say, ‘I suppose I’d better look after you, even though you are just a girl.’

I remember ‘Uncle’ Norman coming to our house, which was then in King’s Norton, where he helped to entertain the children at one of my birthday parties …

The two families would spend much of their free time together:

Ken used to enjoy hearing stories about my father’s experiences in the Middle East. He would sit for hours taking in every detail of the military operations and their exotic backdrop – little did he know that he would serve there himself during the Second World War.

Ruth recalled that Kenneth’s next-door neighbour was a racing driver and that he had two daughters called Ethel and Elsie. When Ruth and Kenneth’s parents went out dancing, Elsie, who was a little younger than Kenneth, used to come around to see Ruth:

I used to do ballet, and the younger daughter, Elsie, used to get me to show her all the dance steps I had learnt, and I used to do the splits, cartwheels, etc. much to Ken’s amusement.

Ken had a keen sense of humour. In fact he could see the lighter side of just about everything. I remember he was good at languages. He used to tell me jokes in French. I think he was trying to catch me out and hoped I wouldn’t understand the punch-lines … and sometimes I didn’t.

Perhaps more fortunate than many of his contemporaries, Kenneth had nevertheless made the most of his formative years. He had studied hard and curtailed his natural mischievousness, directing his energies instead into sports and the Cadets. Soon he would experience for himself the harsh world beyond the classroom – little did he then know that one day children would be sitting at their desks reading his citation.

CHAPTER 2

New Horizons and the Road to War

Kenneth walked out through the imposing oak doors at King Edward’s for the last time on 1 December 1932, leaving the cosseted world of the classroom for the workplace at a time when the Great Depression was at its very worst – unemployment had hit a record 2,250,000, and the country lay on the verge of bankruptcy.

Finances meant that Kenneth had to turn his back on the possibility of a university education, despite having come top in his year. But he was one of the lucky ones, finding a junior position as a trainee technician with Merry and Minton, Varnish and Paint Manufacturers, on the personal recommendation of Mr Baker. Here he quickly mastered his daily duties, including teaching himself the art of two-finger typing in order to help out with the office paperwork.

Lee soon proved himself, was promoted and was given a job as the firm’s travelling representative, quickly earning it a number of lucrative contracts as well as maintaining its existing client base. He would drive around the Black Country and further afield in the car he had purchased out of his first few months’ wages. This gave Lee the opportunity to develop a good rapport with his customers, and at the same time allowed him to see more of the country; for the time being, at least, Lee’s work satisfied his wanderlust.

It was at about this time that Kenneth’s interest in flying was taken a stage further, with the opportunity to enjoy a series of visits made to the area by Sir Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus. The flying displays took place under the promotional banner of the National Aviation Day Displays, and were very popular affairs that included air-races, wing-walking, aerobatics and parachute descents. From 1933 to 1935 the annual tour-dates included at least four performances in and around Birmingham and Solihull, with seven-minute flights in an Avro 504K available for novices like Kenneth for as little as 4 shillings.

With a regular wage, flexible hours and the opportunity both to travel and to pursue his own interests, Kenneth was settled with his lot. But his world was about to be shaken to the core. Tragedy struck the Lee family in early 1935, when Kenneth’s mother, Nellie, died of heart-failure; she was 43. Evidently Norman was unable to remain at No. 187, where the couple had shared fifteen happy years, and so he sold-up, moving to No. 18 Melstock Road, in neighbouring King’s Heath. For a while he was joined by his sister, Ethel Finley, who had returned from living in Africa in order to help him run his affairs. The three-bedroom house was in a more secluded area of the suburbs. Here, a grief-stricken Norman would eventually form a friendship with Hilda Maud Davies (born at Conway in 1888), whom he married in Birmingham in July 1939.

Meanwhile, the international scene had become dangerous for peaceful nations; with capitalism having seemingly failed, fascism raised its ugly head in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, where they opposed the spread of what appeared to be the main alternative – communism. Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party seized power following the burning of the Reichstag on the eve of the country’s elections on 29 January 1933. In the aftermath President Von Hindenburg was forced to make Hitler Chancellor of the German Reich.

Following the death of the German elder-statesman, Hitler deleted the position of President and declared himself ‘Führer and Reich Chancellor’. Meanwhile, the German armed services were forced to take an oath of allegiance to the Dictator:

I swear by God this sacred oath, that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath.

Germany would soon withdraw from the League of Nations, and in March 1935 began the process of conscription, having announced the formation of the Luftwaffe, something which was banned under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Nazi Germany would soon have a 500,000-strong army and a formidable navy too.

On 15 September 1935, Adolf Hitler outlined his plan for a new Germany at the Nürnberg rally, beginning the persecution of the Jews, intellectuals and anyone who opposed the new dictatorship.

Throughout his formative years Kenneth had been taught the importance of the League of Nations; this had been strongly reinforced by his headmaster, who was an active supporter and had regularly lectured on the subject – King Edward’s had lost 123 former pupils during the Great War.

Fascism had emerged in Great Britain too, under the guise of the Brown Shirts, led by Oswald Mosley. In 1924 he had challenged for the Birmingham seat of Ladywood, which had been held by Neville Chamberlain since 1918. Mosley, who was then acting under the Labour banner, lost by only seventy-seven votes, and only after several recounts.

Chamberlain successfully stood for the safer Conservative seat of Edgbaston in the 1929 elections, making the Lees his constituents. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the coalition National Government two years later and was elected for the final time in 1935. World events, however, would tarnish his final years in office, and his work as Chancellor, when he put the country’s economy back on an even keel, while reducing taxes, has largely been forgotten.

Britain had started on the path to rearmament in 1934, with a strengthening of all of the armed services, particularly the RAF, which was desperately short of pilots and aircraft, while its first monoplane fighter aircraft was still three years away from production.

Since 1929 the RAF had been supplemented by the Auxiliary Air Force (AAF). These ‘weekend flyers’ were expected to provide their own basic equipment and facilities, and many flew their own aircraft when not with their squadrons: flying with the Auxiliaries, then, was a rich man’s pursuit.

Lee was still fired by Harry’s anecdotes of his overseas service and looked at the possibility of learning to fly under one of the government’s new training programmes as a route to a more adventurous life:

I saw an advertisement in the newspaper saying they were going to create a reserve where you could fly in your spare time while still at work. I applied and fortunately became the fourth person to be accepted.

The advert Lee had read was for the newly formed Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR). He sent off an application form and a few weeks later was duly invited to attend a medical. Next came an interview, following which he was accepted as one of the founding members of the fledgling Volunteer Reserve.

Lee was a member of the first VR two-month ‘ab initio’ flying course, which assembled at Perth in Scotland on 25 January 1937. He enlisted first as an AC2 (pilot under training), being promoted to the rank of sergeant on the following day. His service number was 74004.

It was while at No. 11 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School (E&R FTS) Perth that Lee first met James Harry ‘Ginger’ Lacey (74007). In many ways the pair were very much alike: both were courageous and determined, plain speaking, quietly unassuming, but not lacking in self belief.

While at Perth, Lee learned to fly on Tiger Moth trainers, which had a top speed of 90 mph. An ‘outstanding’ pilot, he soloed after only 7 hours on dual-control, being narrowly pipped to the post by Lacey on 6 hours and 55 minutes; RAF pilots generally soloed after 12 hours’ training:

We flew around the airfield a few times before landing. I taxied to the downwind side of the airstrip and stopped. My instructor climbed out onto the wing and ordered me to take off on my first solo. I was told to do a couple of circuits and landings.

His final words were to remember my turning points and to make sure I had established a good glide-in while on my final approach, and then choose my landing spot, and not to worry if I had to go around again …

In the event, Kenneth’s first solo flight was brief but uneventful, and he landed without a hitch – he had taken one more step closer to his dream.

The course was quite intensive, and Lee completed over sixty hours of flying time, graduating onto the Hawker Hart and qualifying as a pilot and receiving his ‘wings’.

Returning to Birmingham and his relative humdrum life, Lee continued with weekend-only flying at No. 9 E&R FTS, Ansty, near Coventry, making the drive over in his grey Singer Le Mans. Here Lee flew Hawker Hind two-seaters, the last RAF biplane light bomber, which was a development of the Hart but with a supercharged engine giving it a top speed of 160 mph.

A full year into his training and Lee’s flying ability was assessed as ‘exceptional’, something rare even among his full-time counterparts, but it wasn’t until 25 May 1938 that he was officially remustered as a pilot.

Lee still needed to be granted an official pilot’s licence, and on 27 July he journeyed to Air Service Training Ltd, Hamble, to demonstrate his skills. The civilian company operated seventeen Avro 631s powered by the Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major 135 hp engine. Kenneth was duly issued with Royal Aero Club Aviator’s Certificate No. 16,077.

World events had moved on. In 1937, following Stanley Baldwin’s retirement in the wake of the abdication of Edward VIII, Neville Chamberlain had become Prime Minister. Then, in September 1938, Europe drew one step closer to war in what was to become known as the ‘Munich Crisis’. While war was averted, Chamberlain returned to Britain with a promise from Adolf Hilter which was to prove worthless: Germany would be permitted to absorb the Sudetenland in exchange for guaranteeing the sovereignty of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. But what if Britain had gone to war? The RAF had fewer than one hundred Hurricanes and no Spitfires; and the Hurricane’s guns froze at altitudes of over 15,000 ft. Two months after Munich, the Air Ministry placed a further order for 1,000 Hawker Hurricanes, and by the end of the year ten squadrons had been equipped with the new fighter. While the back-down had emboldened Hitler, the time it bought would prove crucial to the ultimate outcome of the