In his words: At the age of 19 I accepted a short - servicecommission in the Royal Air Force in September, 1935, after having had two years at sea as a cadet. I was bored and wanted to fly. After training at No. 3 FTS at Grantham, flying the Avro Tutor, Hawker Hart, Hawker Fury and the Bristol Bulldog, I was glad to pass out with the highest rating available "exceptional" in my log-book. In July 1936, I was posted to my first Fighter Squadron, No. 65(F) at Hornchurch where I flew Hawker Demons, wich were replaced by Gloster Gauntletts, then Gladiators, and finally Spitfires, which we received in late 1938, being one of the first Squadrons to be equipped with this revolutionary aircraft. Consequently, by the outbreak of war I had flown several hundred hours on Spitfires and was thoroughly familiar and confident in it. A tremendous advantage later when going into combat. On the 16th May 1940, I was instructed on a top secret order to fly to Hendon with two other Spitfires. We were to act as fighter escort to an un-armed twin-engined Flamingo, carrying Winston Churchill and a small staff to Le Bourget, for his final attempt to prevail on the French to hold out a little longer. Churchill realised the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk was imminent. After the retum flight to Hendon the next day, Winston thanked us for our escort, but from his expression he left us in no doubt that he had been unsuccessful. My first aerial combat took place over Dunkirk on 23 May 1940, as a <b>...</b>
Robert
Stanford
Tuck
Stanford-Tuck
Bomberguy
