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Wing Commander Brendan Eamonn Fergus Finucane, DSO, DFC & Two Bars (/ f ɪ ˈ n uː k ə n / fin-OO-kən; 16 October 1920 – 15 July 1942), known as Paddy Finucane among his colleagues, was an Irish Second World War Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter pilot and flying ace—defined as an aviator credited with five or more enemy aircraft destroyed in aerial combat.
Audio recording of Spitfire fly-past at the 2011 family day at RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire Supermarine Spitfire G-AWGB landing at Biggin Hill Airport, June 2024. The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II.
After his retirement he became a prolific author, chronicling the Spitfire and its legacy through: Spitfire: A Test Pilot's Story (1983), [2] [14] and Birth of a Legend: The Spitfire (1986). [ 3 ] Having retired with his wife Claire to the Isle of Man , Jeffrey Quill became involved with an annual lecture given by the Association of Manx Pilots ...
Norman Peter Gibbs, born in 1920, was a former Spitfire pilot with No. 41 Squadron RAF in World War II, serving between January 1944 and March 1945. [2] In 1954, nine years after leaving the Royal Air Force, Gibbs became a professional musician and joined the Philharmonia Orchestra, and joined the London Symphony Orchestra two years later.
David Moore Crook portrait by Cuthbert Orde, November 1940, reproduced in Spitfire Pilot (1942). Crook was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions during the battle. The official notice of this award in the London Gazette of 1 November 1940 said he had, "led his section with coolness and judgment against the enemy on many occasions.
A tree protected the remains of a World War II fighter pilot, whose plane crashed in Germany in 1945, for more than 70 years.
The public's first sight of the Spitfire in RAF colours was on Empire Air Day, on 20 May 1939, during a display at Duxford in which the pilot "belly-landed" his aircraft, having forgotten to lower his undercarriage and was fined £5 by the Air Ministry. By the outbreak of the Second World War, there were 306 Spitfires in service with the RAF ...
Johnson's old injury continued to trouble him and he found flying high performance aircraft like the Spitfire extremely painful. RAF medics gave him two options; he could have an operation that would correct the problem, but this meant he would miss the Battle of Britain, or becoming a training instructor flying the light Tiger Moth.