Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry


65 Squadron, Hornchurch - Battle of France, Dunkirk


Having been selected for one of the five vacancies with Fighter Command that year, he enjoyed ‘a most marvellous life...if I wanted to take off and fly up to a friend of mine who had an airfield or station somewhere a hundred mile away for lunch, I would just go. It went down as flying training. I didn’t have to get permission or flight paths. I just went. If you wanted to do aerobatics, you just went.’ (A Willingness to Die, B. Kingcome refers) As a newly appointed Pilot Officer, he flew Gloster Gladiators from the late summer of 1938 but within a few months the squadron’s dated biplanes were replaced, ‘The most significant event at pre-war Hornchurch came about when we re-equipped from Gladiators to Spitfires, somewhere between six and nine months before the war began. As one of the first squadrons to be re-equipped, we gained the huge advantage that we were already experienced Spitfire pilots by the time we came to the outbreak of war, and most importantly by the time of the Dunkirk evacuation. Dunkirk was, indeed, the first occasion on which the home-based fighters saw any sustained action.’ (Ibid) Although not sent to France with the B.E.F., he took part in the battle of France, sharing a Dornier 17 on May 25, and was tasked with providing cover for Operation Dynamo, the withdrawal from the beaches of Dunkirk, ‘At Hornchurch the taste of war at last began to tingle our palates as we anxiously followed the desperate retreat of the Allied troops as they were slowly driven into a coastal trap around Dunkirk... My vantage point for the unfolding epic was in the air above the beaches... As I sat in the relative safety of my Spitfire cockpit, it was the clouds that were my main problem. Our orders had sent us in at 30,000ft, too high for the best of the action, whereas the Hurricanes were patrolling at 15,000 feet. Needless to say we cheated and kept slipping down to see what was happening... the task of providing air cover was hampered not only by the extent of the cloud cover but also by its nature. It stood in patchy layers from about 1,000ft upwards - ideal for marauding bombers but not for our purposes... allowing little time for interception... Nevertheless I managed to fire my guns in anger for the first time, and had the basic fact brought home which I tried to forget: namely, that while the aircraft in your sites was an inanimate object, the human beings it contained were frail flesh and blood. In those early days the German bombers carried little or no armour, and one of the first indications that you were registering hits (especially on the Heinkel 111) came with the spectacle of the guns arching suddenly upwards as the unfortunate gunners died and slumped.’ (ibid)


92 Squadron, Biggin Hill - Battle of Britain


Kingcome destroyed two Heinkels on 2 June, damaging a third and was posted to 92 Squadron as Flight Commander following the loss of two of their Flight Commanders, and the Squadron Leader, Roger Bushell, over Calais on 23 May. He revelled in the spirit and personalities of his new Spitfire Squadron, ’To my mind 92 Squadron always had the special ingredient which sets certain people or groups apart from the rest - a small, indefinable quality in the alchemy that gives an edge, a uniqueness. This quality can never be duplicated or planned for, but somehow it comes into being and is aptly called ‘spirit’. It always begins at the top, and 92’s exceptional spirit undoubtedly had its origins in the outstanding personalities of the original squadron and flight commanders. It then continued to flourish in the fertile soil of the rich mix of characters who made up this exceptional fighting unit: determined, committed young men, intent on squeezing the last drop of living from whatever life might be left to them at the same time as they refused to take themselves or their existence too seriously. They came from all walks of life... there was Neville Duke and ‘Wimpy’ Wade, both outstanding airmen who survived the war with distinguished and much-decorated careers and became household names as test pilots. There was also Allan Wright, an ex-Cranwell cadet, extremely bright and professorial even in those far-off days, but a determined and successful pilot, and then the youngest of them all Geoff Wellum, aged 17 and known as ‘Boy’ because of his age. And there were Don Kingaby and ‘Titch’ Havercroft, two of the R.A. F.’s most successful NCO pilots, both of whom finished up as Wing Commanders, Don having a unique distinction in earning a D.S. O... and three D.F.M.s... Above all, there was Bob Tuck, extrovert and flamboyant... In the air he was a total professional, none was more highly respected.’


92 Squadron, with the loss of six pilots, had been particularly hard hit in the recent fighting and so, during June, were moved toPembrey in Wales, out of the front line, where they replaced lost planes and injected some new blood. Here they remained, guarding the West Country ports until the end of August. By then, however, Kingcome had shared in the destruction of a Junkers 88 on 10 July (unconfirmed) and been credited with a share of another Junkers 88 on 24 July, ‘early one morning I was out on patrol leading a section of three of my aircraft from A Flight when we ran into a lone Junkers 88 on the approach to Cardiff, looking suspiciously as if it was on a photo-reconnaissance flight. It was a clear morning without cloud cover, and three Spitfires coming in on its rear end, the unfortunate German aircraft never stood a chance. We watched the pilot as he took his plane down in its terminal dive southwards, pulling up just before he hit the water and scraping the top of the cliffs on the north Devon coast, not far from Minehead, before crashing on to the headland above. He finished up on a fairly level stretch of scrub and grass, so after we had returned to base, I climbed into a Magister... and re-crossed the Bristol Channel to land in the field next to the devastated hulk... One of the crew still lay where he had died, an enormous young man... both blond and beautiful. So much of a type did he seem that I thought at once he must have come straight off Dr. Goebbel’s drawing board...


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