[nick de carteret]

Thanks for your detailed information fireship, it is exactly what I was looking for. I first heard of this incident when reading my uncle's wartime flying memoir but it did not give a huge amount of detail as to the participants. If I might quote:

"In July, 8th Army decided to counterattack, unsuccessfully as it turned out. I was to move the Wing forward to a LG just a few miles behind the line so as to have the benefit of extra range. This we did in the late afternoon, keeping below two hundred feet to be beneath the German radar.

I was in the Wing's caravan talking to a TA Gunner Colonel, when one of the squadrons was suddenly scrambled. On take off they were jumped by a formation of 109s and seven of ours were shot down, some without even having time to raise their wheels. I had to learn to become used to casualties but this was about the worst shock I had in the whole of the war. Strangely, Mike Young, the squadron CO had been my pupil at Hamble a few years previously. Luckily he was spared. The Germans had taken a leaf from our book. We had been harassing them with Spitfires in the same way over their own LGs."

It wasn't until recently through a different interest that I had the great privilege of meeting and becoming friends with a New Zealand pilot who was a member of 213 Squadron during this period, who had actually been shot down and captured three weeks before the incident.

He kindly allowed me to photostat a sheet of paper from an exercise book, that had been signed by all 21 pilots in the Squadron and is dated 25 May 1942. What an amazing artifact, as I now find that it contains the signatures of all the names provided above by fireship as well as a famous pilot who was commander of 'B' flight at the time.

My uncle must have been mistaken when he says that seven were shot down as the involvement of five Hurricanes seems to be the accepted number.

Thanks if anybody else has further info on this.