From the 501 Squadron Record of Events for 25/4/1942
“Sweep to Cherbourg. 11 a/c took off, only 6 returned. (5 planes took off at 15:30 and 6 at 15:35). FO Palmer-Tomkinson, F/O Wheldon were missing. Sgt. Rocovsky (Miroslav Rocovski, Czech) was seen to bale out off Cherbourg but his parachute was not seen to open, and Sgt. Vrtis (Karel Urtis, Czech) was seen to go into the sea. (Urtis was in the 2nd group of planes to take off, the other casualties were in the first group.) Sgt. Blair force-landed near Swanage (an entry on the previous page says he crash landed at Worth Matravers) owing to engine trouble and was injured.”
“This heavy casualty list of experienced pilots was the result of an encounter with 6 ME109F’s which made the most of mist and cloud cover to make tip and run attacks.”
An earlier post on some of this:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/archiv...p?t-37848.html
The four missing:
Urtis:
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/fi...5/karel-urtis/
Parker-Tomkinson:
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/fi...mer-tomkinson/
Rocovski:
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/fi...slav-rocovski/
Wheldon:
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/fi...obert-wheldon/
A little on Ian Blair:
https://www.militarygallery.co.uk/si...?Signature=370