Originally Posted by
VX275
This chap never soloed but no one was brave enough to tell him he couldn't wear the wings.
Not so. In March 1943, the RAF was getting ready to celebrate its 25th anniversary on 1 April of that year. Given Churchill’s key role in the early development of military aviation in the UK — not to mention his other noteworthy contributions to Britain’s survival — and knowing of his earlier valiant efforts to learn to fly, the Air Ministry proposed that he should be awarded honorary pilot’s wings to go with his rank of honorary air commodore. King George VI approved of this decision, and so Churchill was informed that as of 1 April 1943, he was being given the right to wear wings on his uniform, as a special honour.He wrote a letter of thanks to the Air Ministry:
I take it as a high compliment that the Air Council should wish to give one of their honorary air commodores his honorary wings.
At this moment we may say without vanity that the Royal Air Force—taken for all in all—is “Second to None.” At this moment it is the spearpoint of the British offensive against the proud and cruel enemy who boasted that he would “erase” the cities of our native land, and hoped to lay all the lands under his toll and thrall. As the world conflict deepens, the war future of the Royal Air Force glows with a still brighter and fiercer light.
I am honoured to be accorded a place, albeit out of kindness, in that comradeship of the air which guards the life of our island and carries doom to tyrants, whether they flaunt themselves or burrow deep.
From that point on, Churchill wore his wings. It still didn’t mean he was allowed to fly RAF aircraft, though he was occasionally permitted to take the controls while in flight.
It was also reported in many newspapers in 1943 at the time. Here is the New York Times story:
https://www.nytimes.com/1943/04/02/a...s-coveted.html