Hi Stuart, I was at RAF Valley, RAF Brawdy and Lossiemouth with Russ. He was good fun, a talented pilot and well liked by students and staff during training. At Brawdy he was having problems with air to ground gunnery. He wasn’t getting close enough to the target before firing — not unusual as flying a Hunter at nearly 500 mph in a dive towards the ground was fraught with danger. He continued having problems and he was given one last chance to sort it out. That morning he turned up on the Squadron wearing a white bandana with a rising sun motif on the front around his forehead as per Kamikaze pilots. ‘Going to get in close today’ was his comment and he did.
He was on the course ahead of me at Lossiemouth and my wife and I were staying in the Officer’s Mess whilst we looked for accommodation. We came out of the dining room as Russ came down the stairs and we chatted for 10 minutes or so. He was killed soon after and my wife still dreams of that last conversation with him. We liked him a lot. Kind regards Chris Underhill