A Spitfire Pilot - Part 24
72 Sqn June 1942 to Lympne, Oxspring takes over from Kingcome
At the end of June the squadron was moved down to Lympne and we could never find out why inasmuch as all we did were convoy patrols and general stooging round the Channel and nothing very exciting happened. The only good thing was that the officers were billeted in Sir Phillip Sassoon’s house which was a magnificent place, not very far from Lympne aerodrome, with a swimming pool in the garden and when we weren’t on duty, we’d lie about in the garden and go swimming. It really was most pleasant. We also had a talk by a chap who’d been shot down over Germany, a bomber bloke, and managed to escape and we were most interested in this, because the one thing that worried us was getting shot down and becoming as prisoner and any gen on how to avoid becoming a prisoner and getting back was always good.
I can well remember him telling us, or giving us the gen on various points of disguise and he was wearing an overcoat which didn’t really seem to disguise him much, he still looked like an RAF officer to me, but then he pulled out an old cap from his pocket and stuck it on his head and with a sort of half-bent look, you wouldn’t have thought it was the same chap. It was a quite interesting talk.
I had a bit of a surprise one day while we were at Lympne. I was looking out of the dispersal window and there was my aircraft being painted with great white stripes. So I rushed out to find out what they were doing and who’d given them permission and was told that orders had come down from on high that all the aircraft were to have broad white stripes painted on them. So there we were, nothing you could do about it. Anyway, the following day we were sent back to Biggin and told that the white stripes were to come off and I can only imagine that the Dieppe raid, which took place about a month later, had previously been arranged for the week we were at Lympne and that’s why we were down there, but I never got any farther than that.
Brian Kingcome was promoted to Wing Commander Flying at Kenley and we were most sorry to see him go because, as I’ve said before, he was not only a brilliant pilot, a great leader, but a very charming chap all round and Bob Oxspring, who took over from him, wasn’t really in the same class. A nice enough chap but we never really felt the same with him.
Group Captain Kingcome and his example as an officer, leader and fighter pilot remained with my father for the rest of his life. When my brother expressed an interest in joining the RAF, my father told him it had to be via the RAF College at Cranwell, which had enhanced and produced the qualities he held dear, in Brian Kingcome.