There were very few doctor pilots in the RAF. Air Marshal Sir Geoffrey Dhenin was certainly one of note, whose career we now know something of, thanks to the wide net cast by Centaurus. Another was a former Director General of Medical Services in the RAF, Sir Philip Livingston. His book Fringe of the Clouds is well worth the search, as it tells in his own words the story of the life of this exceptionally talented man.
One of his obituaries reads -
Air Marshal Sir Philip Clermont Livingston, KBE, CB, AFC, FRCS
Air Marshal Sir Philip Clermont Livingston, known to all his friends as P.C., died on 13 February 1982 at his home in Canada at the age of 88. He was an outstanding individual - not only because of his splendid physique but because he was endowed with a personality that was at once individual, attractive, kind, sympathetic, and above all enthusiastic.
Born in Vancouver on 2 March 1893 of British parents, he came to the UK on the death of his father and became an undergraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge, where in 1914 he gained a rowing blue. He rowed number 3 in the winning Cambridge University crew in March 1914. After passing his second MB he joined the RNVR, and from 1914 to 1917 served as surgeon-probationer on torpedo boat destroyers and armoured cruisers.
After qualifying at the London Hospital he elected in May 1919 to join the medical branch of the then embryonic Royal Air Force and proceeded, with foresight, to take the diploma of public health followed by qualifications in ophthalmic medicine and surgery and the FRCS of Edinburgh. He was later elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
In 1929 he was posted to Iraq as General Surgeon in the RAF, and while there he gained wide experience at the Royal Baghdad Eye Hospital, at the same time learning to fly and gaining his Wings. He then began to study the effect of sun glare on flying personnel in Iraq.
In 1934 he was appointed consultant in ophthalmology and he remained consultant until 1947. In 1937 he made a tour of medical establishments in Germany used for the selection of future German air force pilots. It was a result of this visit that the then inferior flying equipment of the RAF was redesigned, and apparatus for evaluating the physiological needs of pilot and air crew was constructed. The 22 feet long low-pressure chamber, the human centrifuge, the depth perception and night vision apparatus, and the redesign of RAF goggles are some examples of his drive and foresight.
He regularly attended the Congresses of the Ophthalmic Society of the United Kingdom and gave some interesting papers, including 'Heterophoria in aviation, its significance and treatment', in 1941 and 'Ocular disturbances associated with malnutrition' in 1948.
All this is admirably summed up in an appreciation which appeared in The Aeroplane:
'Livingston, who was a Specialist in Ophthalmology to the
RAF during the War, perhaps because of his personal
experience of a pilot's needs, was better able than most
specialists to appreciate the limitations of the consulting
room. His deep knowledge of human nature, coupled with
his ophthalmic skill and long acquaintance with aviation,
allowed him in passing men for flying duties in the RAF
to offset optical infirmities by flying experience and
courage. Many pilots, well below the accepted standards
of vision, owe their flying careers to Sir Philip's
perspicacity.'
He was appointed Deputy Director General of Medical Services (RAF) in 1947 and was promoted to the post of Director General one year later. He held this appointment until he retired in 1951. His honours and awards included the OBE in 1938, the AFC in 1942, the CBE in in 1946 and in the same year also the Medal of Merit (Czechoslovakia), the CB in 1948, and the KBE in 1950. He was honorary surgeon to the King from 1948 to 1950 and was a Commander of the Order of St John. He won the Chadwick Prize and Gold Medal for research and he gave the Montgomery, Moynihan, and Chadwick lectures in 1942-45. On retirement he returned to Vancouver Island, where he continued to practise ophthalmology and where he wrote an interesting autobiography entitled Fringe of the Clouds (1962).
He was married in 1920 to Lorna Muriel, only daughter of CW Legassicke Crispin, of London. He is survived by his widow and one of his two sons.
T. Keith Lyle, in The Journal of Ophthalmology, July 1982.
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If any PPRuNer can find an obit for Dr Matthew Banks, an Australian
plastic surgeon who worked with Sir Archibald MacIndoe, attained in the War his RAF Wings, and later flew his Miles Gemini far and wide throughout Europe and the Middle East, working as a plastic surgeon for the rich and notable, I'd be most interested to read a copy. Dr Banks' biography (No Man Despairs) was written by Alan Mitchell, who also wrote one on Neville Duke.
Last edited by Fantome; 3rd May 2015 at 16:36.