‘Jumbo’ Gracie was one of the RAF’s characters and should be well remembered.
In early 1942, with Malta’s Hurricanes outnumbered and out-performed by the later marks of Me109, the AOC, who had been pleading for Spitfires, dispatched ‘Jumbo’ Gracie as his personal ambassador to ram the message home at the Air Ministry. He pressed Malta’s case hard and later led the launch of forty-seven Spitfires from USS
Wasp on 20 April; forty-six arrived safely. Within twenty minutes, there was massive retaliation from the Luftwaffe and, forty-eight hours later, only seven Spitfires were left in working condition.
For a second delivery on 9 May, USS
Wasp and HMS
Eagle launched sixty-four Spitfires. Sixty-one reached Malta safely to find Jumbo Gracie in charge of the ground organisation. Within six minutes, Gracie was at cockpit readiness and the first sixteen were ready to scramble within seven minutes, such was the speed with which the airmen completed refuelling and rearming.
Later as a wing commander, Gracie was Ta’ Qali’s station commander. Shortages were affecting everyone and petty pilfering among civilian field workers prompted him to include the following in routine orders: ‘A gibbet has been erected on the corner of the road leading to the caves. Any man, woman or child, civilian or service personnel, found guilty of sabotage, theft, or in any other way of impeding the war effort and subsequently shot, will be hung from this gibbet as a warning to others.’ Pictures of the gibbet reached the Daily Mirror. The Air Ministry intervened and the gibbet disappeared.
Some of Gracie’s Malta's exploits are covered in a new book to be released in November 2015. It is called:
MALTA’S GREATER SIEGE
&
ADRIAN WARBURTON
DSO* DFC** DFC (USA)
‘The Most Valuable Pilot in the RAF’