Fg Off Robin Plumtree was the son of AVM Eric Plumtree. When the latter was a young Plt Off, he served as a Blenheim pilot on 53 Squadron. On 27 October 1940, he set off from Detling to attack shipping off Den Helder in T2132/R. He and his crew ended up in a running battle with three Bf 110s of ZG76.
Plt Off Plumtree, Sgt Wood and Sgt PM Kinsey were badly injured and their aircraft was very badly damaged but they managed to land at Martlesham Heath. Plt Off Plumtree was awarded the DFC two days later and Sgt Kinsey the DFM.
He retired as an AVM and settled into a nearby village just behind my local pub. I shared the odd drink with "Plum" and his good lady. He still had bits of shrapnel in his head from the Bf 110 encounter and later in his life the shrapnel started to give him trouble.
It seemed totally ironic to me that he had managed to survive this attack and several other events in WW II and here was his son getting killed on a training flight on a 4-engined C-130 aircraft in peacetime.