Last night, BBC2 .....
I have never heard of him. Young bloke, RAF pilot WW2, learned in Hurri's and then fell inlove with Spit (no news there then)
He became a Recon man...flying in for photos.
But this bloke was a nutter but brave.
He got involved with the US Airforce. He asked for a stripped out US twin engined bomber (cant remember which one) so it was as fast in level flight as a 109, and then this loonatic came in really really low and massively fast across harbours, through AA and took photos of the naval forces.....he even took sea level fotage of the route to a coastal attack so that the Navy knew where too land ....and he was LOW...
Really phenomenally big balls......he came back from one sorty with the WIRE AERIAL FROM A SHIP stuck in the underside of his plane...
THATS LOW
and he went back, time and again....mad as a march hare.
Then he disappeared and the archives showed sod all...an RAF man in a US plane.....nobody knew.
Mid 90's a German, studying WW2 losses, puts all the info together and works out the field he landed nose first in...they dug..and they found him straight away. That plane was mangled.
Incredible. The pilots who were interviewed thought the world of him. He was one brave bloke