Volunteer Aces of Churchill’s Few

It has been many decades since the skies over southern Britain were filled with the sound and fury of the Battle of Britain. In that desperate fight, one band who had joined as part-time pilots before the war would play a vital role in eventual victory.

Formed in October 1924, the Auxiliary Air Force (AAF) provided fourteen of the sixty-two RAF fighter squadrons involved in the battle. The AAF pilots, alongside those of the RAF Volunteer Reserve who also trained in their spare time, provided some of the highest scoring RAF aces in the fighting in the summer of 1940. These former part-timers helped these squadrons achieve 30 per cent of the enemy ‘kills’ achieved in the battle. Indeed, the first Spitfire squadron to claim 100 enemy aircraft destroyed was No. 609 (West Riding) Squadron – an Auxiliary unit.

The book captures the sense of adventure these young weekend flyers showed. This was typified by an early achievement of the Auxiliary squadrons – the staging of the first flight over Mount Everest in 1933 by the CO of No. 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron. One their pilots, Flight Lieutenant Findlay Boy, joined in 1935 while working as a mining engineer and he would go on to score the fastest victory of the battle, downing a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka less than a minute after taking off.

Such were their endeavours in the Battle of Britain that the then Air Vice Marshal Keith Park, AOC 11 Group, summed up their vital contribution by stating that, ‘Without the Auxiliaries we would not have defeated the Luftwaffe in 1940’. Likewise, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding was to say at the height of the battle ‘Thank God for the RAFVR!’

Today, the Royal Auxiliary Air Force is the main reserve component for the regular RAF. It consists of paid volunteers who support RAF operations in the UK and around the world in their spare time.

With astonishing tales of bravery, skill and dedication, Volunteer Aces of Churchill’s Few tells the story of those pilots – both Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve who flew with the squadrons of the AAF – a most remarkable band within ‘The Few’.

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