大象传媒

My father Ron Smith was a pilot with 56 squadron from (approx)1942 onwards, and left the service in 46 at the rank of flight ltnt, he flew in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Typhoon,and Tempest although I am uncertain if all these aircraft were assigned to 56.Of all the aircraft he flew his favourite was the typhoon, he said he found it a challenging machine and an exhilirating flight.On his memory of the spitfire he was not as impressed, he felt that once in the air it was a wonderful machine but the long nose made it difficult when taxiing and preparing for take off.
My family have a number of photos of my father whilst with the squadron and during his time in Germany at the end of the war.
He died in 1999 and we discovered numerous photo`s, some of them labelled. These are all in the possession of my family, I will hopefully upload the the photos onto this site soon.
One of the items he had was a signed Pin Up photo of Lana Turner with the inscription "to the Boys of 56 squadron love Lana Turner" unfortunately he seems to have removed it from his album prior to his death,and we are still trying to locate it.
Rons nearest brush with death was when taking off for a patrol, his anti tank bombs had been fitted incorrectly , fell out of their cradle and blew off his undercarriage, he circled the airfield to burn off most of his fuel before he successfully crash landed the plane walking away without a scratch.

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