Gloster Gladiator

Fighter · Gloster Aircraft Company · United Kingdom

Gloster Gladiator
ⓘ licence & creditAirwolfhound / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gloster_Gladiator_7985K.jpg
Typical crew1
Engines1 × Bristol Mercury
First flight1934
Number built747

Photographs

Artist's impression (by Seán Pòl Ó Creachmhaoil) of the Gloster Gladiator flown by Bermudian Flying Officer Herman Francis Grant "Baba" Ede, DFC, during the Battle of Norway. Ede was the first Bermudian killed in the Second World War, dying along with most aboard the aircraft carrier, HMS Glorious, when she was sunk while evacuating his 263 Squadron from Norway on 8 June, 1940. Ede was one of numerous Bermudians who served as aircrew in the Royal Air Force, Fleet Air Arm, and the Royal Canadian Air Force during the war (see Royal Air Force, Bermuda, 1939-1945).
ⓘ licence & creditAodhdubh / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gloster_Gladiator_of_Bermudian_Flying_Officer_Herman_Francis_Grant_Ede_DFC.jpgView source & full licence →
Image from the Charles Daniels Photo Collection album "British Aircraft." PLEASE TAG this image with any information you know about it, so that we can permanently store this data with the original image file in our Digital Asset Management System. SOURCE INSTITUTION: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive
ⓘ licence & creditSan Diego Air & Space Museum Archives / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gloster_Gladiator_Mk.I_L8032,_(15649991679).jpgView source & full licence →
PictionID:42252358 - Title:Gloster Gladiator Gloster Gladiator N5525 - Catalog:15_003251 - Filename:15_003251.tif - ---- Image from the Charles Daniels Photo Collection album "English Aircraft"----PLEASE TAG this image with any information you know about it, so that we can permanently store this data with the original image file in our Digital Asset Management System.----SOURCE INSTITUTION: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive
ⓘ licence & creditSan Diego Air & Space Museum Archives / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gloster_Gladiator_Gloster_Gladiator_N5525_(17122198846).jpgView source & full licence →
ⓘ licence & creditPublic domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gloster_Gladiator_ExCC.jpgView source & full licence →
ⓘ licence & creditPublic domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gloster_Gladiator_3_ExCC.jpgView source & full licence →
ⓘ licence & creditneznámý (unknown) / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gloster_Gladiator_(motor_Merkur_IX).jpgView source & full licence →
Fleet Air Arm pilots and a Gloster Gladiator at HMS SPARROWHAWK, the Royal Naval Air Station at Hatston on Orkney, April 1942. With a chart spread on the wing of a Gloster Gladiator, the Commanding Officer of the squadron gives pilots of Blackburn Skuas and Rocs their instructions before taking off from HMS SPARROWHAWK, the Royal Naval Air Station at Hatston, Orkney. The radio operator (rating with headphone on sitting in cockpit) is receiving last minute messages.
ⓘ licence & creditCoote, R G G (Lt), Royal Navy official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fleet_Air_Arm_pilots_and_a_Gloster_Gladiator_at_HMS_SPARROWHAWK,_the_Royal_Naval_Air_Station_at_Hatston_on_Orkney,_April_1942._A8220.jpgView source & full licence →
Seven Gloster Gladiators of No. 3 Squadron RAAF make a low pass in loose line abreast formation over the Squadron's mobile operations room at their landing ground near Sollum, Egypt, from which they operated during "Operation Compass". The aircraft were returning from a patrol over Bardia. The squadron's mobile operations room is in the left foreground.
ⓘ licence & creditH. Hensser, Royal Air Force official photographer; The original uploader was Hawkeye7 at English Wikipedia. (21 October 2009 (original upload date)) / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bardia_SUK14908.jpgView source & full licence →
Aircraft of the Royal Air Force- Gloster Gladiator. Gladiator Mark II, N5786, of No. 3 Squadron RAAF, airborne from their landing ground near Sollum, Egypt, during the last stages of the British assault on Bardia (Operation COMPASS).
ⓘ licence & creditHensser H (Mr), Royal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aircraft_of_the_Royal_Air_Force-_Gloster_Gladiator._CM358.jpgView source & full licence →
IWM caption : Gloster Gladiators of 33 Squadron, Royal Air Force, at RAF Ismailia, Egypt.
ⓘ licence & creditnot stated. assumed British Government / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:33_Squadron_RAF_Gladiators_Egypt_IWM_H(AM)_185.jpgView source & full licence →

About

The Gloster Gladiator was the last biplane fighter to serve with the RAF, and the first RAF fighter to have an enclosed cockpit — an aircraft poised on the boundary between two eras. Designed in the early 1930s and in service from 1937, it was already obsolescent by the outbreak of war, outclassed by the monoplane fighters that followed it, with a top speed of barely 250 mph.

Yet the Gladiator fought hard in the war’s early campaigns — over Norway, in the Western Desert and East Africa, and most famously over Malta in 1940, where a handful of Sea Gladiators of the Hal Far Fighter Flight helped defend the island in its first weeks under siege. The legend that just three aircraft, later christened Faith, Hope and Charity, held off the Italian air force is a simplification — several machines were used — but it captured the defiant spirit of Malta’s defence.

Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including Gloster Gladiator — Wikipedia and Malta's Faith, Hope, and Charity, 1940 — The National WWII Museum. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.

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