Caesar Barraud Hull

Squadron Leader Caesar Barraud Hull was born on 26 February 1914 and grew up on a farm in Southern Rhodesia and Swaziland; a notable all-round sportsman, he boxed for South Africa at the 1934 Empire Games before joining the RAF in 1935. Flying the Gloster Gladiator over Norway in 1940 he became the RAF’s first Gladiator ace and the most successful British fighter pilot of that campaign, work that brought him the Distinguished Flying Cross. Appointed to command his old unit, No. 43 Squadron, at the height of the Battle of Britain, he was killed on 7 September 1940 — during the first great daylight raid on London — shot down over Surrey by a Messerschmitt Bf 109 as he dived to the aid of a comrade, Flight Lieutenant Richard Reynell. He is buried in the churchyard at Tangmere, among other fighter pilots of the battle.