Derek Pierre Aumale Boitel-gill

Derek Pierre Aumale Boitel-Gill was born on 13 March 1911 at Claygate, Surrey. He entered the Royal Air Force as a young man, holding a short-service commission and flying Bristol Bulldogs with No. 3 Squadron in the early 1930s before leaving to fly commercially for Imperial Airways and, for a time, piloting the private aircraft of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Recalled on the outbreak of war, he joined No. 152 Squadron as a flight commander, converting to the Supermarine Spitfire. During the Battle of Britain he proved an aggressive and skilful pilot, and in one August 1940 engagement his squadron met a large escorted bomber formation, with Boitel-Gill himself credited with three of the enemy destroyed; this leadership earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross, gazetted in October 1940. He rose to command the squadron, later moving to No. 59 Operational Training Unit. On 18 September 1941 he was killed when his Hurricane crashed during practice flying. He was thirty.