Hugh William Eliot

Hugh William Eliot was born in Lewisham, London, on 16 April 1921, and worked for Lloyds Bank after schooling at St Dunstan’s College and Dulwich College before taking a short service commission in the RAF in mid-1939. Flying Hawker Hurricanes, he saw action in the Battle of France with No. 73 Squadron in May 1940 and went on to fly in the air fighting over southern England, before being posted to the besieged island of Malta in late 1940, where he served with Nos. 261 and 185 Squadrons; the DFC announced in the London Gazette on 23 September 1941 (the citation gazetted on 26 September 1941) recognised this period of fighter and night-fighting work. Moving to night fighters, he flew Bristol Beaufighters with No. 255 Squadron and in September 1944 took command of No. 256 Squadron in Italy, operating the de Havilland Mosquito. By the war’s end he was credited with around nine enemy aircraft destroyed across several theatres. On the night of 4 March 1945, while attacking a bridge in northern Italy in Mosquito HK178, his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he was killed alongside his navigator, Flight Lieutenant W. T. Cox; he was 23. Eliot was buried in Argenta Gap War Cemetery in Italy, and the Distinguished Service Order he had earned was gazetted after his death.