Peter Robert Burton-gyles

Peter Robert Burton-Gyles (service number 40077) was a pre-war regular officer of the Royal Air Force who served as a bomber pilot from the opening months of the Second World War. Flying the Handley Page Hampden, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross at the end of May 1940 while serving with No. 144 Squadron, took part in early raids on Germany, and on 18 July 1941 was gazetted with a Bar to the DFC as a Flight Lieutenant with No. 207 Squadron; he later won the Distinguished Service Order in February 1942 in connection with No. 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron, and his name also appears in the squadron’s record of the Bomber Command attack on Berlin. By late 1943, now a Wing Commander holding the DSO and DFC and Bar, he had moved to the Mediterranean and took command of No. 23 Squadron, an intruder unit flying the de Havilland Mosquito against enemy airfields, road and rail targets over Sicily, Italy and Tunisia. On the night of 10 December 1943 he took off, with his Australian navigator Pilot Officer Eric John Layh, to attack rail and road targets in the Genoa–Milan–Turin area; nothing further was heard from their Mosquito and both men were lost over the Mediterranean. Having no known grave, Wing Commander Burton-Gyles is commemorated on the Malta Memorial (Panel 6, Column 1). (Note: the brief’s “DFM” label is not borne out by the records, which consistently show his decorations as the DSO and DFC and Bar.)