Ted Thorn

The only time you'll see the word 'Spitfire' in this blog post is in this very sentence, but please bear with me ...

Have you ever heard of the idea of six degrees of separation? The idea that every human on earth is connected to every other human via a maximum of six links ("A knows B, who knows C", etc)? Well, even though we are Dutch and were born and raised in Holland, it turns out that we are connected to a Battle of Britain fighter pilot via only two links ... 

Neil, a former member of our sport kite team mentioned to us recently that his father flew a Defiant in the Battle of Britain. He never knew his father, as he was killed in a crash when Neil was just 16 months old. It didn't take us long to identify Neil's father: ER 'Ted' Thorn (shown in the picture on the left, with moustache).

And Google was helpful finding a few other pictures showing Ted Thorn.

The Defiant was designed as a bomber destroyer. Ted Thorn and his gunner Fred Barker (the Defiant had a crew of two: pilot and gunner) were the most successful Defiant crew during the war, first flying missions during daylight and later in a nightfighter. The 13th and final bomber they shot down was a Heinkel 111, on April 9, 1941.

More information on what happened during that day can be found here. To honour the crew of that Heinkel (one survived, three were killed), a statue was recently unveiled along Hambledon Road near Godalmimg, on the site of the crash.

Ted Thorn was killed on February 12, 1946, when the Gloster Meteor jet he was flying crashed. He was buried in St Peters churchyard, Bishops Waltham.

This cemetery is not far from where we live, so we felt we ought to pay it a visit and see if we could find his grave.

At the entrance of the cemetery is a memorial, on the plinth of which the name E.R. Thorn is inscribed.

It didn't take us long to find Ted Thorn's grave.

As a token of respect, we had brought some flowers.

But not only did we bring some flowers, we also brought two scale models of a Defiant. Both are sporting the letters 'PS', the code for 264 squadron in which Ted Thorn served (though I don't know whether he actually flew either of these Defiants).

One of these models is of a Defiant used in daylight operations ...

... and one is of a nightfighter. 

Both models in their rightful place on Ted Thorn's gravestone ...

If you're interested in knowing some more about the role of the Defiant in the Battle of Britain, this book by Robert Verkaik gives a lot of information, on the development, strenghts and weakness of the aircraft, as well as on its operation history and the politics around its use in the war.

Not surprisingly, Ted Thorn and Fred Barker are mentioned more than once!