On the 3rd of September 1940 Richard Hillary was shot down during the most intense phase of the Battle of Britain. Richard Hillary was the author of my favourite book, The Last Enemy, which I posted about in Readers Club. He had joined the Oxford University Air Squadron in 1939 and was operational by July 1940. He flew Spitfires and claimed his fifth kill on the day that he was shot down over the sea. He was badly burnt on the face and hands by the time he was able to bail out.
He was rescued by Lifeboat Lord Southborough from the Margate station. Following initial treatments, Archibald McIndoe treated him with his new plastic surgery techniques. Hillary became a member of the Guinea Pig Club, as the beneficiaries of McIndoe’s pioneering surgery called themselves.
Through persistence reminiscent of Douglas Bader, Hillary eventually returned to operational flying, and was killed flying a Blenheim on a night flying exercise on 8th January 1943, along with his radio operator, Wilfred Fison.
The classic 1969 film Battle of Britain tells the story of the battle extremely well. The injuries such as those suffered by Hillary are featured. There is also a grainy but excellent short film on YouTube called A Fighter Pilot’s Story, featuring Richard Hillary. In it Hillary talks of flying fighters as war as it should be. He compares it to duelling knights. He won’t be kneeling behind an enormous gun trying to kill someone sixty miles away. He will fight duels high above the ground in which he will either kill or be killed. He will not be maimed. He was wrong about not being maimed.
There is a scene in Hillary’s The Last Enemy which I adapted and used in a short story, There Must be More. I entered that story in a competition, it was shortlisted, and published in Something Hidden. At last I felt I was a writer.