CFS3
Pilot Officer Arthur "Taffy" Clowes of No. 1 Squadron RAF, climbing into his Hawker Hurricane Mark I (P3395 "JX-B"), in a revetment at RAF Wittering, Huntingdonshire (UK), 1 October 1940.
P3395 was delivered to the RAF in April 1940 and it was issued to No 1 Squadron upon the unit’s return from France in mid-June 1940. When Clowes took on P3395 as his personal Hurricane, near the end of August 1940, he painted a fearsome looking wasp motif on both sides of the aircraft’s nose underneath the exhaust stubs. Clowes had some skill as an artist and he painted the device himself. The 1 Squadron Hurricanes also had distinctively marked propeller spinners, with a ring of ‘roundel yellow’ painted on the front of the black spinners.
An ill-judged bout of overly high spirits in the Officers’ Mess at RAF Uxbridge in November 1943 resulted in Clowes losing his left eye, which effectively put an end to his flying career. He was employed as a staff officer until, in late 1944, he accepted a permanent commission in the Secretarial Duties Branch, remaining in the RAF after the war.
Tragically, this brave, skilled and tenacious fighter pilot, who had somehow survived all that the enemy could throw at him, died in December 1949, aged only 37, from cancer of the liver. He was buried with full military honours in the quiet churchyard of St Mary Magdalene, Brampton, three days later.
Photographer: S.A. Devon, Royal Air Force official photographer
Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London
Colou: Benjamin Thomas @coloursofyesterday
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