By: wilhelm - 18th January 2005 at 08:40
Good grief..I wasn’t aware that Pattle actually scored a portion of his victories flying a bi-plane! Are there any clues as to what happened to the squadron records? ie. were they destroyed by the British definitively or captured by the Germans? I always thought ‘Sailor” Malan was the top scoring South African pilot.
By: fuji - 18th January 2005 at 08:39
Top scoring ace on twins & most decorated was Bob Braham, read about this little known ace at
http://www.tauntonschool.co.uk/alumni/obituaries/files/BRAHAM.html
By: JDK - 18th January 2005 at 07:58
Hi Wilhelm,
Pattle’s record of kills were lost when the British were kicked out of Greece. There was (and is) very little information on him, because of this campaign. However, there seems to be little doubt that he exceeded any other Commonweath ace’s score by some way. We (www.mmpbooks.biz) are in the process of publishing a book on Pattle (written by our lovely Alex Crawford – sa hello Alex!) and we’d love it is anyone has any further info to that widely diseminated. A good primer is here: http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/commonwealth_pattle.htm
And to clarify nationality – Pattle was a South African, flying with the RAF. Johnson was a Brit flying for some of his career with a Canadian wing.
Cheers!
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January 18, 2005 at 7:52 am