1000TH PLANE CELEBRATED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 137, 11 June 1943, Page 5

1000TH PLANE CELEBRATED

LONDON, June 9.

Group Captain A. G. Malan invited 1000 guests to a dance at Grosvenor House tonight to celebrate the Biggin Hill R.A.F. station shooting down its 1000 th German plane. The guests, who were members of the R.A.F., and their women folk, ranged from junior pilot officers to two air chief marshals —Sir Arthur Harris, Bomber Command, and Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Fighter Command. The "Daily Express" says that those present also included the exuberant New Zealander Wing Commander Alan Deere, who now leads a wing at Biggin Hill, and also Squadron Leader Jack Charles and the Fighting French pilot Rene, who tied in registering the 1000 th plane. (Special P.A. Correspondent.) (Rec. noon) LONDON, June 10. Among many outstanding New Zealand airmen who attended the dance to celebrate the thousandth plane shot jdown by the Biggin Hill station were Wing Commanders P. G. Jameson (Lower Hutt), E. P. Wells (Cambridge), and I. S. Smith (Auckland), Squadron Leaders R. W. Baker (Dunedin), commanding officer of the New Zealand Spitfire Squadron, W. V. C. Compton (Auckland), J. N. McKenzie (Balclutha), Flight Lieutenant A. E. Umbers (Dunedin), Pilot Officer F. Murphy (Wellington), from the New Zealand Typhoon Squadron, and also several men of the New Zealand Spitfire Squadron. The names of Group Captain A. G. Malan, D.S.O. and Bar, D.F.C. and Bar, and Wing Commander Deere, who were flight lieutenants together, received the D.F.C. from the King together, and later the bar to the D.F.C. together, appeared on a huge crest indicating i the various squadrons which had been stationed at Biggin Hill.