Last Of “Flying Barnwells” Dies Fighting

Northern Advocate, 10 January 1942, Page 8

Last Of “Flying Barnwells” Dies Fighting

i As enemy planes crossed the coas of Malta at dawn on October 14. wildl emptying their machine-guns, Hurri canes pounced on them. Minutes late a listener at the Fighter Comman control room heard in his earphone; “Tally Ho! Tally Ho! Got one! Gc one!’’ Five minutes of silence, then th voice again: “Baling out. Engine cu —am baling out. Am coming dowi in sea.” The silence was not broken agair The voice was that of 19-year-ol< Hurricane pilot David Usher Barnwell last of the three R.A.F. sons of th' designer of the Blenheim and th< Beaufort warplanes, who himself los his life testing a new aircraft in 1938 Late that night the crew of a R.A.F rescue launch came back empty-hand-ed after a plane-escorted search lasting 14 hours. Now David Usher Barnwell is posted “missing, believed killed.” John Sanders Barnwell, second o: the three sons—the “flying Barnwells’ —was first to die. He shot down one of the three Heinkels and was last seen chasing the' other two. His body wa; washed ashore. Eldest son, Richard Anthony Barnwell, sent his last message out from his bomber returning from raiding Germany. The Bristol wife and mother who has lost all for Britain is of the same mettle that sustained her fighting sons in battle. When David won his D.F.C., a month ago, after destroying his fourth Italian aircraft, she said: “I hate flying.” But she cabled her surviving airman son: “Cheers! That’s the stuff to give ’em! An extra kiss from me.”