GISBORNE D.F.C.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24491, 27 December 1940, Page 7

GISBORNE D.F.C.

CAREER IN AIR FORCE PART IN RAIDS ON BERLIN Acting Flight Lieutenant Desmond H Barker, of Gisborne, who has been awarded the D.F.C.. is the elder son of Mr and Mrs Richard Barker, Russell street, Gisborne, and before the outbreak of war was practising as a barrister in Lincolns Inn, London. He completed his studies at Cambridge University in 1939, and was associated with a legal firm in Lincolns Inn when war broke out. Acting Flight Lieutenant Barker interested himself in aviation at the University and qualified early as a pilot officer of the Royal Air Force, for which service he entered immediately after the declaration of hostilities being attached to a bomber squadron. He made rapid progress and was in many long-distance raids over Germany and enemy occupied territory. He won promotion to the rank oi acting flight lieutenant in three of the raids in'which he took part up to the beginning of November over Berlin, She elpressed in letters to relatives in Gisborne his satisfaction in being able to hand back to, the enemy a large dose of the frightfulness German airmen practised in Britain through the Roval Air Force consistently going for military objectives. His younger brother, Richard- Barker, junior, has heen accepted for service with trie Roval New Zealand Air Force and will commence his training early in the New Year.