history · 29 November 1942 · 82 years ago
Despite serious wounds, RAF Pilot Officer Ron Middleton flew his Stirling bomber back from Turin allowing four crewmen to bale out over Kent before he ran out of fuel. Knowing he could not land and anxious to avoid civilian casualties, he turned the aircraft towards the coast and went into the English Channel with two seriously wounded crewmen still on board. Their bodies were recovered on the next day but Middleton's was not found until it is washed up on the coast in the following February. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
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