• THANK you for publishing my letter about the Royal Air Force’s failure to support naval aviation for almost 100 years, (Navy needs aircraft, September 28).

How appropriate it was that mine followed Mike Baess’s letter saluting the late David McCallum, for he played the part of naval aviator Lieutenant Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt in the film The Great Escape (1963).

I like to think that McCallum was playing the part of one of the 56 naval aviators, from both the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, who flew in the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940.

Most of these naval aviators flew with 804 Naval Air Squadron and 808 Naval Air Squadron over the skies of southern England and the Channel, but some flew with RAF squadrons.

These few among “The Few” are seldom acknowledged by the RAF but the squadron badges are on the Battle of Britain Monument on the Victoria Embankment.

Here’s a fun pub quiz question. When last did an RAF aircraft shoot down an enemy combat aircraft in action?

The answer is 1945 (some claim 1991 but that is not supported by official RAF sources).

All enemy combat aircraft shot down by British aircraft in action since 1945 have been rightly claimed by naval aviators of the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm.

LESTER MAY, NW1
Lieutenant Commander
Royal Navy, retired