Squadron Leader Leonard Feltham RIP

Kyt · Jul 8, 2009

Squadron Leader Leonard Feltham: wartime Spitfire pilot | Times Online Obituary

Volunteering for the RAF at 17 when the Second World War broke out, Leonard Feltham was a Spitfire pilot throughout most of his wartime service. He flew sorties over France, including the air cover for the Dieppe Raid of 1942; he escorted USAAF bombers on their raids over occupied Europe; he took part in ground attack and air defence operations in support of Montgomery’s victorious Eighth Army as it pursued Axis forces towards Tunis; and he flew tactical air strikes against German ground forces from a base in Normandy after the D-Day landings. At the end of the war, by which time he was serving in the Far East theatre, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Leonard William Feltham was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1921 and educated at St Dunstan’s College, Catford. He had always wanted to fly since reading Teach Yourself to Fly at 14, and when war was declared on September 3, 1939, he volunteered. But before his call-up came through, his father died and he found himself having to run the family café business to support his mother and siblings. So his call-up was deferred until 1941.

After basic instruction in the UK he went to the US to complete training, and went solo on his 20th birthday at Newhall, Pasadena. Gaining his wings in September 1941, he returned to the UK and after converting to Spitfires was posted to 232 Squadron. This was at that time based at Llanbedr in North Wales but began to see much more action when it moved south to Debden, Essex, and Gravesend, Kent, from where it conducted sorties over northern France.

Among these was the hectic air-fighting that took place over the illfated Dieppe Raid of August 19, 1942, staged to test the feasibility of capturing a vital port as part of any future invasion of the Continent. Not only were there heavy casualties among the mainly Canadian attacking ground forces, but the RAF also suffered greater losses than the Luftwaffe that day.

There then followed nine months with 232 Squadron in the Western Desert where the Eighth Army was in pursuit of Rommel in the wake of the Battle of El Alamein, and Axis forces were being squeezed between that advance and the Anglo-American one from French North Africa. Feltham was lucky to escape with his life on two occasions: first when the tail of his Spitfire caught on telephone lines as he came into land, and secondly when he was jumped by an Me109 and shot down, suffering serious injuries to his legs and right arm. His painful journey to hospital in Algiers began on a donkey led by a Bedu who had pulled him from his crashed aircraft in the desert.

By the time he had recovered, Axis forces in North Africa had surrendered in Tunisia and he was posted to the Air Fighting Development Unit, instructing Lancaster and Halifax crews on the tactics of evading night fighters. When he returned to frontline service, with 127 Squadron, the D-Day landings had taken place and its Spitfires were based at Bernay in Normandy. The task was now ground attack sorties against enemy troop concentrations, tanks and transport, for which the Spitfire was equipped with 250lb and 500lb bombs. Allied air superiority over the battlefield, and the ability to strike German armour at will, became the bane of the Wehrmacht.

These sorties, of course, involved their risks. The low-flying tactical strike fighters were vulnerable to mobile flak in whose use the German columns were adept. On one occasion Feltham was lucky to get back to base in one piece when his Spitfire was hit by flak. He arrived back at base with a gigantic hole in the port side of his fuselage and with one of his elevator cables almost severed.

With the war in Europe over, Feltham was posted to the Far East to deliver Spitfires, which had been shipped out in crates and assembled in India, to Burma and then Saigon, for air operations against Japan. He ended his war service as a squadron leader in charge of flying operations at Palam airport, Delhi (now Indira Gandhi international airport).

While overseas he was informed by letter that he had been awarded the DFC. The citation praised the “initiative, courage and determination of a very high order” that he had always displayed in the face of the enemy.

Demobbed in October 1946, he worked for a number of companies before in 1956 joining Brooke Bond whose international relations department he started and ran for the next 30 years, travelling widely in the course of his work. In the 1950s he had also continued flying with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, flying Spitfires with 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron from Biggin Hill.

Leonard Feltham is survived by his wife Patricia, to whom he was married in 1960, and by three sons and a daughter.

Squadron Leader Leonard Feltham, DFC, wartime Spitfire pilot, was born on September 15, 1921. He died on June 4, 2009, aged 87
Click to expand...

Antipodean Andy · Jul 8, 2009

By golly he saw a lot - raids over France including Dieppe and ops in North Africa and over mainland Europe before heading to the Far East. RIP.

Log in or Sign up

Squadron Leader Leonard Feltham RIP

Kyt Άρης

Antipodean Andy New Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Squadron Leader Leonard Feltham RIP

Thread Tools

Kyt Άρης

Antipodean Andy New Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches