No. 24 Squadron

Pilot Officer Louis Strange, DSO, MC, DFC, an air movements officer with No 24 Squadron, coaxes three unserviceable Hurricanes into flyable condition at Merville airfield. Faced with the imminent arrival of German ground-forces, he finds two pilots who have been shot down, allocates them a Hurricane each, and tells them to make for England. With the Germans not far away, he takes off in the third Hurricane and flies it home, unarmed, pursued by German fighters which he shakes off. He has never flown a Hurricane before. For this he is awarded a second DFC. The first had been earned in 1918.

For more information about Louis Strange, visit his Wikipedia page.

Pilot Officer Ron Hockey flies four unnamed passengers from Hendon to Le Bourget. It is a routine flight until his D.H.95 De Havilland Flamingo is attacked by Ju87 Stukas bombing a target somewhere near Hockey’s route. He logs it as his first operational sortie. He returns to Hendon the same day with 8 passengers plus his crew of four, but doesn’t list the second flight as a separate operation. Up to this point Keast’s and Hockey’s cross-Channel flights have been non-operational.

This particular Flamingo (G-AFUF) had been delivered to Guernsey Airways in May 1939 for its service to Southampton. On the outbreak of war it was impounded and sent to No. 24 Squadron. Flights to the Channel Islands, operated since November 1939 by the umbrella organisation National Air Communications, ceased on 13 June 1940.