Word: squadronal
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...Biggin Hill, near London. Out stepped a tired-looking Frenchman with a fat diplomatic briefcase. Pierre Mendès-France, Premier of France, was familiar with Biggin Hill: under very different circumstances he had visited it during World War II, as a navigator in a Free French bomber squadron...
...time lag between prototype and production models. At the news, most of Britain's newspapers went all out, claimed speeds of 1,000 m.p.h. or better. Streamered the Daily Mail: FASTEST YET-AND BRITISH. But some, remembering how few of Britain's shiny prototypes ever see squadron service, were less enthusiastic. Said the Manchester Guardian: "The [Hawker] Hunter and the [Supermarine] Swift, according to Government statements two years ago, were going to be 'the finest day fighters in the world.' . . . [But] by midsummer of 1954, only a few Hunters had reached squadrons, and the Swifts were...
Died. Navy Captain William J. ("Gus") Widhelm, 45, whose daring, happy-go-lucky exploits as a World War II dive-bomber squadron commander made him a flying legend, earned him two citations for the Navy Cross; in a training-plane crash; near Corpus Christi, Texas...
Only a Beginning. Luckily for the pilot, Squadron Leader Douglas Robert Steuart Bader, R.A.F., it was an artificial leg. He parachuted to German-occupied France, losing his freedom but not his life. Bader is a square-jawed Englishman with a remarkable past and an even more remarkable spirit. He was only 21 when, in 1931, he suffered his first and most serious accident as an R.A.F. pilot officer. His right leg had to be amputated at the thigh, his left leg below the knee. For many it would have seemed an end. For Douglas Bader, it was only a beginning...
...Leonard Cheshire was a first-class fighting man. In 1943, after completing a tour of operations in Halifax bombers, he became the youngest group captain (equals U.S. colonel) in the R.A.F. He had himself demoted to wing commander so that he could take over command of the famed 617 Squadron, nicknamed "The Dam-Busters." where he developed a new low-level technique of marking targets. After more than 100 missions, he won Britain's highest decoration, the Victoria Cross...