PETER+DRUMMOND-HAY

Hay-Drummond-Hay, Peter, Flying Officer, 90321, 609 Squadron, Royal Air Force (Auxiliary Air Force) Died 9th July 1940 aged 31 Son of Edward and Margaret Hay-Drummond-Hay; husband of Clare Margaret Hay-Drummond-Hay Commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial, Surrey

Extract from: “That Eternal Summer” Unknown Stories from the Battle of Britain by Ralph Barker ( __[]__ )

__Page 38__: //(para 3)// “The splitting of his force between Middle Wallop and Warmwell meant a penny-packet operation which Darley detested. It led to the squadron’s first losses under his command. Tuesday 9th July was a wet day, and after a false alarm in the morning two of the pilots on stand-by at Warmwell, Peter Drummond-Hay and David Crook, both auxiliaries, sat for much of the afternoon planning the trip they were to make the next day, when, being off duty, … Then at 6.30 pm a section of three Spitfires was ordered up to patrol off Weymouth.

//(para 4)// “Spotting some Junkers 87 Stuka dive-bombers attacking a convoy, they raced after them. …Crook…nearly crashed his Spitfire when he got back to Warmwell… Since the attack he had seen nothing of the others.”

//(para 5)// “One of them, in fact, was missing. It was Crook’s friend Peter Drummond-Hay. He had shot down a Messerschmitt 109, as was later confirmed, then been shot down himself.”

//(para 6)// “Returning to Middle Wallop that night, Crook, who had been rooming with Drummond-Hay, moved into the cubicle next door. The vision of his friend lying in his cockpit at the bottom of the Channel haunted him all night.”


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