One hour and fifty minutes after Britain declared war on Germany, a Bristol Blenheim fighter-bomber, piloted by Pilot Officer John Noel Isaac of 600 Squadron, crashed on Heading Street in Hendon near London at 12.50pm. P/O John Isaac became the first British subject to die in the Second World War. On September 6, 1939, just three days after Britain went to war with Germany, a young Shropshire pilot, John Hulton-Harrop, age 26, became the first operational casualty of Fighter Command when he was shot down in a tragic case of 'Friendly Fire' soon after he took off from North Weald fighter station. The first Prisoner Of War was Sergeant George Booth, an RAF observer with 107 Squadron. He was captured when his Bristol Blenheim was shot down over the German coast on September 4, 1939. British Military Aviation in 1939 - Part 2 In Memory of Pilot Officer JOHN NOEL LAUGHTON ISAAC 90721, 600 Sqdn., Royal Air Force who died age 28 on 03 September 1939 Son of Wilfrid John and Rosalind Mary Isaac, of Cardiff. B.A. (Oxon.); Solicitor. Remembered with honour GOLDERS GREEN CREMATORIUM
The second incident is infamous and was named The Battle of Barking Creek, Annie. Battle of Barking Creek Battle of Barking Creek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This tragic affair became known throughout Fighter Command as The Battle Of Barking Creek. The 26 year-old Hulton-Harrop was buried in St Andrews Churchyard at North Weald, where his grave can still be seen today.
Probably the first Australian casualties after the declaration of war on 3 September 1939 were serving members of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). A pilot and his observer were killed in a flying accident while ferrying a Wirraway to Darwin, where 12 Squadron RAAF was based for coastal patrol missions. 5 September 1939 The Anson and five Wirraways arrived at DARWIN at 10.30 hours from Daly Waters. Unfortunately the arrival of the Wirraways was marred by a fatal accident. Flying Officer AV Dolphin of Recruit Training Depot, Laverton who was ferrying Wirraway A20-5, stalled and crashed onto the aerodrome and both he pilot and observer, No. 1 Corporal JOHNSON, H W - Air Observer, No. 12 Squadron were killed.
28 September 1939 The first Australian to be killed in action was probably Wing Commander Ivan McLeod Cameron, who was serving with Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) at the outbreak of war. Wing Commander Cameron, 110 Squadron RAF, was on a reconnaissance flight over Germany on 28 September 1939 when his Bristol Blenheim bomber, serial N6212, was intercepted and shot down by a German pilot, Feldwebel Klaus Faber, of l/JG I, Luftwaffe. The Blenheim crashed near Kiel, Germany. Wing Commander Cameron is buried at Reichswald Forest Cemetery, Kleve in Germany.
The first six New Zealanders to die in Bomber Command were killed over England while training. The first to die in action with BC was Charles Caldwell on December 14, 1939 while flying one of 12 99 Squadron Wimpys (five lost, all crew lost) on a daylight attack on naval units near Wilhelmshaven - Max Lambert's Night After Night.
The first RAF crews killed in action were those killed in the raid on the Kiel Canal in which Booth was captured on 4th September. One of these men was F/O Henry Lightoller, the son of Charles Lightoller, the senior surviving officer from the Titanic. Another pilot killed in that raid was F/O Emden, whose Blenheim crashed onto the German Cruiser Emden !
Lets not be too Anglo-centric or Aussie-centric! The first casualties of WW2 probably occurred when the German Battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the barracks in Danzig harbour at first light on 1st September 1939. The first airman to be shot down, according to the official Polish version, was killed at 0520 hrs. He was Captain Medwecki, CO of the III/2 Regiment Polish Air Force. He had just taken off in his PZL 11C fighter when some Stukas came across the airfield returning from another mission. Stukas very rarely shot down anything for the rest of the war, but Medwecki was very unlucky to be caught just taking off, and Frank Neuman in the leading Stuka shot him down. Medwecki's wingman Wladyslav Gnys was unable to catch the Stukas, but accounted for two Dornier 17s in the next few minutes. However, Gnys' account puts the time at 0700. In that case, the first casualty of the air war would be a Henschel 126 observation aircraft brought down by Stanislaw Skalski at 0530 hrs. Skalski landed alongside and tended the pilot's wounds - the account doesn't say what happened to the observer. Several of these men fought right through the war. Gnys became an RAF Squadron Leader, and emigrated to Canada after the war, dying in 2000. Frank Neuman became a leading Stuka pilot with the Knights Cross. In 1990 the two men were reunited. Skalski became the top-scoring Polish ace of the war, and an RAF Wing Commander. He returned to Poland after the war, and was imprisoned by the Communists for six years under sentence of death. After the death of Stalin, he served again in the Polish airforce. He died in 2004. In 1988, he met the Henschel pilot whose life he had saved. WW II ACE STORIES Adrian
