Billy_Fiske

In the south-east corner of Boxgrove graveyard in Sussex, England, there is a fine headstone to the memory of Pilot Officer Billy Fiske. On either side of his grave lie two soldiers, a Sapper in the Royal Engineers and a Corporal in the East Lancashire Regiment. Fiske's grave is distinguished by a small Stars and Stripes flag. This was the man whom Lt Col J T C Moore-Brabazon (later Lord Brabazon of Tara) honoured with the words in a newspaper tribute, "We thank America for sending us the perfect sportsman. Many of us would have given our lives for Billy."

So who was Billy Fiske, and why is he buried in Boxgrove churchyard, and what made him so special that on the 4th July (Independence Day) 1941 a tablet in his honour was unveiled in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral? At the unveiling, Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air, said "Here was a young man for whom life held much. Under no kind of compulsion he came to fight for Britain. He came and he fought, and he died." As simple as that.

In September 1939, more than two years before America entered the War, Billy Fiske, an American citizen, joined the Royal Air force, pledging his life and loyalty to the King, George VI. At Tangmere, nearly a year later, aged 29, he redeemed that pledge. In those 29 years, Fiske, the first American serviceman in the RAF to lose his life in action, had always lived life to the full. He died a hero's death, surely the way he would have wanted to die, fighting the enemy in the form of a patrol of Junkers 87s about 12,000 feet above the Sussex countryside, at the controls of a Hurricane P3358.

Fiske was born on 4 June 1911 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a wealthy banking family whose ancestors had gone to America from Suffolk in the seventeenth century. He attended school in Chicago and followed his family to France in 1924. He went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1928 where he read Economics and History. Billy packed a lot into the few years between his stay at Trinity Hall and his return to England in 1938 for a spell at the London office of Dillon, Reed & Co, the New York bankers.

He was an accomplished sportsman, well-known on the Cresta run at St Moritz and for many years the unbeaten champion. He led the bobsleigh team for the USA in the Winter Olympics of 1928 at St Moritz, and at the 1932 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. At this event, he carried the flag for the Americans at the opening ceremonies, presided over by Governor Franklin D Roosevelt of New York. He was invited, but declined to lead the bobsleigh team in the 1936 Winter Olympics. The Billy Fiske trophy is named for him, the youngest Gold Medal winner, at the age of 16, in the sport.


A British cigarette card of the 1930s commemorating Billy's successes in tobogganing.

He was also a keen golfer, and at Cambridge and Mildenhall he became a well-known figure driving to the golf course at high speed on the long straight roads, in his 4.5 litre open Bentley, in British racing green, complete with bonnet-strap and projecting supercharger. He also managed to fit in a bit of film making in Tahiti.

He learnt to fly at an aerodrome near London and married Rose, the former Countess of Warwick, at Maidenhead in 1938. She remembers 'the big day when he was allowed to take me in an open two-seater" (aircraft) in a flight to Le Touquet which terminated at Deauville because of an oil leak that spattered over the windscreen and so hindered navigation.

Early in 1939 Billy was recalled to his firm's New York office shortly before England declared war on Germany on 3 September. An English friend, working in New York, Mr W P Clyde, an RAF reservist and a member of 601 (County of London) Auxiliary Air Force Squadron, talked him into sailing back to England with him on the Aquitania on 30 August. In his diary Billy Fiske records that "I believe I can lay claim to being the first US citizen to join the RAF in England after the outbreak of hostilities." He did not realise he was writing his epitaph. He also knew when he sailed from America that, as the regulations stood at the time, "no person, not a British citizen and a son of British citizens, could be eligible for any position whatsoever in the Air Force". So he worked out a plan to pass himself off as a Canadian of Canadian parentage. But, even so, he found that joining the RAF was harder than he anticipated and it was luck and knowing the right people which eventually got him an interview with a high-ranking RAF Officer. We know he was nervous before the interview as he records in his diary that he played a round of golf at Roehampton to give himself a "healthy look". He notes, "Needless to say, for once, I had a quiet Saturday night - I didn't want to have eyes looking like blood-stained oysters the next day."

He passed his interview and full of the joy of life went on to No 10 Elementary Flying Training School, Yatesbury Wiltshire. After Yatesbury, Billy moved to the Flying Training School at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire and with his wife took a small house at nearby Minster Lovell. At Brize Norton on 12 April 1940 he became Acting Pilot Officer Fiske and on 12 July he was posted to No 601 (County of London) Auxiliary Air Force Squadron at Tangmere. This Squadron was variously known as the Legionnaires and the Millionaires Squadron, for it had been at White's Club, St James's in 1924 that Lord Edward Grosvenor selected members of the Club to serve under him in 601. Billy now had one month to live.

At Tangmere there was some apprehension in 601 about taking "this untried American adventurer..." but Billy made no pretensions about his flying skill and was soon accepted. With typical gusto he threw himself into his training and on 20 July he undertook two operational take-offs in quick succession in Hurricane L1951 late in the afternoon. An American radio commentator (possibly Ed Murrow) said in 1942 that Billy Fiske, during his fleeting service with 601 destroyed six enemy aircraft, the first being a Heinkel. Billy enjoyed flying Hurricanes. No doubt the aircraft, with 100 gallons of petrol tucked away in tanks close to the pilot seat and an engine capable of taking it up to 335 mph reminded him of his Bentley. Then came the last flight. On 16 August Tangmere aerodrome was singled out for attack by German dive-bombers. The Operations Record Book of No 601 Squadron records that he took off in Hurricane P3358 at 12.25 pm. Squadron Leader Sir Archibald Hope Bt led the Squadron and they were ordered to patrol over Tangmere at about 12,000 feet. The dive-bombers, Junkers 87s, were seen to cross the coast east of Selsey Bill. When the Stukas, as they were called, started to dive on Tangmere and after several sharp individual combats, known as dog fights, the enemy were eventually chased out over the coast around Pagham Harbour.

When the Hurricanes started to land back at Tangmere, Billy Fiske's Hurricane was seen "to glide over the boundary and land on its belly." The Operations Record Book stated, "Pilot Officer Fiske was seen to land on the aerodrome and his aircraft immediately caught fire. He was taken from the machine but sustained severe burns ..." He was taken to the Royal West Sussex Hospital in Chichester, but died 48 hours later from shock.

The funeral took place on 20 August 1940. As the coffin, covered with the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes, was borne on a bier to Boxgrove Priory Church, the Central Band of the RAF played funeral marches. Overhead, the Battle of Britain raged on. The coffin was borne into the churchyard by six members of the ground staff at Tangmere. Billy's comrades, although they did not land back at Tangmere until late that day, came with him on his last journey to Boxgrove.

Billy Fiske, sportsman, golden boy, fighter pilot, is rightly honoured as the first American airman in British Service to die in World War II. Many Americans followed him. By 1941 there were enough American pilots in the RAF to form the three Eagle Squadrons, Nos 71, 121, and 132.

Text taken from a unsigned leaflet available for sale at Boxgrove Priory.