Tuck, Robert – Ace pilot liked a pint while training at Grantham

Roland Robert Stanford Tuck DSO, DFC & Two Bars, AFC (1916-1987)

Wing Commander Roland Robert Stanford Tuck was a British fighter pilot and test pilot.

He joined the Royal Air Force in 1935 where he trained with the Grantham Flying Training School at RAF Spitalgate.

He enjoyed a pint and with his colleague ‘Sailor’ Malan was frequently a customer in the George or the Angel & Royal.

On one occasion he was fined ten shillings (50p) by Kesteven magistrates for being drunk on the public highway.

He first engaged in combat during the Battle of France, over Dunkirk, claiming his first victories.

In September 1940 he was promoted to squadron leader and commanded a Hawker Hurricane squadron.

In 1941–1942, Tuck participated in fighter sweeps over northern France.

In January 1942, he was hit by anti-aircraft fire and forced landed in France and was taken prisoner. At the time of his capture, Tuck had claimed 29 enemy aircraft destroyed, two shared destroyed, six probably destroyed, six damaged and one shared damaged.

Born at Catford, London, after an indifferent school career he left St Dunstan’s College, Catford in 1932 to join the Merchant Navy as a sea cadet aboard the SS Marconi before joining the RAF on a short service commission as an acting pilot officer in 1935.

Following flying training, Tuck joined 65 Squadron in September 1935 as an acting probationary pilot officer. He became a pilot officer on probation in September 1936 and his pilot officer rank was confirmed in early 1937.

] In September 1938 he was promoted to flying officer and in May 1940, he was posted to 92 Squadron, based at Croydon, as a flight commander flying Spitfires.

Tuck led his first combat patrol on 23 May 1940, over Dunkirk, claiming three German fighters shot down.

The following day he shot down two German bombers and as aerial fighting intensified over the next two weeks his score rapidly mounted. Tuck was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) on 11 June[10] and received it from King George VI at RAF Hornchurch on 28 June.

The citation for this award, published in the London Gazette said “…this officer led his flight in company with his squadron on two offensive patrols over Northern France. As a result of one of these patrols in which the squadron engaged a formation of some 60 enemy aircraft, the Squadron Commander was later reported missing, and the flight commander wounded and in hospital.

Flight Lieutenant Tuck assumed command, and on the following day led the squadron, consisting of only eight aircraft, on a further patrol engaging an enemy formation of fifty aircraft.

During these engagements the squadron has shot down ten enemy aircraft and possibly another twenty-four. Throughout the combats this officer has displayed great dash and gallantry.

While attacking a formation of Junkers Ju 88s over Kent, he shot one down and damaged another. However, during the head on attack at Ju 88, when he overtook it, cannon shells hit his Spitfire and he was forced to bail out near Tunbridge Wells.

He fell at Tucks Cottage, near Park Farm, Horsmonden. In another incident on 25 August Tuck’s Spitfire was badly damaged during combat with a Dornier Do 17 bomber, which he destroyed 15 miles off the coast.

His aircraft had a dead engine, but he glided it back to dry land and made a forced landing.

On 11 September, during the height of the Battle of Britain, Tuck was promoted to acting squadron leader and posted to command the Hawker Hurricane-equipped No. 257 Squadron RAF, based at RAF Coltishall .

In June 1941, Tuck survived being shot down over the English Channel, being rescued by a Gravesend coal barge. He claimed a total of seven destroyed, four probables and two damaged on the Hawker Hurricane.

Tuck had an extraordinary piece of ill-fortune when he intercepted a German bomber heading towards Cardiff. He fired at extreme range in poor light, causing it to jettison its bombs in open countryside instead of on the city. The last of its stick of bombs caught one corner of an army training camp and killed one soldier. The soldier was the husband of Tuck’s sister.

In July, 1941, Tuck was promoted to acting wing commander and appointed wing leader at RAF Duxford where he led fighter sweeps into northern France. After a brief trip to America with several other RAF Fighter Command pilots to raise awareness of Britain’s war effort, he returned to a posting at RAF Biggin Hill as wing leader. It was while flying from Biggin Hill that Tuck’s last mission of the war occurred. On 28 January 1942, while on a low-level fighter sweep “Rhubarb” mission[21] over northern France, his Spitfire was hit by enemy ground-based flak near Boulogne and he was forced to crash land.

Captured by the very German troops Tuck had been firing upon as his aircraft was hit, he later recorded that their mood was understandably hostile and his own survival was certainly in question.

However, his noted “Tuck’s luck” came to his rescue when his captors spotted that, by a remarkable chance, one of his 20mm cannon shells had passed precisely down the barrel of an exactly similar sized ground weapon and had exploded therein, peeling open the barrel “like a banana”. The German troops thought this hilarious and such “Good shooting Tommy!” that, in their enthusiasm to slap his back in congratulation, they were actually trampling on the bodies of their dead comrades.

Saved for the moment, Tuck then spent the next couple of years in Stalag Luft III at Żagań (Sagan), before making a number of unsuccessful escape attempts from several other prisoner of war camps across Germany and Poland.

In company with the Polish pilot Zbigniew Kustrzyński, he finally escaped successfully on 1 February 1945 as his camp was being evacuated westwards from Russian forces advancing into Germany. Tuck’s Russian, learned from his childhood nanny, was now crucial as he spent some time fighting alongside the Russian troops until he managed eventually to find his way to the British Embassy in Moscow. He eventually boarded a ship from Russia to Southampton.

He received his final decoration, the Distinguished Flying Cross from the United States Air Force in June 1946 before he retired from the RAF and active service in  May 1949having had his permanent rank promoted to wing commander in July 1947.

His final accredited aerial kills numbered 27 and two shared destroyed, one and one shared unconfirmed destroyed, six probables and six and one shared damaged.

Following retirement Tuck continued flying as a test pilot, including working on the RAF’s long-serving English Electric Canberra.

In 1953 he and his wife Joyce, whom he married in 1945, moved to The Lynch at Eastry with their two sons, Michael and Simon. He developed a mushroom farm in collaboration with Mr. Douglas Miller and successfully farmed mushrooms for over 20 years.

Tuck found peace and contentment on his mushroom farm in Kent, choosing to shun the publicity enjoyed by some of his better known Battle of Britain comrades. He retired to Sandwich Bay in the 1970s where he was a member of St. George’s Golf Club.

He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1956 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre.

Tuck also worked as a technical adviser to the film Battle of Britain (1969) and eventually developed a close friendship with the German fighter pilot Adolf Galland who was also a technical adviser to the film.