Mission: Operation Dynamo.

Date: 26th May 1940 (Sunday)

Unit: No.19 Squadron R.A.F.

Type: Supermarine Spitfire I

Serial: N3200

Code: QV-

Location: On beach, Dunkirk, France.

Pilot: Squadron Leader Geoffrey Dalton Stephenson P.O.W.

REASON FOR LOSS:

This aircraft was shot down in combat and forced landed on the beach at Dunkirk. S/Ldr. Stephenson captured and taken POW.

Before the war, he was a member of the R.A.F. aerobatic team, Squadron Leader of 19 Squadron, (Duxford) and was shot down over Dunkirk covering the evacuation. He spent the war in a number of German prison camps, making many escape attempts, and eventually was sent to Colditz Castle in Poland, the ultimate high security German prisoner of war camp. He was part of the team that built the famous Colditz glider. (In the 1930's, Stephenson was the first person to fly a glider across the English Channel.) He was also personal pilot to King George VI.
He was killed on the 8th November 1954 whilst test flying a F-100A-10-NA Super Sabre of the U.S.A.F. at Eglin Air Force Base.  The aircraft went out of control and crashed before he could eject. 

Air Commodore Stephenson headed a six-man team from the central fighter establishment, R.A.F., whose headquarters are at West Raynham near Fakenham, Norfolk. They were at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, home of the Air Proving Ground Centre, on an exchange tour.
He was flying at 13,000 feet as he joined formation with another F-100, flown by Capt. Lonnie R. Moore, jet ace of the Korean campaign, when his fighter dropped into a steep spiral, impacting at 14.14 hrs. in a pine forest on the Eglin Reservation, one mile NE of the runway of Pierce Field, Auxiliary Fld. 2.

     


(N3200) Examined by German soldiers (Source unknown)

Researched by Melvin Brownless. With thanks to the following: Mark Sublette, from South Carolina, USA for his work with the Wikipedia page. The work of the C.W.G.C. "Fighter Command Losses" - Norman Franks.

F-100A Super Sabre similar to the type flown by Air Commodore Stephenson when he was killed in November 1954

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