Wing Commander Adrian Warburton

[mfg495]

Adrian Warburton (known as Warby) was to become one of the most highly decorated pilots of WW2 and the RAF’s greatest wartime reconnaissance pilot


Adrian Warburton

A below-average pilot with 22 Squadron, Warby took the squadron’s aircraft, the Martin 167F Maryland - a fast US light reconnaissance-bomber to Malta. Later he became CO of first 69 Squadron and then 683 Photo Reconnaissance Squadron.


Adrian Warburton and his Maryland

A true maverick and fearless in the air, he shot down nine aircraft and won fame in Malta for his Photo Reconnaissance images taken before the attack by the Royal Navy on the Italian fleet in the port of Taranto. It was during one of these sorties that Warby flow twice round the harbour at very low-level, calling out the names of the ships as he pasted them and still he went around a third time in spite of all the heavy flak to get the right photos. On this return, it was found that around the tail wheel of his Maryland aircraft was the aerial wire from a battleship. He also undertook missions for the landings in Sicily and North Africa.

On this return to the Europe, he was posted as a liaison officer to the 7th US Photo-Reconnaissance Group; Warby, against orders, departed on 12th April 1944 in a USAAF Lightning F5B Serial number 42-67325 (reconnaissance version of the P38) aircraft on an unusual and still unknown mission. Both the plane and the pilot disappeared without trace.

On the 19th August 2002, excavation start at Egling near Dunzelbach, were reports had stated that an American P38 had crashed on the 12th April 1944. Some human remains were found and after checking the unearthed engine serial numbers with authorises in the USA. It was confirmed that the remains were that of Warby.


Adrian Warburton being carried by members of the RAF Regiment

On the 14th May 2003 Wing Commander Adrian Warburton DSO & Bar, DFC & 2 Bars, DFC (USA) was given a full military funeral at St Agidius Church, Gmund and laid to rest at the War Cemetery at Durnbach.

Personal note, this man is one of my all time hero's, always putting the mission and other peoples lives before his.

Some say that he should have received the VC (Victoria Cross) for some of his missions. The problem was, Warby upset too many high ranking officers in this short service career.

May his soul rest in peace

[Hagen]

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
412 Squadron RCAF
Died 11 Dec 1941


May your hero RIP.

[MAGNA]

mfg495 - great post. Hagen - great poem.

This is really a case of deja vu or something. I have read a Commando comic where a maverick pilot was sent to Malta as a recce flyer thinking hr would be in a Spitfire. When he got there he was told to fly - a Maryland. Then in the story he flies around an Italian harbour naming ships. They changed the ending of course but this seems to be a case of fiction drawn from fact.