Brian Lane (RAF officer)

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Brian Lane
Second World War
Awards
Mention in despatches

Brian John Edward "Sandy" Lane

Second World War. He also wrote the book Spitfire!, an account of his experiences as a fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain
.

Born in

evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk during the period late May to early June 1940. He also briefly commanded the squadron during this time. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in July, he became the squadron's permanent commander two months later, by which time it was engaged in the Battle of Britain. He claimed further aerial victories during the aerial campaign over England. He was on staff duties for a year from mid-1941 during which time he wrote Spitfire!, published under a pseudonym in 1942. He returned to operations with command of No. 167 Squadron in late 1942. He went missing on a sortie
to Holland on 13 December.

Early life

Born in

Hamble and two months later he was provisionally accepted into the RAF as an acting pilot officer.[1][2][3]

Lane, who was nicknamed 'Sandy', proceeded to

Duxford and equipped with the Gloster Gauntlet fighter.[5] Some months later, Lane moved to No. 213 Squadron.[4] Like his former unit, this operated the Gauntlet but was based at Northolt. In early 1939 it started converting to the Hawker Hurricane fighter by which time Lane was a flying officer, having been promoted to this rank the previous December.[6][7]

Second World War

Lane occasionally flew this Supermarine Spitfire fighter during the period he commanded No. 19 Squadron

Shortly after the outbreak of war, Lane was posted to

Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France.[8] On one sortie, carried out on 25 May, the squadron's commander was killed. Lane was appointed the temporary commanding officer of the unit. The next day, he shot down two Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and a Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber in the area around Dunkirk although only one of these, a Bf 109, could be confirmed. He shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter in the same vicinity on 1 June.[4]

Battle of Britain

After the Dunkirk evacuation was completed in early June, No. 19 Squadron returned to Duxford.

Squadron Leader Philip Pinkham took command of the unit and later that month it commenced trials with cannon-equipped Spitfires.[8] During this time, Lane married Eileen Ellison in Cambridge; his wife was a well known racing car driver who had won motor racing events at Brooklands in the 1930s.[1] In July the squadron resumed operational duties, again carrying out convoy patrols, but it soon became drawn into defending the Luftwaffe's campaign against the southeast of England.[8] At the end of the month, Lane, an acting flight lieutenant, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC).[10]

The cannons that equipped the Spitfires of No. 19 Squadron proved to be unreliable, and this affected its operations in the early stages of the

Thames estuary on 24 August. By the start of September, the squadron had reverted to the standard machine-gun equipment and was regularly flying as part of No. 12 Group's Duxford Wing, which was led by the now Squadron Leader Bader.[4][8][11] The Duxford Wing arose from an initiative of Bader's, calling for three squadrons to be scrambled at the same and in an coordinated group engage approaching Luftwaffe bomber formations.[12] No. 19 Squadron's commander, Pinkham, was killed on 5 September; Lane, whose rank of flight lieutenant had just been made permanent, was immediately promoted to acting squadron leader and appointed as his replacement.[1][13][14] Two days later he shot down a Bf 110 over North Weald. Flying an interception sortie on 11 September, he shot down a pair of Bf 110s and damaged a Heinkel He 111 medium bomber, all over Gravesend. On 15 September, now known as Battle of Britain Day, he probably destroyed a Bf 109 in the vicinity of London.[4]

Brian Lane (centre) after a sortie during the Battle of Britain, 1940

The intensity of operations began to reduce from October, with increasingly fewer engagements with the Luftwaffe.

Southend.[4] Operational tempo remained slow during the winter months.[8]

Later war service

In early 1941, as the RAF switched away from defensive operations, No. 19 Squadron began flying to German-occupied France and the

Hucknall.[4]

In November, Lane was posted on a staff appointment to the Middle East. He initially served at the Air Headquarters Western Desert but in February 1942 was moved to the RAF's Middle East Command.[4] By this time, Lane's rank as squadron leader was permanent.[16] He returned to England in June to take up command of No. 61 Operational Training Unit at Montford Bridge for several months. On 9 December, he returned to operational duties when he was posted to join No. 167 Squadron at Ludham as its commander.[4]

No. 167 Squadron was equipped with the Spitfire Mk. Vc and tasked with carrying out patrols along the English coastline and offensive sorties, known as '

Focke-Wulf 190 fighters and Lane was last seen in pursuit of these. He is believed to have been shot down to the west of Schouwen Island and despite searches being mounted, his body was never recovered.[1][4] He was survived by his wife Eileen Ellison, who died in 1967.[1]

Having no known grave, Lane is commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Air Forces Memorial near Egham in Surrey, England.[18] During Lane's operational career, he claimed six (and one shared) German aircraft shot down, two unconfirmed destroyed, one probably destroyed and one damaged.[4]

Legacy

Lane was the author of Spitfire!, written during his period of service as a staff officer at No. 12 Group and published in 1942 under the pseudonym B. J. Ellan. The book is a firsthand account of Lane's experiences as a front line Spitfire pilot with No. 19 Squadron during the Battle of Britain. When it was first published the identities of individuals in the book were suppressed. The military aviation historian Dilip Sarkar, who recognised Lane in one of the photographs in the book, conducted research on the original work to provide the correct names of people and places and the revised book was republished in 1990.[19][20]

Memorial plaque to Lane in Pinner

A permanent memorial plaque, organised by local resident Paul Baderman, was unveiled on Lane's childhood home in Pinner on 25 September 2011, 69 years after his presumed death.[2]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "The Airmen's Stories - S/Ldr. B J E Lane". Battle of Britain Monument. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
  2. ^ a b Hardiman, David (28 September 2011). "Pinner War Veteran Brian Lane Remembered with Plaque Unveiling". Harrow Times. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
  3. ^ "No. 34290". The London Gazette. 2 June 1936. p. 3526.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shores & Williams 1994, pp. 386–387.
  5. ^ Rawlings 1976, p. 163.
  6. ^ Rawlings 1976, p. 326.
  7. ^ "No. 34583". The London Gazette. 27 December 1938. p. 8251.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Rawlings 1976, pp. 48–52.
  9. ^ Burns 2002, p. 32.
  10. ^ "No. 34910". The London Gazette. 30 July 1940. p. 4675.
  11. ^ Burns 2002, p. 79.
  12. ^ Burns 2002, pp. 63–64.
  13. ^ Burns 2002, p. 76.
  14. ^ "No. 34960". The London Gazette. 4 October 1940. p. 5832.
  15. ^ "No. 35107". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 March 1941. p. 1573.
  16. ^ "No. 35727". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 September 1942. p. 4276.
  17. ^ Rawlings 1976, p. 301.
  18. ^ "Casualty – Squadron Leader Brian John Edward Lane". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
  19. ^ "Squadron Leader Brian Lane DFC". Best-selling Author & Historian Dilip Sarkar MBE FRHistS FRAeS. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
  20. ^ Demosthenous, Panayiota (24 March 2024). "Remembering Brian: The Mystery Behind the Life of a Young RAF Officer from Pinner". Pinner News. My Local News. Retrieved 7 October 2024.

References

Further reading
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