‘First Things First’: RAF Hornchurch and RFC Suttons Farm, 1915-1962 (2nd Edition)
Author: Eric Smith ISBN: 0 86025 498 4	£14.95 at Parish Chest

The first air-ship to be destroyed over England was shot down by Leefe Robinson flying from RFC Suttons Farm, but the glory days of the station were as RAF Hornchurch, when it bore the brunt of the Battle of Britain in 1940. Later it combated the flying bomb menace and, later still, became the training ground for aircrew personnel. Many famous names in aviation flew from Hornchurch and its sister stations of Rochford and Fairlop and their triumphs and tragedies are here recorded.

Fighter heroes of the Great War recalled in word and picture are William Leefe Robinson VC, Frederick Sowrey Alfred de Bathe Brandon, Wulstan Tempest, Frederick Bowers, Russell Mallinson, and Loudon Watkins. World War II aces remembered include Gordon Olive, Norman Jones, George Proudman, Sam Saunders, Jack Kennedy, John Welford, 'Chad' Giddings, Keith Park, Alan Deere, Johnny Allen, Robert Stanford Tuck, James Leathart, Donald Finlay, Paddy Finucane, and Douglas Bader.

196 pages, 75 photographs

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