John Everard Gurdon

John Everard Gurdon, (24 May 1898 – 14 April 1973), was a British flying ace in the First World War credited with twenty-eight victories.

Early life and background Gurdon was born in Balham, Surrey, and attended Tonbridge School in Kent. From September 1916 he attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, as a "Gentlemen Cadet", and after passing out (graduating), he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Suffolk Regiment on 1 May 1917.

First World War service Gurdon was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in May 1917, and was confirmed in his rank of the General List on 10 August 1917. He completed his pilot training at Central Flying School and was sent to No. 22 Squadron in 1918, flying Bristol F.2 Fighters.

Gurdon achieved all twenty-eight of his victories between 2 April and 13 August 1918 while flying the Bristol Fighter aircraft, seventeen of them using the front gun. On 7 May he was involved in an historic engagement known as the "Two versus Twenty". Gurdon, together with his observer 2nd Lt. John Thornton, in partnership with one other Bristol Fighter aircraft, piloted by Alfred Atkey with his observer Charles George Gass engaged twenty enemy aircraft. Gurdon and Thornton shot down three enemy aircraft; Atkey and Gass shot down five.

On 10 July his aircraft was badly shot up, Gurdon being hit by a bullet in the left arm, and his gunner, Lt. J. J. Scaramaga, being killed. He was appointed a flight commander with the rank of temporary captain on 23 July, but in August he received a concussion from an anti-aircraft shell near-miss. He was returned to the UK in September and relinquished his commission owing to his injuries on 21 December, but was permitted to retain the rank of captain.

His confirmed claims, in conjunction with his gunners, consisted of 13 and one shared aircraft destroyed, and 14 driven down 'out of control'. and over the next fifteen years, to pay off his creditors, Gurdon wrote several novels, and numerous short stories, mainly adventure stories aimed at young adults, and published in such magazines as The Modern Boy and Air Stories. He finally gained his discharge from bankruptcy in late 1937, but continued to publish regularly up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Second World War service Despite being blinded in one eye after a car crash in 1935 and suffering a hip problem following an aircraft landing accident, Gurdon joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and was granted a commission "for the duration of hostilities" as a pilot officer (on probation) on 20 September 1940. He served as an instructor and managed to fly on several bombing operations unofficially as a front gunner on Wellingtons, but after a landing accident aggravated his existing hip problem he was forced to relinquish his commission on 29 September 1941.

Later life He published two more novels in the early 1950s.

John Gurdon died on 14 April 1973 in Alassio, Italy.

Personal life Gurdon married Florence M. Pleming in 1920 at Kensington, London. Philip Gurdon was a member of No. 273 Squadron, flying Spitfires in Burma.

Publications Translations

Novels

"The Gentleman from Java", Air Stories, February 1938 "The Mammoth and the Midge", Air Stories, September 1938 "The Man Outside", Fantasy, 1939 "Flight to Hell", Air Stories, October 1939 "Alarums Aloft", The Modern Boy's Annual, 1941