Kenneth Tempest

Kenneth Tempest, (9 April 1922 – 2 June 2015) was a Royal Air Force navigator with No. 139 Squadron RAF during the Second World War flying Mosquitos. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service. Following the war he trained as a pilot and flew with BOAC in the Bristol Britannia and the VC10.

Early life Kenneth Tempest was born in Cawnpore (now Kanpur), India, on 9 April 1922. He was educated at Keighley Boys' Grammar School and his first job was with Lloyds Bank which he quickly left to join the Royal Air Force. He was posted to BOAC's station in Baltimore and was the navigator on several flights in support of the Quebec Conference of 1943.

Tempest returned to the Royal Air Force in mid 1944 where he joined No. 139 Squadron RAF and trained with the Light Night Striking Force, part of the Pathfinder Force flying Mosquitos. The Pathfinders staged many raids on Berlin and other German cities, dropping markers to enable the larger bombers to find their targets and making single-bomb raids on other targets to confuse and harass the enemy.

Post-war career Following the war, Tempest returned to BOAC where he flew converted bombers from Baltimore and Canada. In 1951 he began to train as a pilot by which time he had completed 237 transatlantic flights. At BOAC he flew first the Bristol Britannia, converting to the VC10 in 1964. In 1965, he was the pilot who flew Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to Addis Ababa and back. Tempest retired in 1975 by which time he had clocked up more than 14,000 hours' flying time.