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Douglas Bader
Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader (1910-1982) was born
on 21 February 1910. He was educated at St Edward's where
he was a scholar, and at the Royal Air Force College,
Cranwell, where he was a prize cadet.
He was commissioned in August 1930 and was then posted
as a pilot officer to 23 fighter squadron at the RAF station
at Kenley.
Bader was twenty-one when, on 14 December 1931, he
crashed near Reading. Both legs had to be amputated.
Six months after his operations he was walking unaided
on his artificial legs.
He was discharged from the RAF in the spring of 1933.
That summer he became a clerk in the Asiatic Petroleum
Company in the City
Bader was re-engaged by the RAF in November 1939, two
months after the outbreak of the Second World War, and
on 7 February 1940 he was posted to 19 fighter squadron
at Duxford as a flying officer. From here he was appointed
to command A flight in 222 squadron. On 24 June 1940
he was posted to command 242 (Canadian) squadron at
Coltishall. He was appointed to the DSO on 13 September
and awarded the DFC a month later.
In March 1941 Bader led his three Spitfire squadrons
at Tangmere and this resulted in frequent offensive
operations over northern France. This led to the award
of a bar both to the DSO and the DFC. The French Croix
de Guerre and the Légion d'honneur followed.
He had three mentions in dispatches.
Bader was shot down on 9 August 1941 near St Omer in
the Pas-de-Calais and was a prisoner at Colditz until
he was released in April 1945.
After the armistice he was promoted to group captain
and posted to command the North Weald sector in Essex.
He retired from the RAF in March 1946. In July 1946
he joined the Shell Company. Eventually he was made
managing director of Shell Aircraft Ltd (1958-69).
His work for the disabled resulted in 1956 his being
appointed CBE.
Bader was a FRAeS (1976), an honorary DSc of Queen's
University, Belfast (1976), and deputy lieutenant of
Greater London (1977).
Guy Gibson
Guy Gibson, (1918-1944), was born in Simla, India, on
12 August 1918. He attended St George's preparatory school,
Folkestone, Kent, from 1926 to 1932 and then St Edward's.
In the summer of 1936 he was accepted for the RAF,
and began pilot training at the Bristol Flying School.
He was posted to 83 (bomber) squadron, at Turnhouse
which then moved to Scampton.
Gibson remained with 83 squadron until September 1940,
completing a tour of thirty-seven operations and also
being awarded the DFC, before being posted to instruct
at 14 operational training unit, Cottesmore. After two
weeks he was posted to 29 squadron, Lincolnshire, as
a flight commander with flight lieutenant rank. He was
promoted to squadron leader in June 1941and awarded
a bar to his DFC in September 1941.
At the beginning of April 1942 he took command of 106
squadron at Coningsby, Lincolnshire. He was awarded
a DSO in November 1942 and a bar in March 1943.
Gibson was asked to form a new squadron (617) to attempt
the 'Dambusters' raid of 16 May 1943. In two months
a squadron was formed and crews trained for an operation
that required specialist skills. For his squadron the
dams raid was costly: eight of the nineteen aircraft
were lost, and of their fifty-six crew only three survived,
to be taken prisoner. For this raid Gibson was awarded
the Victoria Cross.
Gibson was posted in quick succession as a staff officer
at two Lincolnshire bomber bases, no. 55 base, East
Kirkby, and then to no. 54 base, Coningsby. On the night
of 19/20 September, he flew against the twin towns of
Rheydt and Mönchengladbach, a few miles inside
Germany's border with the Netherlands. However after
a successful attack his plane crashed on farmland near
Steenbergen and exploded. The meagre remains of the
two crew were buried the following day in the cemetery
at Steenbergen.
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier was born on the 22nd May 1907. He
entered St Edwards in 1921 joining Macnamara's House.
He took part in the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford
in 1922. He left in the summer of 1924 with a scholarship
to the Central School of Speech and Drama. He was in the
Birmingham Repertory Company from 1926 - 1928, and was
in plays in London and New York between 1929 and 1939.
During the War he was a Leutenant in the RNVR, released
in 1944. After 1944 he was an actor, producer, and director
of stage and screen. Amongst others he was co-director
of the Old Vic, manager of the St James Theatre Company,
the first director of the Chichester Festival, and director
of the National Theatre. He gained an Oscar in 1949 and
British Film Academy Awards in 1956. Olivier gained Emmy
TV awards in 1973 and 1975. He was Knighted in 1947 and
made a Life Peer in 1970. He died in 1989.
Kenneth Grahame
Kenneth Grahame was born in 1859. He left St Edward's
in 1875 and became Gentleman Clerk in the Bank of England
in 1879 and Chief Secretary 1898 - 1908. As an author
he was most famously known for "The Wind in the Willows".
He died in 1932.
Jon Snow
Jonathan Snow was born on 28th September 1947 and joined
Cowell's in 1961. On leaving School he joined VSO in Uganda
and then went to Liverpool University. He is best known
as a journalist and television presenter both in the UK
and also in the US. He has won many awards for his work
- BAFTAs and also TV Journalist of the Year.
Arthur Banks
From the St Edward's School Roll:
Banks, Arthur (E). b 1923; son of C.C. Banks. Left
1941s. Sch SP VIII Capt of Boats. R.A.F.VR 112 Sqdn.
Sgt. Desert Air Force. Shot down in Italy. Awarded George
Cross. Ment. in Desp. Joined Partisans, captured and
killed by Germans 1944.
In July 1944 Sgt Pilot Arthur Banks had been on active
service with 112 Squadron for three weeks. Piloting
his Mustang on armed reconnaissance over north eastern
Italy he came under ground fire. The Mustang's controls
were damaged, but he made a successful crash-landing
and was seen by a flight colleague destroying the plane
by fire. He took up the offer of partisans to join the
Boccato group. According to his GC citation he "became
an outstanding figure among the partisans, advising
them and encouraging actions against the enemy".
In early December 1944, Banks set up an attempt to
re-supply the band by regaining Allied Lines in a fishing
smack operating out of the Po estuary. Betrayed from
within the group, German Field Police, backed up by
Italian Militia, lay in ambush. Arthur Banks was captured,
beaten and tortured for six days, during this he remained
silent.
Furious and frustrated, the German authority handed
their prisoner to the Black Brigade. The Italian Militia
were eager to succeed where their masters had failed.
His torture at Artiano ne Polisine barracks was supervised
by two women. It ended with petrol poured on his naked
torso and ignited. Thinking Banks to be dead, he was
dragged to the centre of a bridge over the Po. They
weighted a leg with a boulder. Then they threw him in
the water. By some miracle of endurance he freed himself
from that stone and somehow reached the river bank".
The wrong bank - the barrack side. Militia returning
from patrol recaptured him. He was dragged back to the
barrack entrance, where an Italian officer shot him
in the back of the head. The dignity of burial was denied
him. Banks' body was to be hidden in the communal dung
heap.
The body of Arthur Banks now lies in Argenta Gap, a
small War Graves Commission cemetery amongst men from
The Royal East Kents killed during the final push of
April 1945. In the village of his murder they still
talk of "the Englishman". Visitors to the
cemetery, predominantly Italian, write comments in the
book - often "Thank you. We will never forget you."
Louis Strange
Louis Strange learnt to fly in 1913 as a result of a bet,
and in 1914 improvised a strap to allow the observer on
his biplane to 'stand up and fire all round the plane
- over the top and behind'. In No. 6 Squadron, as Captain,
he was the first to destroy canvas covered trucks with
petrol bombs whilst in March 1915 he undertook the first
planned bombing raid of the war. He had modified his plane
to carry four 20lb bombs on wing racks which could be
released by pulling a cable in the cockpit. On a low-level
run he managed to hit a train containing German troops
causing 75 casualties.
On May 10th 1915 he was thrown from his plane when
trying to remove a spent ammunition drum. Dangling from
the drum hanging out of the cockpit from an upside-down
spiraling plane, he eventually managed to regain his
position in the cockpit and so right the plane.
On 1st September 1915 he was posted to Fort Grange,
Gosport to form No. 23 Squadron. He arrived in an Avro
504 and the following day found himself in possession
of 'an office, a sergeant and three men, an old Gnome
Bleriot and the bits and pieces of two Henri Farmans'.
Strange retired from the Service due to ill health
in 1921. He returned to battle in 1940 as a Pilot Officer
in the Volunteer Reserve. During his second war he won
a bar to his DFC flying a Hurricane, pioneered the parachute
training of Britain's airborne forces when he was appointed
Commanding Officer of the Central Landing School at
Tatton Park, and established the Marine Ships Fighter
Units for the catapult launching of convoy defense Hurricanes.
He continued to fly after the war and died in 1966
at the age of 74.
Adrian Warburton
The memorial Service of Wing commander Adrian Warburton
was held in Germany on Wednesday 14th May 2003. His death
at the age of 26 in 1944 had been a riddle, only solved
last year when his wrecked plane and body was recovered
in Germany.
The service was held with full military honours at
Pfarrkirche St Agidius, Gmund, and was followed by burial
at the Durnbach Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery. Members
of the Queen's Colour Squadron of the RAF led the funeral
procession. A bugler sounded The Last Post and a piper
played a lament. The School was represented by Matthew
Wasbrough (G) and Nick Coram-Wright (Common Room).
Adrian Warburton was born in Middlesborough on the
10th March 1918. He joined St Edward's in the Easter
Term of 1932 going into Sing's House. Warburton rowed
in the 1st VIII and left the School in 1935. He was
commissioned in the RAF in 1939, and in 1940 was posted
to Malta as one of a small number of RAF aircrew flying
reconnaissance sorties over the Mediterranean. Fearless
and unorthodox he participated in a number of daring
sorties. Warburton became a legendary figure in the
history of the defence of Malta. His activities were
recorded for cinema in "The Malta Story" starring
Alec Guinness, and more recently in the book "Warburton's
War" (1987) by Tony Spooner.
Warburton went on to take part in the North African
Campaign and the invasions of Italy and Sicily. By the
beginning of 1944 he had been recognised by the award
of the DSO and bar, the DFC and two bars, and an American
DFC. On 1st April he was posted as RAF Liaison Officer
to the 7th Photographic Reconnaissance Group, US 8th
Army Air Force, based at Mount Farm, Oxfordshire. On
the morning of 12th April 1944 he was the pilot of a
Lockheed F-5B photographic reconnaissance aircraft which
took off to photograph targets in Germany. His plane
was last seen 100 miles north of Munich. He failed to
rendezvous at a USAAF airfield in Sardinia, and was
never seen again. Speculation about his fate came to
an end in 2002 when the remains recovered from a wrecked
USAAF F-5b Lightning were found to be his.
Geoffrey de Havilland
Geoffrey de Havilland was one of the pioneer aeroplane
designers. joining the School in 1898. In the First World
War he gained his DSO and OBE, this was followed by his
CBE in 1934 and his Knighthood in 1944. He was the founder
of the de Havilland Aircraft Company and was winner of
the King's Cup Air Race.
Stephen Tumim
Stephen Tumim was born on the 15th August 1930, and joined
the School in 1944. He was an Exhibitioner to Worcester
College, Oxford in 1950, and became a Barrister in the
Middle Temple in 1955. Since then he has been a Recorder
in the Crown Court, a Circuit Judge, the Chief Inspector
of Prisons, as well as being Chairman of the National
Deaf Children's Society.
George Fenton (George R. I. Howe)
 George
Fenton was born in 1949 and joined St Edwards in the Summer
of 1963. He began composing in 1975, and soon penned music
for such British theatre directors as Peter Gill, Howard
Davies, Adrian Noble, and Richard Eyre. He won BAFTA and
Ivor Novello awards for his work. Starting in 1983, Fenton
successfully made the transition from theatre to movies,
receiving Oscar nominations (Best Musical Score) for the
movies Gandhi, Dangerous Liaisons, Cry Freedom, The Fisher
King, and Dangerous Beauty (1998). Since then he has composed
widely for Film and also television (Blue Planet, etc.)
He also founded the Association of Professional Composers,
and is a member of both the Academy of Motion Pictures,
Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Music. George
Fenton is a Governor of St Edward's.
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