Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Tiger Cub: The Story of John Freeborn DFC*
    Unavailable
    Tiger Cub: The Story of John Freeborn DFC*
    Unavailable
    Tiger Cub: The Story of John Freeborn DFC*
    Ebook186 pages2 hours

    Tiger Cub: The Story of John Freeborn DFC*

    By John Freeborn and Chris Yeoman

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Acting Pilot Officer John Freeborn reported to RAF Hornchurch on 29 October, 1938. John was posted from Flying Training School to join the already acclaimed 74 ‘Tiger’ Squadron at eighteen years of age. One of the first people John met when he arrived at the station was Bob Stanford Tuck of 65 squadron. At that time the Squadron was equipped with the Gloster Gauntlet. A Flight’s Commander was a well built, handsome South African man called Adolf ‘Sailor’ Malan. On first meeting Malan, John thought he seemed nice enough and soon learnt that he was a determined leader, a fine flyer and an aggressive fighter pilot. ‘He was definitely the best shot there was’ John recalls. ‘Without question Malan was a brilliant marksman, but I could out fly him and I bloody told him so too.’

    John flew many operations with 74 Squadron in Spitfires during the early years of the war and The Battle of Britain; he was awarded the DFC for his efforts.

    During a brief respite for 74, John Freeborn was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and on 29 August he was given command of A Flight. In 1941, the first couple of months saw 74 Squadron, now based at Biggin Hill flying across the Channel with 92 and 66 Squadron conducting fighter Sweeps and Circus sorties over the French coast. On 17 February 1941, John Freeborn learnt that he had been awarded a bar to his DFC. At that time he had destroyed twelve enemy aircraft and damaged many more.

    In December 1941, John Freeborn’s time with 57 OTU came to an end and shortly after, he was posted to the United States of America as a Liaison Officer. Throughout the following years John would serve in 602 Squadron as a Squadron Leader supernumerary, then onto 118 Squadron as Commanding Officer and then finally he became the RAF’s youngest Wing Commander, responsible for the 286 Italian Wing stationed at Grottaglie. In 1946 John Connell Freeborn DFC and Bar left the Royal Air Force with honor and distinction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPen and Sword
    Release dateSep 19, 2009
    ISBN9781844685288
    Unavailable
    Tiger Cub: The Story of John Freeborn DFC*

    Related to Tiger Cub

    Related ebooks

    Wars & Military For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Voices Of War

      Oct 28, 2021

      Voices Of War
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Elysian Hunt Gains A Subscriber

      Jan 17, 2024

      WE are sad to inform you that John Charteris is dead.’ The sense of loss is tempered by approval of the wording. John, who was an Elder of the Kirk and less emotional about death than most—and usually said at funerals, ‘Well, another one gathered’—wo

      3 min read

    • Article

      MUSEUMS & EVENTS

      Oct 4, 2018

      MUSEUMS & EVENTS
      6 min read

    • Article

      Tom Neil 1920–2018

      Sep 28, 2023

      Tom Neil 1920–2018
      2 min read

    • Article

      Pilots Of The Caribbean

      Oct 8, 2020

      Pilots Of The Caribbean
      9 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Aug 13, 2020

      Write to: The Editor, The Field, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF. Email: field.secretary@futurenet.com LETTERS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY OR SPACE Dr Hannah Clark’s article was excellent [Huntin

      7 min read

    • Article

      Shot Heard Round the World

      Nov 23, 2021

      Shot Heard Round the World
      3 min read

    • Article

      BOOKS & co

      Jun 12, 2020

      By Mike Wood Dunkirk and D-Day are both iconic dates in history. And they’re also the bookend dates in Mike Wood’s new book – A Soldier’s Story – about his father’s war years. One of the last men to be evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk, and a wit

      6 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Apr 16, 2020

      Reviews
      5 min read

    • Article

      Noël Coward's MeToo moment

      Aug 23, 2023

      Sadly, I didn't know Jane Birkin, the Anglo-French actress, singer and beauty, who died in Paris in mid-July at the age of 76. I had admired her since I was a teenager and saw her, naked, in Antonioni's seminal Sixties movie, Blow-Up. Later, I got to

      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Dec 16, 2019

      I much enjoyed Gregor Woods’s article on Kitchener and the Tech Talk on Barrel Length in the November 2019 edition – they were so well researched and easy to read. The one about Kitchener is particularly interesting. Some years ago Professor Louis Ch

      2 min read

    • Article

      Ill-fated Connection

      Apr 23, 2024

      Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST WIN an AncestryDNA test kit from ancestry.co.uk WORTH £79 The writer of our star letter wins an AncestryDNA test worth £79 – so drop us a line and share your

      6 min read

    • Article

      Readers' Letters

      May 3, 2023

      Readers' Letters
      5 min read

    • Article

      Readers' Letters

      Nov 16, 2022

      Readers' Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Hapless Stooge

      Dec 8, 2022

      The Hapless Stooge
      4 min read

    • Article

      Where All Began

      Oct 6, 2022

      Where All Began
      7 min read

    • Article

      2001

      Sep 1, 2019

      In 2001, Empire ran its first major report on Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. This excerpt gives a sense of the scale and intensity of the high-risk endeavour — not to mention the passion that was being poured into it. AS THE SHOOT wo

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Old Un’s Notes

      Jun 30, 2021

      * Have Oldie-readers who wear glasses ever thought where specs come from? The answer lies in a new book, Through the Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles, by Travis Elborough. Elborough, himself bespectacled, traces the history of spec

      6 min read

    • Article

      Playing Hancock

      Aug 28, 2018

      Playing Hancock
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jul 9, 2020

      Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Loss Of An Icon

      Nov 30, 2022

      The Loss Of An Icon
      4 min read

    • Article

      Farewell To Arms

      Nov 8, 2021

      Farewell To Arms
      4 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Jun 2, 2021

      SIR: John Sutherland’s piece ‘Larkin’s bare cheek’ (May issue) reminded me of Philip Larkin officially opening the new Library at Leicester University on 27th September 1975. As sub-librarian for administrative matters, I had to organise the occasion

      5 min read

    • Article

      James Brindley Nicolson

      Jan 24, 2019

      In December 1940, the BBC broadcast an anonymous RAF fighter pilot talking about his experiences during the Battle of Britain earlier that year. That unnamed pilot was Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson, who had flown Hurricanes with 249 Squad

      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jun 20, 2019

      Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 13, 2020

      With reference to Paul Kenyon’s letter, Unusual Weapon [February issue], in December 2018 I took my blunderbuss to Whitfield on a .410 and black-powder day. It hadn’t been fired in the past 50 years so the first test shot was taken with trepidation N

      7 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Sep 21, 2022

      Readers’ Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      Memories of War

      Jan 2, 2019

      I was particularly interested that AG 147 has listed all our Victoria Cross recipients, because I have just finished reading the book One False Move [by Robert Macklin], which describes four brave Australians – Leon Goldsworthy, George Gosse, Stuart

      4 min read

    Reviews for Tiger Cub

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words