Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Air Chief Marshal Sir Ronald 'Chaps' Ivelaw-Chapman GCB, KBE, DFC, AFC, RAF (17 January 1899 – 28 April 1978) was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force in the middle of the 20th century and the penultimate RAF commander-in-chief of the Indian Air Force.

[edit] References

Military offices
Preceded by Sir Thomas Elmhirst	Commander in Chief, Indian Air Force 1950–1951	Succeeded by Sir Gerald Gibbs

[edit] Family Information & Background

Sir Ronald had 2 children, Adrianne and John, John went on to fly in the RAF seeing active service in Aden during the 1960's as part of the British contribution to the Aden government. Adrianne was a teacher.

John (my father) wrote a biography on Sir Ronald called - High Endeavour : The Life of Air Chief Marshal Sir Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman Jack Ivelaw Chapman, Jack Ivelaw-Chapman Hardcover / Published 1997 by Pen & Sword books.

In this book Dad describes my Granfathers great adventure and "daring-do" to rescue the British Legation in Kabul- Afghanistan after a minor falling out with the British in the 1920's. The significance of the resuce was that this was the first airbourne RFC/Air Force rescue to take place en mass, and made more redoubtable, by the route that Sir Ronald took to Kabul, namely over Mt Everest and the Himalayan peaks ... not bad for an open top Vickers Victoria.

My Grandfather wrote a book before his death in 1978 called "Wings over Kabul" which puts the reader in the flight seat of a most extraordinary rescue for its time.

Jonathan Ivelaw-Chapman - 10th April 2008 - Jonchapman1@gmail.com