Robert Blucke

Air Vice Marshal Robert Stewart Blucke CB CBE DSO AFC & Bar (22 June 1897 – 2 October 1988) was a Royal Air Force officer who became Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at RAF Transport Command.

RAF career

Blucke was commissioned into the 3rd Bn the Dorsetshire Regiment in 1915 during World War I and transferred to No. 63 Squadron on formation of the Royal Air Force in April 1918.^[1] He became a Signals Officer at the Experimental Section of the Royal Aircraft Establishment in January 1934 and in February 1935 he flew a Handley Page Heyford over Stowe Nine Churches becoming the first pilot to be detected by radar.^[2] He served in World War II as Officer Commanding the Blind Approach Training and Development Unit and then as Officer Commanding the Wireless Investigation Development Unit before joining the Directorate of Flying Training at the Air Ministry in November 1940.^[1] He became Station Commander at RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor in 1942, in which role he was awarded the DSO for a bombing run over Mannheim in a damaged Lancaster,^[3] before becoming Station Commander at RAF Ludford Magna in 1943 and Air Officer Commanding No. 1 (Bomber) Group in 1945.^[1]

After the War he was appointed Senior Air Staff Officer at Air Headquarters India and then became Air Officer Administration at Headquarters Technical Training Command in 1947.^[1] He went on to be Air Officer Administration at Headquarters Far East Air Force in 1949, Air Officer Commanding Air Headquarters Malaya in 1951 and Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at RAF Transport Command in January 1952 before retiring in July 1952.^[1]

References