Joseph Berry (aviator)

Squadron Leader Joseph (Joe) Berry DFC and two bars (28 February 1920 – 2 October 1944) shot down 591⁄2 V-1 missiles ("flying bombs") during World War II, more than any other fighter pilot.[1]

Berry was born in Quarrington, Teesdale, County Durham and attended Dukes Grammar School in Alnwick, Northumberland.[1]

He joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1940. In 1942, after completing pilot training, he was posted to a night fighter unit, No. 256 Squadron RAF and flew Boulton Paul Defiants, followed by twin-engined Bristol Beaufighters.[1]

Berry later flew Beaufighters during the North African campaign, with the night fighters units No. 153 Squadron RAF and No. 255 Squadron RAF. He claimed his first three victories in North Africa, the only conventional aircraft he would destroy in his career.[1]

In 1944, Berry was posted to the elite Fighter Interception Unit (FIU) at RAF Wittering in East Anglia where be began flying night sorties against V-1s in single-engined Hawker Tempests. Berry quickly became the pilot most successful in destroying V-1s. He claimed 52 in less than two months, including seven destroyed in one night (23 July).[1]

On 23 August, the Tempest flight from FIU was hived off into a new unit, No. 501 Squadron RAF, at RAF Manston, with Berry as its commanding officer.[1]

Allied ground forces began to overrun the V-1 launch sites and 510 Sqn began to undertake ground attack missions over the Netherlands and Germany. On the morning of 2 October 1944, Berry's Tempest was hit by small arms fire while he was 500 feet over Veendam, in Groningen, leading two other Tempests on a sortie against an airfield and railyards near Bad Zwischenahn. His final radio message was "I've had it chaps; you go on."[1] Berry was apparently flying too low to bale out and he was killed when his aircraft crashed near the village of Kibbelgaam.[1]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 The Hawker Tempest Page, 2014, Squadron Leader Joseph Berry (DFC**) (4 December 2014)

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