Spirit of the Blue

Peter Ayerst: A Fighter Pilot's Story

Few RAF pilots flew operationally from the beginning to the end of the Second World War. Fewer still can claim to have taken part in the Battle of France, Battle of Britain, El Alamein, and the D-Day landings as well as bomber escort duties in the closing days of the war. Peter Ayerst is one such man and his tale is, as yet, untold. Illustrated with photographs, this is the previously unpublished story of an RAF Second World War fighter pilot ace. Peter Ayerst joined the RAF in 1938 on a short service commission and was despatched as part of the Advanced Air Striking Force to France at the beginning of September 1939, gaining his first kills. He became the first RAF pilot to engage a Bf 109 in combat and survived a confrontation with twenty-seven enemy aircraft, his Hurricane riddled with bullets. With the fall of France, Peter was recalled to England where he spent the Battle of Britain summer of 1940 instructing at No. 7 OTU Hawarden, shooting down a Heinkel He 111 bomber.Peter was then posted to North Africa in 1942 where he was shot down in the desrt and crash-landed in a minefield! He flew a variety of missions, culminating in a strafing of Axis motor targets 400 miles behind enemy lines, personally detroying a Junkers Ju 52 and seventeen vehicles. Following a period of instructing in South Africa, Peter returned to Britain in 1944, flying high-altitude Spitfires on interception flights over France. He took part in escort duties on D-Day and at the end of 1944 he was awarded the DFC. Peter also flew bomber escort duties of the Ruhr and escorted King George VI's personal flight. In the closing months of the war he flew Spitfires in support of mass daylight bomber raids deep into Germany.By the war's end, Peter had flown every operational mark of Spitfire and Hurricane in the RAF's inventory. Alex Henshaw was instrumental in choosing him as a test pilot for Vickers at Castle Bromwich where he flew production Spitfire Mk XIs, XVIs and 22s.