1. Adrian Warburton became legendary in the RAF for his role in the defence of Malta and was described by the then Air Officer Commanding in Chief Middle East, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, as "the most important pilot in the RAF".
88 Facts About Adrian Warburton
1. 2.
Adrian Warburton remains the most highly decorated RAF photo-reconnaissance pilot of all time.
3.
Adrian Warburton was the subject of the BBC Timewatch documentary The Mystery of the Missing Ace.
4.
Adrian Warburton was born in Middlesbrough on 10 March 1918, the only son of Commander Geoffrey Warburton DSO, a highly respected RN submariner, and Muriel Warburton, nee Davidson.
5.
Adrian Warburton was christened on board a submarine in Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta.
6.
Adrian Warburton attended St Edward's School in Oxford, where two other famous airmen, Guy Gibson and Douglas Bader, were educated.
7.
Adrian Warburton joined a local Territorial Army unit on 1 November 1937, joining the RAF a year later on 31 October 1938.
8.
Adrian Warburton was commissioned in the Royal Air Force an acting pilot officer on 3 September 1939 and confirmed as a pilot officer on 31 October.
9.
Adrian Warburton was then posted to No 22 Squadron, RAF Thorney Island, on 12 October 1939, which was operating ancient, single-engine Vickers Vildebeest biplanes.
10.
Adrian Warburton did not fly operationally, and his few flying hours were mostly split between the Vildebeest and the Hawker Audax.
11.
Adrian Warburton was then sent on a navigation and reconnaissance course at RAF Squire's Gate, Blackpool, which lasted until September 1940.
12.
Against regulations, Adrian Warburton had married in secret in October 1939.
13.
Tich said later, 'Adrian Warburton had already demonstrated to me that he was a capable and reliable officer just looking for a challenge.
14.
Devine was operational, but Adrian Warburton struggled on take-off and landing.
15.
Adrian Warburton then completed a savage ground-loop, an uncontrollable swing through almost 360 degrees.
16.
Adrian Warburton's take-off was so bad it tore a wheel off the aircraft, forcing an immediate emergency landing.
17.
Publicly, Tich was critical, as Adrian Warburton had risked a precious reconnaissance aircraft, but privately, he was rather pleased.
18.
Adrian Warburton extracted the bullet on his way back to Luqa and had it mounted on a wristband.
19.
Adrian Warburton's aircraft was subject to intense flak and intercepted by an Italian CR.
20.
Years later, Spires said Adrian Warburton told him they were going in at zero feet, and he was to get a sharp pencil and plenty of paper to plot the ships on the harbour map.
21.
Adrian Warburton played an important part over Taranto, but some accounts unnecessarily embellish his involvement at the expense of the other crews.
22.
Adrian Warburton was promoted to flying officer on 3 January 1941.
23.
Later the same month, the citation for Adrian Warburton's Distinguished Flying Cross was published in The London Gazette:.
24.
Adrian Warburton took photographs of the Tragino viaduct near Calitri in southern Italy, the target for an experimental raid by paratroopers.
25.
Adrian Warburton located numerous enemy convoys supplying Axis forces in North Africa.
26.
Adrian Warburton was not always taken at his word, so heavy was the layer of secrecy, as illustrated when he reported an Italian ship by name and the harbour in which it was berthed.
27.
Adrian Warburton's attire became an expression of his individuality and he often wore an army battledress blouse with his RAF rank on slides on the shoulder tabs.
28.
Adrian Warburton wore a cravat rather than a tie, and rarely wore uniform shoes.
29.
Adrian Warburton continued to foster a special, almost unique, relationship with the airmen, which he had begun as soon as he arrived in Malta.
30.
Tich had always encouraged his aircrew to help in servicing their aircraft, but Adrian Warburton went further, befriending many.
31.
On 14 April 1941, Adrian Warburton's Maryland was mistaken for a Ju 88 and attacked by a Hurricane flown by Flying Officer Innes Westmacott.
32.
Adrian Warburton did it in one, with every yard photographed and no breaks in coverage.
33.
Adrian Warburton first joined the traffic pattern and was given a "green" to land.
34.
Adrian Warburton was perceived by many who did not know him as a "loner" who did not mix in the officers' mess.
35.
In September 1941, Adrian Warburton was awarded a Bar to his DFC.
36.
Adrian Warburton said it was rather a poor show, as he only found one bullet hole, in his aircraft's left aileron.
37.
Adrian Warburton was sitting calmly, with a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, his elbows propped up on the sides of the cockpit, and with his beloved service cap pulled over his flying helmet.
38.
Adrian Warburton reported on four battleships, four cruisers, six to eight destroyers, and nine merchant ships.
39.
Adrian Warburton then spotted another hospital ship south of Reggio di Calabria.
40.
Adrian Warburton had flown 43 missions and produced some of the most important photographs of his career.
41.
Adrian Warburton had been a flight lieutenant for just two months.
42.
Adrian Warburton often photographed the coastal road along which Rommel was advancing toward Egypt.
43.
Adrian Warburton arrived in the middle of Operation Pedestal, a vital convoy for Malta.
44.
Adrian Warburton was able to crash-land at Bone, captured by the Allies three days earlier.
45.
Adrian Warburton was greeted by recently arrived Spitfire pilots of 111 Squadron.
46.
Adrian Warburton then shot down a Ju 88 on his way back to Luqa.
47.
Adrian Warburton was 24 years old and had been a squadron leader for only three months.
48.
Adrian Warburton took his film to be developed six days after taking off on his original mission.
49.
Adrian Warburton's longer than regulation hair was gone and his flamboyant dress, at the least on the ground, was a thing of the past.
50.
One of the newcomers to Adrian Warburton's squadron was 20-year-old Canadian William Keir Carr, known as Bill.
51.
When he reported to Adrian Warburton, he found him in a revetment shack, stretched out on a table drinking tea surrounded by airmen.
52.
Adrian Warburton was no longer the loner of his early days in Malta.
53.
Adrian Warburton personally flew all the missions targeting the heavily defended island of Pantelleria.
54.
Keith Durbridge, one of 683 Squadron's pilots, later remarked that Adrian Warburton was the only pilot he ever heard of who was fired at by anti-aircraft batteries from above.
55.
Adrian Warburton's photographs allowed Allied planners to pinpoint every defensive location, which were then subjected to a merciless bombardment.
56.
Adrian Warburton covered all four missions from a height of 200 feet.
57.
Hugh O'Neil flew the fighter escort and commented that Adrian Warburton was undeterred by the flak, simply smoking a large cigar as he went about his task.
58.
The C-in-C Middle East, General Harold Alexander, signalled Malta, asking that Adrian Warburton be thanked personally.
59.
Adrian Warburton still flew more than a normal squadron commander and continued to take the most dangerous missions.
60.
Adrian Warburton exercised his responsibility over his subordinates well, but he was long overdue a genuine rest tour.
61.
Adrian Warburton was to become the first commanding officer of a newly formed RAF North African photo-reconnaissance wing.
62.
Adrian Warburton was expected to be hospitalised for three months, with the lower part of his body encased in plaster.
63.
Adrian Warburton told his father Elliot Roosevelt was moving on and he hoped to accompany him.
64.
Adrian Warburton borrowed shorts and a shirt, and a Mark IX Spit from a friendly squadron commander, and flew to see us of his old squadron, now located in Italy.
65.
Adrian Warburton was one of those chosen, although officially he was still listed as "sick".
66.
Adrian Warburton was the pilot of one of two Lockheed F-5B photo-reconnaissance aircraft that took off together from Mount Farm on the morning of 12 April 1944 to photograph targets in Germany.
67.
Adrian Warburton married Eileen Adelaide Mitchell, known as Betty, on 28 October 1939.
68.
Adrian Warburton was 21 and had known her for only a few weeks.
69.
Adrian Warburton was 27, a divorcee with a nine-year-old daughter in her parents' care.
70.
Adrian Warburton did not tell his parents of the marriage, then or later, and in a clear breach of regulations, did not inform the RAF.
71.
Adrian Warburton never altered his RAF next-of-kin forms, which named his father.
72.
In later years, Mrs Adrian Warburton said they never lived together.
73.
Adrian Warburton was in serious debt and his future as an officer looked bleak.
74.
Adrian Warburton's commanding officer in Malta, Tich Whiteley, arranged to have part of his pay stopped in the UK to go toward his debts.
75.
Three years later, while on leave in England, Adrian Warburton met Tich and learnt that not only were all his debts paid, but there was a significant credit balance.
76.
Adrian Warburton attempted to leave half of the remainder in an envelope for Tich to open after he left.
77.
Adrian Warburton met Christina Ratcliffe in Floriana, Malta, on the evening of 24 January 1941.
78.
Adrian Warburton became a civilian plotter working for the RAF, later captain of her watch and assistant controller.
79.
Adrian Warburton stayed in Malta, never married, and died there in 1988.
80.
When he went missing, Adrian Warburton had just turned 26 years old.
81.
Adrian Warburton was a wing commander and his gallantry had been recognised by the award of the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Bars and an American Distinguished Flying Cross.
82.
Adrian Warburton had flown nearly 400 operations and claimed nine enemy aircraft destroyed.
83.
Adrian Warburton has been described as the father of the modern Canadian Air Force.
84.
Adrian Warburton inspired his colleagues and his subordinates to achieve goals most would not have thought themselves capable of achieving.
85.
Years of speculation about Adrian Warburton's fate came to an end in 2002, when his remains were found with his aircraft, buried about 2 yards deep in a field near the Bavarian village of Egling an der Paar, 34 miles west of Munich.
86.
One of the propellers had bullet holes in it, which suggests that Adrian Warburton had been shot down.
87.
Adrian Warburton was the subject of the "Mystery of the Missing Ace" episode of the BBC investigative documentary series Timewatch, first broadcast in November 2003.
88.
The names of Bader and Gibson are rightly famous, but the name of Adrian Warburton has hardly been heard outside the circle of those who actually knew him, and there is no single mention of him in the official RAF history of the Second World War.