8.3.44 - No. 8

Air Ministry News Service Air Ministry Bulletin No, 131 45.

NEW POST FOR D.S.O, FIGHTER LEADER five hundred

After'completing/operational hours as a fighter pilot, V//Cr. Peter Russell

Talker, D,S,O, D.F,C, known throughout the A,A,F. as "Johnnie”, has been appointed

. from

second-in-command of the Air Defence of Great Britain station/which he flew as a

pupil-pilot nine years ago.

Since those days, he has flown in the , when he was twice

shot down, has been credited with the first He,llo to be destroyed in the war,

has and led a Spitfire wing which accounted for the destruction of many enemy aircraft, during the Dieppe combined operations*

He returns as deputy station commander to a South of England station in an important fighter group from which many of this war ’s outstanding fighter personalities have flown.

among then have been W/Cclr, , W/Cclr, Stanford Tuck, Yf/Cdr.

Finucane, W/Cdr, John Cunningham, F/Lti Karel Kuttelwascher, the Czech intruder

pilot, and S/Ldr, J.A, MacLachlan, the one-armed fighter leader.

W/Cclr. Walker, who comes from Woodbridge, Suffolk, is 29. joined the’-

R,A.F» when he was 20, and after completing his training was posted to the*famous

Number 1 fighter squadron.

went to France the air force in When the squadron with advanced striking 1939 >

he his section of he was one of its flight commanders, It was while was leading

nine shot of Hurricanes on a patrol over Metz that he encountered Me, 110 s and one them down.

After the fall of Prance, he was an instructor in fighter tactics for a time, before returning to the front line to lead a Spitfire wing *- including squadrons

across the Channel of Fighting Frenchmen - in the continuous fighter sweeps

v/hich were a feature of the R.A.F’s change to the offensive.

has been He was awarded his D, S.O, after the Dieppe operations, and recently awarded the ,