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 Battle of France, 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, Douglas Bader, 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 Croix de Guerre,.