For those interested in WWII aces only
I wrote extensively about Bob Stanford Tuck on the forum last year. I had a few PMs asking for more information, but never got around to them. Tuck, as you may remember, was the one who fired at a German antiaircraft gun as he was coming down, deadstick, into a city park, one of his cannon shells opening up the barrel of the gun like a banana.
Like several other top aces, Tuck did not initially take to piloting well, and was almost washed out as he had difficulty mastering landing and basic aerobatics. On the night before his final check ride, that would decide whether he would pass, or fail and be discharged from the RAF, he went on an all-night bender and was so hung over at the time of the test that he couldn't have cared less about it; he just wanted to get it over with and get back to the mess and some coffee and aspirins. Oddly, having lost his anxiety, he passed easily. After a few weeks he became one of the best Spitfire pilots, and on his first combat flight downed three German planes.
Tuck was shot down, parachuted out or crash landed so many times that he earned the nickname
Lucky Tuck (and probably an unprintable middle name that rhymed with Tuck). Shot up in one dogfight, he found that his cheek was cut right open and, while nursing his Spit back to base, idly reached through the hole to remove a broken tooth. The resultant scar gave him a piratical look which, coupled with his natural handsomeness, fighter-pilot mustache and uniform, made him irrestistible to the ladies. In effect, he became a living caricature of the RAF pilot.
(The BURMA on the side of Tuck's plane denotes funds raised in that country for the purchase of some Spitfires and Hurricanes, a practice repeated all over the British Empire.)
Tuck learned to speak fluent Russian from a grandmother. At 16 he went to sea, and served for several years on freighters, learning to defend himself in fistfights in various parts of the world, and, from one of the crew, to throw knives with deadly effect.
His first CO was Sq. Ldr. Roger Bushell. Fans of The Great Escape will remember the Bushell character played by Richard Attenbrough, as Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (I've no idea why they changed his name). When Tuck was taken POW, he was sent to Stalag Luft III, where he met his old CO Bushell and joined the tunnel scheme. He was slated to be one of the escapees, but was posted to a camp farther east just before the breakout, probably saving his life; (Bushell and 49 others were murdered by the Gerstapo). Tuck's Luck again.
When the Russian juggernaut rolled in from the east, Tuck and a companian escaped and joined the Russians as a footsoldier (his Russian coming in handy) until VE Day.
In a sad irony, Robert Stanford Tuck, DSO, DFC and Bar, died at only 70.