Flying Officer B van Mentz

The First Ten Months

The Hawker Hurricane did not share the Fairey Battle and Blenheim’s performance and armament weaknesses but their pilots in France, including South African’s Flight Lt GDL Haysom, Flying Officer’s EJ Morris, Brian Van Mentz, PH Hugo, BP Young and Pilot Officer’s JJ le Roux and AG Lewis endured a baptism of fire against experienced Me 109 Luftwaffe pilots and intense combat conditions.

Against Unfavourable Odds

The October 25th “London Gazette” also announced the “Distinguished Flying Cross” awarded to Johannesburg born Flying Officer Brian van Mentz. His father, a Major in the Witwatersrand Rifles lost his life in the First World War and his mother then moved to England where van Mentz attended the City of London Freemen’s School, a co-educational boarding school in Surrey. Commissioned in October 1939, he flew No 504 Squadron Hurricanes in France, claimed two enemy aircraft and at least three flying No 222 Squadron Spitfires during the “Battle of Britain”. Twenty-four-year-old Brian van Mentz and 19 others lost their lives on April 26th, 1941, when the “Ferry Inn”, a popular Norfolk watering hole was bombed.