Pilot Officer J Falkson “Jac”

Links of Long Standing

The SAAF Development Programme’s prewar demise influenced many young South Africans including WI Deas, PG Dexter, GJ Drake, J Falkson, AC Hamman, PH Hugo, O Hume, J Ing, AG Lewis, N Lewis, LA Lynn, Spencer Peacock -Edwards, SR Whiting and GM Wright while 26-year-old Michaelhouse educated Guy Paul Wentworth Austin arrived in England on the day war was declared, commissioned as an “acting Pilot on probation” in January 1940 and lost his life 10 months later in a No 9 Squadron Wellington shot down over Germany.

The First Ten Months

Pilot Officer Jac Falkson and several other pilots landed their Gladiators and Hurricanes on HMS “Glorious” prior to sailing in convoy from Norway to Scapa Flow. However, on June 8th HMS “Glorious” and her destroyer escorts HMS “Ardent” and HMS “Acasta” inexplicably left the convoy and were soon after dispatched to freezing graves by the battlecruisers “Gneisenau” and “Scharnhorst”.

The First Ten Months

The Press announcement two days later was suitably vague but the incident cost 1 519 lives including 27-year-old -year-old Durban born, Pretoria Boys High educated Pilot Officer Jacob Falkson who had scrambled from the temporary airfield with Hull two weeks earlier and 57 other RAF airmen. There were only 41 survivors.