Pilot Officer JA Duff

More than a “Few” South Africans

His first raid as Commander-in-Chief on March 3rd,the largest dispatched to a single target, involved 235 bombers dropping what was then the most concentrated and highest bomb tonnage with one aircraft loss. Essen, bombed on March 9th and 10th, cost the lives of 89 Bomber Command aircrew including 24 -year-old Flight Lt Gordon Duff DFC and four members of his No 158 Squadron Wellington crew killed crash landing after the raid 11. Duff, having completed a 30-sortie bomber “Tour”, joined the squadron two days earlier from No 2 “Beam Approach Training Flight”. His brother, Pilot Officer James Alistair Duff DFC, lost his life in March the previous year.

The Dreaded Telegram

On March 24th James and Winifred Duff received an Air Ministry Telegram advising their son, twenty-five -year -old Pilot Officer James Duff, a No 254 Squadron Coastal Command Blenheim pilot had lost his life during “operations against the enemy”. James finished at Bishops in 1933, commissioned in 1940, and left a widow in Fife. One of four former Bishop’s pupils with the surname Duff who served in the RAF, their younger son Pilot Officer Gordon Duff DFC lost his life almost a year later, when his Wellington crashed on return to the squadron’s base after a March 10th Essen Raid. Peter Rutherford Duff’, a Rhodesian and not related, lost his life in a 1943 training accident. No information regarding CWD Duff has been sourced.