David Ince

Ince first experienced flying when he was taken up over the River Clyde by a member of the Renfrew Flying Club in a Gypsy Moth. After school he applied to join the Royal Air Force but failed the eye test. However, he was able to join No. 602 Auxiliary Squadron and found that 18 months' commissioned service with the British Army he could be seconded to the air force. He successfully passed the eye test for the secondment and went to Canada for his flight training.[2]

During the Allied Invasion of Europe, Ince's reconnaissance aircraft was hit while he photographed the Gestapo Headquarters at Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In this period he also assisted in the destruction of a bridge that collapsed into the river in one piece. Ince also claimed one-eleventh of a kill in the shooting down of a Blohm and Voss Flying boat.[2]

Ince participated in what is thought to be the only operational use of napalm in the European campaign. On 12 April 1945, napalm was used against a German strong point near Arnhem in the Netherlands. The eight-foot canister of napalm missed the target but is believed to have damaged the morale of the German troops. Of the attack Ince noted -[2]

The fiery mass sprayed forward and upwards, in a cascade of incandescent reds and yellows which threatened to engulf my tail.

Ince was enthusiastic to fly the Hawker Typhoon and told a wing-commander who was recruiting pilots to fly them that a shortened right index finger made flying British aircraft easier than American models. This was due to British aircraft employing a spade grip control stick with thumb activated firing button while American aircraft required the pilot to pull levers and press to fire with a finger. The wing commander readily accepted, with an attrition rate of one in three (150 of the 450 Typhoon pilots would be lost by the war's end) he was wondering how to persuade pilots to volunteer.[2]

The shortened index finger, which he dubbed 'Stumpy', was the result of placing it in the Spokes of a bicycle to see what would happen at the age of around seven.[2]

Flying with 193 Squadron and 257 Squadron, Ince flew almost 150 Sorties. When flying reconnaissance he modified the front gun mouldings to take an F24 camera, an exercise which yielded unprecedented close up images.[2]

After the war Ince joined the Empire Test Pilots' School. However, chronic sinusitis prevented his working with high altitude jet aircraft. Ince then turned his attention to gliding and he set a British distance record for gliding with a flight of 315 miles from Lavenham in Suffolk to Land's End in Cornwall.[2]

Ince worked as an aviation expert for Elliotts, a company specialising in flight systems used in the Lightning and Buccaneer military jets and subsequently Concorde.[2]

Ince penned two books, Combat and Competition in 1992 and Brotherhood of the Skies in 2010.[2]