Pilot Officer William Fiske, Royal Air Force
Seventy-six years ago today, Pilot Officer William “Billy” Fiske scrambled to his Hurricane along with his fellow pilots at RAF Tangmere to intercept a formation of German Junkers over the English Channel. His squadron destroyed 8 German aircraft, but a gunner badly damaged Fiske’s aircraft and put a bullet through his fuel tank. Rather than bail out, in one final piece of extraordinary skill, he managed to nurse his burning Hurricane back to the airfield, and bring it down through a steep dive into a belly landing. Fiske had to be recovered from his aircraft and died the next day of wounds he sustained over the Channel.
Plt Off Billy Fiske was the first U.S. citizen to travel to the UK on the onset of WWII to join the RAF and was one of 7 American pilots to take part in the Battle of Britain. Fiske was a member of 601(County of London) Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force — the “Millionaire’s Squadron.”
The son of a wealthy New York banker, Fiske was a celebrity in his own country before traveling to the UK. He was the driver of the first five-man U.S. bobsled team to win the Olympics in 1928, and, at 16 years old, was the youngest gold medalist in any winter sport (eclipsed only in 1992). He carried the U.S. flag at the opening ceremony of the 1932 Olympics and again led the U.S. team to a gold medal. Fiske was also a cresta champion and was well known for jumps from the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel’s bar chandelier in St. Moritz.
Billy Fiske and the 1932 Olympic Bobsled Team
He studied at Trinity Hall College, Cambridge, then worked at the London office of New York banking company Dillon, Reed & Co, and he married Rose Bingham, the Countess of Warwick, in 1938. In 1939 he was recalled to work in New York, but at the outbreak of the war, pretended to be Canadian and enrolled in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, being promoted to Pilot Officer in March 1940.
In a letter to his sister Peggy, written around the time he volunteered, he explained his thinking. The English, he wrote, had “been damn good to me in good times so naturally I feel I ought to try and help out in bad if I can. There are absolutely no heroics in my motives, I’m probably twice as scared as the next man, but if anything happens to me I at least can feel I have done the right thing in spite of the worry to my family – which I certainly couldn’t feel if I was to sit in New York making dough.”
In 1941 a plaque was unveiled to him in St Paul’s Cathedral which is inscribed: An American citizen who died that England might live. The U.S. Bobsled Federation has also dedicated the Billy Fiske Memorial Trophy, which is awarded to the national champion four-man bobsled team each year.
The United States is currently relocating its Embassy in London to a new site, much of which will be a park and accessible to the general public. This is a wonderful opportunity to honor the memory of Pilot Officer William “Billy” Fiske, a U.S. citizen and the first American to fly in the Battle of Britain, with a statue in the park, highlighting the close service and historical links between our nations and Air Forces.
Given Billy Fiske’s status in the United States, as a double Olympic gold medalist, and his close ties to the UK, including his education, marriage and subsequent enrollment in the RAF, a statue to this recognized hero would be a fitting tribute to him, and to the enduring relationship between both nations and Air Forces in the UK’s greatest hour of need. An American, in an RAF uniform, who died for Britain, would provide a distinct tie between both countries, and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy, particularly with the inclusion of a public park, would provide a fitting venue.
Hawker Hurricane. U.S. Naval Institute
Late this year and early next year, Embassy staff will relocate from the Embassy in Mayfair to a new site south of the River Thames. The Nine Elms district, a South Bank industrial zone under intense redevelopment, offers a unique setting for the new Embassy. With an estimated 1000 daily visitors, the Embassy project is expected to establish a strong framework for the urbanization of Nine Elms. Contributing to this revitalization is a civic plaza and park, connecting the Thames embankment and Nine Elms Lane to a new pedestrian green way, linking Vauxhall to Battersea. The Embassy will sit at the centre of the site, with the surrounding park containing a pond, walkways, seating, and landscape along its edges, all open to the public, in contrast to the usual high walls and fences. This park offers a terrific opportunity to showcase U.S. ingenuity, art and culture, as well as providing a venue to commemorate its history and the special relationship with the UK and to recognize one of “The Few.”
“The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen, who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and devotion.”
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
— Winston Churchill, 20th August 1940
