Archive Report: Allied Forces

Compiled from official National Archive and Service sources, contemporary press reports, personal logbooks, diaries and correspondence, reference books, other sources, and interviews.

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26.05.1940 No.19 Squadron Spitfire I N3200 Sq/Ldr. Geoff Stephenson

Operation: Operation Dynamo.

Date: 26th May 1940 (Sunday)

Unit: No.19 Squadron RAF

Type: Supermarine Spitfire I

Serial: N3200

Code: QV-

Location: On beach, Dunkirk, France.

Pilot: Sq/Ldr. Geoffrey Dalton Stephenson 26165 RAF PoW No: 254 Camp: Oflag Saalhaus Colditz O4Cr

(Note: Discovered in the 1980’s after sands had shifted on the beach. The wreck is recovered and then stored for over 25 years in a Normandy Museum. Purchased by American enthusiasts, then finally shipped to Duxford for restoration/rebuild by the Aircraft Restoration Company. Mr Guy Martin joined the team and a documentary is planned for screening on Channel 4 in October 2014.)

REASON FOR LOSS:

This aircraft was shot down in combat and forced landed on the beach at Dunkirk. Sq/Ldr. Stephenson captured and taken Prisoner of War.

Before the war, he was a member of the RAF aerobatic team. As Squadron Leader of 19 Squadron, (Duxford) he was shot down over Dunkirk covering the evacuation. He spent the war in a number of German prison camps, making many escape attempts, and eventually was sent to Colditz Castle in Poland, the ultimate high security German Prisoner of War camp. He was part of the team that built the famous Colditz glider. He was also personal pilot to King George VI.

Right: Sq/Ldr. Geoffrey D. Stephenson

He was killed on the 8th November 1954 whilst test flying a F-100A-10-NA Super Sabre of the USAF at Eglin Air Force Base. The aircraft went out of control and crashed before he could eject.

Air Commodore Stephenson headed a six-man team from the central fighter establishment RAF, whose headquarters are at West Raynham near Fakenham, Norfolk. They were at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, home of the Air Proving Ground Centre, on an exchange tour.

He was flying at 13,000 feet as he joined formation with another F-100, flown by Capt. Lonnie R. Moore, jet ace of the Korean campaign, when his fighter dropped into a steep spiral, impacting at 14.14 hrs. in a pine forest on the Eglin Reservation, one mile NE of the runway of Pierce Field, Auxiliary Fld. 2.

(N3200) Examined by German soldiers (archives)

Left: F-100A Super Sabre similar to the type flown by Air Commodore Stephenson when he was killed in November 1954

With thanks to the following: Juliet Hodgkinson for pointing out an error, now corrected. Guy Martin, Mark Sublette, from South Carolina, USA for his work with the Wikipedia page. The work of the CWGC. "Fighter Command Losses" - Norman Franks.

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