Air ace who fought in the Battle of Britain and the defence of Malta
After joining the Auxiliary Air Force as a photographer before the war, “Bam” Bamberger saw action as a Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain, after which he was posted to Malta where he took part in the desperate air defence of the island during 1941. He was subsequently involved in fighter operations in support of the invasion of Sicily and the Eighth Army's drive up through Italy.
Cyril Stanley “Bam” Bamberger was born in Hyde, Cheshire, and educated locally. He left school at 14 and joined Lever Brothers as an electrical aprentice in 1934. In 1936 he volunteered for the Auxiliary Air Force and was posted as a photographer to 610 “County of Chester” Squadron, which had been formed that year as a bomber squadron at Hooton Park in the Wirral, not far from the company's Port Sunlight headquarters. He was accepted for pilot training in 1938, not long after which the squadron became a fighter unit and received its first Spitfires early in 1940.
In July 1940 the squadron was moved to Biggin Hill, and Bamberger flew with it as a sergeant pilot during the early air fighting over the Channel that followed the Dunkirk evacuation. The squadron suffered heavy casualties but Bamberger was credited with a “probable” Messerschmitt Me109 on August 28 in combat off the Kent coast.
When 610 was withdrawn to rest in mid-September Bamberger was posted to 41 Squadron and was soon back in action over Kent, where he gained his first confirmed combat victory, again over an Me109, on October 15.
With the Battle of Britain winding down, Bamberger volunteered for Malta, and on November 17, 1940, was in the Mediterranean aboard the aircraft carrier Argus from which a dozen Hurricanes were flown off, led by two naval Skuas, for the 450-mile flight to the island. As he was not familiar with the Hurricane he was not among those pilots selected to fly, and hence was spared the tragedy that ensued.
Many of the pilots, unused to long range flying, had set their engine revs too high for a flight of that length, and the navigator of one of the guiding Skuas was fresh from training school. Eight Hurricanes and one Skua ran out of fuel and were lost. The four fighters that reached Malta safely did so with respectively, 12, four, three and two gallons of petrol in their tanks.
Bamberger reached Malta in December in the destroyer Hotspur. With the island under heavy air attack, he was soon in thick of the action with 261 Squadron, and he shot down two Ju87 Stukas on successive days in January 1941 over Grand Harbour.
After a period back in the UK where he was commissioned and helped to train arriving American pilots in gunnery, he was back in the Mediterranean, this time as a flight commander with 93 Squadron, scoring further victories in the Sicilian and Italian campaigns before returning to Britain as a gunnery instructor in late 1944. By then his leadership and fine shooting had earned him the DFC and Bar.
After demobilisation he returned to Lever before joining the management of a Guinness subsidiary. When 610 Squadron was reformed as a Royal Auxiliary Air Force unit he rejoined it as a flight commander and became its CO in 1950, by when it had converted to Gloster Meteors. When the RAuxAF was mobilised after the outbreak of the Korean War he accepted a permanent commission, and for most of the duration of that conflict was an intelligence officer at the Air Ministry.
He later converted to helicopters and served in a squadron of Bristol Sycamores in Aden, finally retiring in 1959, by which time he had also received the Air Efficiency Award and Bar.
He then went into business, founding a packaging materials company, and then running an antiques business.He remained active in RAF matters and was closely involved with the Bentley Priory Battle of Britain Trust, of which he was vice-chairman.
“Bam” Bamberger is survived by his wife Heather, whom he married in 1954, and by three sons and a daughter.
Squadron Leader “Bam” Bamberger, DFC and Bar, AE and Bar, wartime fighter pilot, was born on May 4, 1919. He died on February 3, 2008, aged 88
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3398890.ece
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