Shooting Down Enemy Aircraft  Catapult Ship signed  M A Birrell  Battle of Britain & Capt G C Baldwin,WW11  Pilots

3 Aug 81 BFPS 1751 40th Anniv. of the 1st Shooting Down of an Enemy Aircraft from Catapult Ship Maplin by Hurricane Fighter Cdr M A .Birrell.

Personally signed by Cdr M A .Birrell 79 Sqn,Battle of Britain Pilot, Later 1st pilot shot from Catapult Ship 1941 shooting down Enemy Aircraft. ..

In response to Churchill’s request to the Admiralty for pilots Birrell was one of those loaned to the RAF in Mid – June 1940. After conversion to Hurricanes he joined 79 Sqn at Biggin Hill. When the Squadron was rested he was posted to 804 ( FAA ) Squadron at Hatston. After a short spell with 802 Squadron he returned to 804 Sqn when it become a Catapult Fighter unit.

Birrell was the first pilot to be catapulted from a CAM ship. He sailed in the Michael E  on 28th  1941 bound for New York. Five days out from Belfast they were torpedoed by a U Boat and Birrell was among the survivors picked up after 20 hours in the boats. His next ship was the Ariganuam. On 26th August he was shot off in a Fulmar to deal with a FW Condor. He fired one burst before it vanished into cloud. Later the Ariganuam was sunk by U Boat.

also Signed by Capt G C Baldwin, CBE DSC RN Hurricane pilot Fleet Air Arm

 His wings in January 1940 and,after deck landings practice in the carrier Argus off Hyeres in southern France, joined 801 Naval Air Squadron.

Captain George Baldwin, who has died aged 84, was a wartime hero and post-war pioneer of naval aviation. Aged 21, in July 1942, Baldwin become senior pilot of 807, the first naval air squadron to be equipped with the unproven Seafire.
In October 1943 he took over the squadron, and when it was incorporated with three other squadrons the next year he took commandof the 4th Naval Fighter Wing.

The Seafire was a delicate aircraft, which suffered more through accidents than from enemy action - its undercarriage was prone to collapse,or it would pitch forward and bend its propeller. In Baldwin's hands, however, it became a first-class fighter and Army support aircraft.

Flying from the fleet carrier Furious during the Allied landings in North Africa, Baldwin was involved in a vicious dogfight
with two Vichy French Dewoitine 520 fighters, and made the first air-to-air kill by a Seafire.  807 squadron Seafires shot down
two more Dw 520s and destroyed 20 aircraft on the ground.

In September 1943 Baldwin embarked in the small escort carrier Battler as part of Force V under the under the command of Admiral Philip Vian.
Force V was meant to cover the landings at Salerno on September 9 for a few days until major airfields were captured inland; but the Germans resisted strongly, and when the American General Mark Clark signalled that "air conditions were critical".
Vian replied: "My carriers will stay here if we have to row back."

To make his aircraft fly faster, Baldwin waxed the wings with furniture polish, removed the exhaust manifolds, and had shipwrights saw nine inches off the propeller blades.  By September 12 he was operating from an improvised airstrip cut into a tomato field at Paestum, it was within range of the enemy's guns, and he had to use flints to open the cowling for maintenance.  Eventually, only 30 out of the 180
Seafires in Force V were serviceable, but on September 16 the Germans began to withdraw.  In October Baldwin took command of 807 Squadron and sent his less experienced pilots to practise dive-bombing against the retreating Germans.

In August 1944 his wing took part in Operation Dragoon, the landings in southern France between St Raphael and Frejus.Baldwin continued in command when 807 merged into the 4th Fighter Wing during Operations Outing, Cablegram and Contempt against German forces in the Greek islands, and he was awarded a bar to the DSC he had won in 1941.His wing was rested in Egypt before re-embarking in the carriers Hunter and Stalker to join the East Indies Fleet.He witnessed the Japanese surrender of Singapore, and by November 1945 he had reluctantly disbanded one of the Navy's finest and most experienced flying formations.

During the Norway Campaign, Baldwin's squadron embarked in the carrier Ark Royal, and he flew the Skua dive-bomber against the invading German forces. Baldwin continued operations against the Germans from Sumburgh and then, during the Blitzkrieg against the Low Countries and France, from RAF Detling.  He was promoted to acting sub-lieutenant in July 1940 and awarded his first DSC the following year.In late 1945, after five years' continuous flying operations, Baldwin accepted a permanent commission in the Navy,retaining his rank of acting lieutenant commander. In 1946-47 he qualified as an Empire Test Pilot before being appointed
to the Carrier Trials Unit in 1948, and, a year later, to the Central Flying School.  In 1952 he commanded 800 Squadron,where he introduced the Navy's first operational jet fighter, the Supermarine Attacker, embarking in the carrier Eagle.
In the same year he undertook the first trials of the British-designed angled-flight deck onboard the USN carrier Antietam,and on June 19 1958, flying a USN Crusader, became one of the first British pilots to exceed 1,000 mph in level flight.RN Yeovilton Official Cover Ref no 3 RN10c  

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