Presentation Date: August 24, 2006
Jim Gray RAF
Spitfire Combat Pilot with the first Eagle Squadron, RAF 71 Squadron
* Flying Spitfires for the RAF, saw combat before Pearl Harbor & USA's entrance in WWII
* Shot-down German Luftwaffe FW-190 fighter plane
* After combat with 71 Sq., assigned in September 1942 to RAF 93 Squadron in North Africa
* Many combat missions later, shot-down over Italy on his 26th birthday, January 4, 1945
* Prisioner of War (POW) in Stalag Luft 1; liberated by Allies at war's end
* Among awards & decorations, received the prestigious British DFC Spitfire Combat Pilot with the first Eagle Squadron, RAF 71 Squadron
* Born January 4, 1919 in San Francisco
* Earned private pilot license before WWII while at UC Berkeley, studying math
* Eager to fly and fight; joined Eagle Squadrons via Knight Committee & Canada
* Flying Spitfires for the RAF, saw combat before Pearl Harbor & USA's entrance in WWII
* Shot-down German Luftwaffe FW-190 fighter plane
* After combat with 71 Sq., assigned in September 1942 to RAF 93 Squadron in North Africa
* Many combat missions later, shot-down over Italy on his 26th birthday, January 4, 1945
* Prisioner of War (POW) in Stalag Luft 1; liberated by Allies at war's end
* Among awards & decorations, received the prestigious British DFC
* Became a pilot for United Airlines; started with the DC-3, retired as a Captain in DC-8 jets
* Historian for the Eagle Squadrons and frequent contributor to articles
* Mentioned prominently in the book WAR EAGLES, The Story of 71 EAGLE SQUADRON
Early Eagle
Jim Gray
Spitfire Pilot With RAF 71 Squadron
Jim Gray was one of thousands of Americans who flew for Britain’s Royal Air Force, joining the RAF just after the pivotal Battle of Britain.
Germany’s aerial assault of England, from July to the end of October 1940, consisted of daily Luftwaffe bomber raids on RAF bases, docks and military installations, and the general populace. RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes ascended to attack the bomber formations above England, the Channel and North Sea, while escorting German fighters did their best to thwart them. The ensuing melees took a huge toll on both air forces.
Unprepared for such attrition, the RAF employed American businessman Charles Sweeny to find volunteers to fly and fight for Britain, and by late summer of 1940 about fifty pilots had been recruited for the RAF’s first all-American squadron. From that point forward, the Knight Committee, headed by Clayton Knight, an American who had flown for the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, helped interested Americans into the Royal Canadian and Royal Air Forces.
Jim Gray was one of the thousands of Americans who signed up.
“They set up four schools in the U.S. to train,” says Gray. “If you had 100 hours you could volunteer and they could train you. One of the schools was Spartan in Tulsa Oklahoma, and it’s still in existence. The one in Bakersfield is the one I attended.”
Gray was born January 4, 1919 in San Francisco, grew up in the Bay Area and had earned his private pilot license while studying math at UC Berkeley.
He recalls continuing his training in Canada, flying the PT-17 and then the AT-6. During off hours, Gray and his fellow air cadets had considerable free time on their hands, some of which they filled by going to the movies. One of the films they watched was Yank in the RAF featuring actor Tyrone Power. Gray says when the cadets filed out of the theater afterwards, one of them quipped, “Yeah he was a Yank in the RAF. But you’ll be a jerk in the RAF.”
Gray was the target of the moniker, and it stuck. Jim Gray became “Jerko” Gray to his comrades-in-arms.
When he graduated from his advanced training, Gray was sent to Canada and then on his trans-Atlantic trip to an Operational Training Unit in England. Three Eagle Squadrons were being created, Numbers 71, 121 and 133, and just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Gray reached the earliest of the three units, No. 71 Squadron.
“I think four or five of the pilots had flown in the Battle of Britain, but they were all gone by the time I joined my squadron at Martlesham Heath.”
There were 243 American pilots and 16 British pilots who flew with the Eagle Squadrons, led by 28 British officers. Another 500 or so Americans joined the RAF directly and were mixed into squadrons with pilots from throughout the Commonwealth.
Within a week of arriving at 71 Squadron, Gray says remembers having had his checkout in the aircraft which had earned a glowing reputation in tangling with the Luftwaffe’s vaunted Messerschmitt 109E. Jim came to intimately know the Supermarine Spitfire, starting with the Mk. II model.
“It was very sleek and very fast, and had a marvelous cockpit layout, that fit the pilot very well.”
Gray’s first missions in the Spitfire were mostly convoy patrols over the English Channel. He remembers only too well the hours of boredom flying over the friendly ships steaming through the grey waters, and scanning for enemy aircraft.
By September of 1941, the faster Spitfire Mk.V had replaced No. 71 Squadron’s Mk. IIs, and along with the aircraft change came Eagle missions of a little more range - - sweeps across the Channel into France. These missions were dubbed “Rhubarbs”, “Circuses” and “Rodeos”, depending on the number of aircraft used, their tactics and varied methods of enticing the Luftwaffe to fight.
Gray says he shot down his first enemy plane in the spring of 1942. The day before, some RAF bombers had been badly shot up on a major operation. Rescue boats went out looking for aircrew that might still be floating in dinghies, and Spitfires were sent to provide air cover for the operation.
“We were out on patrol across the North Sea. I guess the Luftwaffe picked us up on radar and sent out some of their Focke-Wulf 190s. I looked over and saw a Focke-Wulf getting on the wing leader’s tail and had to do something to get him off Sprague’s tail.”
Wing leader Bob Sprague had seen two Focke-Wulfs down low over the water, and dived to attack them. But those two 190s were shadowed by four others hiding in the sun, who stalked Sprague as he closed on his prey.
Fortunately for the wing leader, Gray had seen the four enemy fighters. Gray streaked up from beneath the Focke-Wulf leading the attack on Sprague’s Spitfire, opened fire with his cannon, and sent the 190 plunging into the water. This combat is a highlight of the book War Eagles, The Story of 71 Eagle Squadron, authored by James Saxon Childers.
By September of 1942, the U.S. Army Air Corps was building up its Eighth Fighter Command, folding American pilots of the Eagle Squadrons into Army Air Corps fighter squadrons. Many of the pilots entered the 4th Fighter Group, which would establish a highly distinguished combat record.
The Spitfire was retained as the first fighter for the 4th Fighter Group. But before too long, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was chosen replace it. The P-47 was a comparatively huge machine, weighing in at 12,500 pounds (empty), more than twice the Spitfire V’s 6,170 pounds.
“I flew a P-47. I walked around in the cockpit and said, ‘this is a little too big for me.’”
Jim Gray chose to stay with the RAF, where he could continue to fly the later models of the Spitfire. He was sent in September 1942 to the RAF’s 93 Squadron in the Mediterranean, and flew from bases in Algiers and Tunisia in North Africa before spending six-months in Ismailia, Egypt as a flight instructor.
His experiences with the RAF in the Mediterranean included rubbing shoulders with a mix of fellow pilots from New Zealand, Australia and France. Gray had further aerial combat, which he says led to another 4+ probable victories, among them a Macchi 202 and a Ju 88, though they are not officially confirmed.
“I had probably more operational combat hours, at 400, than any other Eagle Squadron pilot.”
The campaign to drive German troops out of Italy also spelled the end of Jim Gray’s flying for the RAF. He was shot down on January 4, 1945, his 26th birthday. On that fateful day, his squadron’s Spitfire IXs were carrying 500-pound bombs in ground attacks against German troops in northern Italy.
“I went out and dropped my bomb and got hit by flak. My engine was overheating just north of the bomb line. So I had to bail out and was picked up right away by the Germans. They took me back to Germany for interrogation and then I ended up in Stalag-Luft I, north of Berlin.”
As a prisoner of war, Gray was again in a mix of nationalities, among aircrews from the breadth of the British Commonwealth, including Canada, New Zealand and India. He says that being in the POW camp was “made fairly reasonable, because it was run by the Luftwaffe.”
“We were mostly supplied by the Red Cross. The food parcels came through. They were getting in short supply by May, when we were liberated by the Russians.”
Given this was in 1945, Gray says there was little initiative to try to get out of the camp.
“Everybody knew the handwriting was on the wall (end of the war in Europe), and I don’t remember any endeavor to escape from Luft I.”
Liberation for all of the POWs in Stalag-Luft I came when Red Army troops appeared.
“There was a Luftwaffe airstrip just north of Barth there and the Americans flew B-17s in to fly us back to England. So we got out of there in short order after the Russians came through.”
Gray says he was in the UK for a month or so before returning back to the States.
Among his awards and decorations, Gray received the prestigious British Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). Postwar, he became a pilot for United Airlines, started flying the DC-3, then flew the Convair 340 and, after a long successful career, retired as a Captain in DC-8 jets.
Historian for the Eagle Squadrons, Gray has been a frequent contributor to articles about Americans flying for the RAF. He is mentioned prominently in the book War Eagles, The Story of 71 Eagle Squadron.