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You are here: Home arrow Knowledge Base arrow Early Aircraft arrow Legendary Pat Pattle.
Legendary Pat Pattle. E-mail
Written by Anton Dyason - IPMS SA Media Group   
Friday, 03 May 2002
Page 1 of 3

Ace of Allied Aces?

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By V. Roos, original article Ad Astra, Additional: A. Dyason

The debate on who was the Ace, of WW II Allied Aces, will always be a topic for discussion amongst historians. But it might just be that this honour must go to Pat Pattle and best of all, he was a South African.

Note: the official website of the British Ministry of Defense considers Pat Pattle the unofficial top scoring pilot of the war and an article devoted to him was published for the 60 th anniversary of his death.

The legendary Pat Pattle.

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The legendary Pat Pattle.
Marmaduke Thomas St John Pattle: Tom, as he was known to Vernon Roos, was born near Butterworth in the Transkei located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa in 1914. His father was a Sergeant Major in the army and later a lawyer and his mother a matron at the Keetmanshoop hospital, when the family moved to South West Africa. After matriculation in Keetrnanshoop, Tom attempted to enlist in the SAAF in 1931, but at that stage only 12 pupil pilots were accepted and this quota was already full. His mother paid his boat fare to London to give her son the opportunity to enlist in the Royal Air Force, and in this endeavour he was so successful that he earned the rank of flying officer in 1938 and in 1939 was posted to Egypt to fly the Gloster Gladiator. By 1940 when Italy entered the conflict Tom was already fully trained in airborne desert warfare. His first air victory in August that year coincided with him losing his aircraft and he was forced to bale out and walk home. However, by the end of that month Tom's score was already four. Tom's division moved with the Italian invasion to Greece in November, and by December his score had risen to 14.


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