BATTLE OF BRITAIN ACE A.C. ALAN "AL" DEERE, DSO, OBE, DFC* HANDSIGNED COVER

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THIS AUCTION IS FOR A BIGGIN HILL COVER HANDSIGNED BY "AL" DEERE RAF BATTLE OF BRITAIN FIGHTER ACE, NOT ONLY DID HE SIGN IT FOR ME BUT HE ENDORSED IT WITH "54 SQDN", A NICE TOUCH. FOR ITS AGE THE COVER IS IN REMARKABLE CONDITION AND COVERS WITH THE ORIGINAL INSERT CARD. AUCTION STARTS AT JUST £3.99, POSTAGE WITHIN U.K. WILL BE RECORDED DELIVER AT £2.20, PLEASE CHECK FOR POSTAGE RATES OUTSIDE U.K. SIGNED COVERS BY "AL" DEERE ARE ON SALE ELSEWHERE FOR OVER £25. GOOD LUCK Air Commodore Alan Christopher "Al" Deere , DSO , OBE , DFC & Bar (12 December 1917 - 21 September 1995), was a New Zealand Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain and author of Nine Lives . Deere was born in Westport but his family moved to Wanganui where he grew up in a semi-rural environment and attended Marist Brothers' School and Wanganui Technical College. At the age of eight he saw an aircraft fly overhead and sprinted to see it land on a nearby beach. The pilot allowed him to sit in the cockpit and Deere determined to become a pilot. Deere began flying training on 28 October 1937, at the De Havilland Flying School at White Waltham, the No 13 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School. On 9 January 1938 he was granted a short service commission as acting Flying Officer and started initial officer training at RAF Uxbridge. He was selected for the RAF boxing team to tour South Africa, but flight training took priority and he was posted to 6 Flight Training School on 22 January. The aircraft he was to have travelled in crashed at Bulawayo with the loss of all on board. Deere was promoted to Flying Officer on 28 October, and temporarily posted to No. 74 Squadron RAF on 20 August, before joining No. 54 Squadron RAF in September where he was joined by Colin Gray , who was to become New Zealand's top scoring pilot of World War II. Both squadrons operated Gloster Gladiators , the RAF's last biplane fighter. The squadron remained in England until May 1940, tasked with home defense, having converted to Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1s at the beginning of 1940. Deere was enraptured of the Spitfire, like most pilots, describing it as "the most beautiful and easy aircraft to fly." He was later given a chance to fly a captured Messerschmitt Bf 109 (called a Me 109 by Allied pilots) and found the Spitfire superior: "In my written report on the combat I stated that in my opinion the Spitfire was superior overall to the Me 109, except in the initial climb and dive; however this was an opinion contrary to the belief of the so-called experts. Their judgement was of course based on intelligence assessments and the performance of the 109 in combat with the Hurricane in France. In fact, the Hurricane, though vastly more manoeuvrable than either the Spitfire or the Me 109, was so sadly lacking in speed and rate of climb, that its too-short combat experience against the 109 was not a valid yardstick for comparison. The Spitfire, however, possessed these two attributes to such a degree that, coupled with a better rate of turn than the Me 109, it had the edge overall in combat. There may have been scepticism by some about my claim for the Spitfire, but I had no doubts on the score; nor did my fellow pilots in 54 Squadron." On 23 May 1940, during the closing phases of the Battle of France , Deere and Pilot Officer J. Allen flew Spitfires escorting Flight Lieutenant James Leathart across the channel in a Miles Magister to rescue 74 Squadron’s commanding officer, who had made a forced landing. In sight of Leathart and White, Deere claimed his first combat victories, shooting down two Bf 109s. Later the same day he shot down a third Bf 109. On 24 May he added a Bf 110 over Dunkirk and on the 26th claimed two more in the same area. On 28 May Deere was shot down by a Dornier Do17 he was attacking near Dunkirk. He was knocked unconscious when making a forced landing on a Belgian beach. Rescued by a soldier, Deere made his way on foot to Oost-Dunkerke where ... read more

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