Tom Gleave

Education

Gleave was educated at Westminster High School and Liverpool Collegiate School.

Career

He was shot down in his Hurricane the summer of 1940 and grievously burned. He was one of the first patients treated by Sir Archibald McIndoe at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, and became the first and only Chief Guinea Pig. He joined the Sefton Tanning Company in 1924 and began flying, earning a private pilot"s license in 1928.

After a period as a flying instructor he joined Royal Air Force Bomber Command on 1 January 1939.

At the outbreak of war Gleave requested a return to Royal Air Force Fighter Command, which was granted. By June 1940 he was in command of 253 Squadron, flying Hurricanes.

Command was handed to Squadron Leader H Starr in August 1940, but Gleave resumed command when Starr was shot down on 31 August. Gleave"s tally by the time he was shot down was five Messerschmitt 109s (in a single day) and one Junkers 88.

Gleave was shot down on his first sortie after restoration of his command, on 31 August 1940, and badly burned.

Initially treated at Orpington Hospital, he regained consciousness underneath a bed during an air raid. He was transferred to East Grinstead where McIndoe reconstructed his nose. He recovered sufficiently to be returned to non-flying duties and briefly commanded Royal Air Force Northolt before taking over Royal Air Force Manston, from where he dispatched the six Fairey Swordfish of 825 Squadron in their attempt to sink the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen.

He was then seconded to the planning group for what became Operation Overlord and promoted to Group Captain.

He served as Eisenhower"s Head of Air Plans at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces from 1 October 1944 to July 15, 1945 and was then Senior Air Staff Officer, Royal Air Force Delegation to France, from 1945 to 1947. He was finally invalided out of the Royal Air Force in 1953, and returned to East Grinstead for further reconstructive surgery.

He then joined the Historical Section of the Cabinet Office where he remained for the next thirty years, being elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and becoming Air Historian and deputy chairman to the Battle of Britain Fighter Association. He was interviewed for the 2002 drama documentary The Guinea Pig Club and is discussed in most histories of the Guinea Pigs.

He is credited as a technical and tactical advisor for the 1969 film Battle of Britain.

Achievements

• Twice mentioned in dispatches, Gleave was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his work on Overlord, and the American Legion of Honor (later converted to the Bronze Star). He was awarded the French Légion d"honneur and Croix de Guerre and the wings of the Polish and French air forces. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Membership

In 1930 he was commissioned into the Royal Air Force where he excelled. By 1933 he was a member of the Royal Air Force aerobatic team As a prominent member of the Guinea Pig Club, Gleave is discussed in numerous books about McIndoe"s work, including Faces from the Fire and McIndoe"s Army, and he wrote a monograph I had a row with a German on his experiences.