Messerschmitt

Spitfire MJ627 first entered service on 25 September 1944 and, just two days later, destroyed Messerschmitt Me 109 over Arnhem.

Compared with the commandos he guided on truck and jeep convoys — volunteer daredevils who crept onto Nazi airfields; attached time bombs to Messerschmitt fighters, Stuka dive bombers, fuel dumps and pilot quarters; then sped away as explosions roared behind — Mr. Sadler was no hero in the usual sense.

Keith Miller, all-rounder in Don Bradman's Invincibles and a World War II pilot, once said pressure is a Messerschmitt on your tail - "playing cricket is not".

In those exchanges over North Africa, Mr. Edwards flew U.S.-built P-40 Kittyhawk fighters, far heavier and slower than the German Messerschmitt Bf 109, which made his achievements all the more remarkable.

While escorting Allied light bombers, he and other fliers strafed a German ground base and, when engaged in an aerial dogfight with the Luftwaffe, he shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109, his first “kill.”