Don't Miss Any Special Deals - Sign Up To Our Newsletter! Aircraft Search Ship Search Squadron Search Signature Index Artist Index SPECIAL OFFERS Product Search          CLICK HERE FOR A FULL LIST OF ALL ROBERT TAYLOR PRINTS BY TITLE

ALWAYS GREAT OFFERS : 20% FURTHER PRICE REDUCTIONS ON HUNDREDS OF LIMITED EDITION ART PRINTS BUY ONE GET ONE HALF PRICE ON THOUSANDS OF PAINTINGS AND PRINTS FOR MORE OFFERS SIGN UP TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Flight Lieutenant Ken Tempest

Pilot, No.139 Squadron. Kenneth Tempest, who has died aged 93, flew with the RAFs Pathfinder Force as a navigator and later became a pilot with BOAC; during his flying career he completed 788 crossings of the Atlantic. Tempest joined the RAFs Light Night Striking Force (LNSF) – part of the Pathfinders - in the summer of 1944 as part of No 139 Squadron, operating the Mosquito. His first operation was to bomb Berlin on October 30, the first of numerous sorties to the Big City. In addition to dropping markers as aiming points for the main bomber force, the Mosquitos of the LNSF carried out nuisance raids, dropping a single bomb on a number of industrial cities during one sortie. The aim was to deny sleep to the German work force and keep the emergency services busy every night. These raids had the additional benefit of acting as a diversion for the main force and confusing the enemys air defence organisation. On March 3rd 1945 Tempest and his pilot were returning from Berlin when there was a loud explosion in the rear of the aircraft. Unaware of the cause, they crossed the Dutch coast with no navigation or radio aids before discovering that the hydraulic system had also failed, disabling the brakes. They headed for the emergency airstrip at Woodbridge, one of three 9,000ft strips built near the coast to receive damaged aircraft returning from Europe. Before landing, one of the two engines failed but the crew managed to crash-land and survive unhurt, although the Mosquito was wrecked. Three nights later Tempest returned to Berlin, which, by this stage of the war, was almost a nightly event for the Mosquitos of the LNSF. On the night of May 2/3, Tempest headed for Kiel on his 43rd operation. It was also Bomber Commands final operation of the war. Shortly after, Tempest was awarded the DFC. Kenneth Tempest was born in Cawnpore, India, on April 9 1922 and educated at Keighley Grammar School. After a brief period with Lloyds Bank he joined the RAF and trained as a navigator in Florida under a US/UK bilateral training programme. On completion of his training and return to Britain, he and two colleagues were given an unusual posting when they joined BOAC at Poole and changed from their RAF uniforms to that of the commercial airline. He entered the flying boat division and after specialist training started to fly routes to West Africa on BOAC's Boeing 314 A Clipper aircraft. On January 3 1943 he completed the first of many hundreds of transatlantic flights, when he flew to Belem in Brazil. In February he was sent to BOACs post at Baltimore in the US. The following September he was the navigator on flights to support the Quebec Conference, when Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, Lord Mountbatten and the three service chiefs were his passengers. He returned to the RAF in the summer of 1944 and trained for the RAFs Pathfinder Force. Tempest left the Air Force as a flight lieutenant after the war and rejoined BOAC, initially as a navigator before training as a pilot. He returned to Baltimore and also operated from the airlines base in Canada, initially on converted wartime bombers and then the Lockheed Constellation. By the end of 1951 he had completed 237 transatlantic flights as a navigator and started his pilot training. After a period operating in the Caribbean, he started flying the Bristol Britannia. In 1964 he converted to the VC 10 and a year later carried the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on a return flight to Addis Ababa. He made his final flight on June 25 1975 having amassed more than 14,000 hours flying time. Kenneth Tempest, born April 9 1922, died June 2 2015.

Distinguished Flying Cross