Battle of Britain exhibition at former RAF Hornchurch

The exhibition is being staged by author and Rainham local historian Richard Smith, who met Flight Lieutenant Jack Stokoe before he died in 1999.

“Bullets or cannon shells hit my Spitfire,” he told Richard during his research. “There were flames in the cockpit when the petrol tank was hit right in front of me.

“I opened the canopy to get out — which only made things worse by forcing a draft and pushing flames further into the cockpit. It felt like being in front of a builder’s blow-torch."

Jack remembered a hurried scramble as the Luftwaffe swarmed in and he did not have time to put on gloves.

“I had to put my bare hands into the flames to reach the control column to flip the plane on its side so I could just drop out.

“I could see sheets of skin just peeling off my hand like tissue paper. The side of my face and hair were also burnt.”

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Jack feared that his parachute might not open which had been in the burning cockpit. But he pulled the ripcord and luckily it opened, landing him safely in a field.

He was rushed with severe burns to his hands and face to Leeds Castle near Maidstone, which was being used as an emergency wartime hospital — and was actually listed missing in action while recovering before returning to operational duties.

Jack was credited with destroying four enemy Messerschmitt planes and badly damaging another that day in 1940.

Eight more German fighter planes destroyed or damaged were also attributed to him later in the war before he was shot down again, this time over the Channel, where he was eventually rescued.

Pilot Officer Tom Rowland with his Spitfire at RAF Hornchurch (Image: Richard Smith collection) He survived the war and told his story before he died aged 79 to Richard, who is staging the exhibition at the Ingrebourne Valley centre in Hornchurch Country Park, open 10am to 4pm on September 14 and 15.

Wartime memorabilia will be on show from famous Hornchurch aces like Edward ‘Hawkeye’ Wells, a New Zealander who also survived the war and has a street in Hornchurch named after him.

Peter Van-Den Assem is fundraising with a stand for the Royal British Legion’s Elm Park branch, while members of the 1838 Elm Park Air Training Cadet Squadron are on parade to drum up recruits for their ranks.

The Battle of Britain stopped Hitler’s invasion threat in 1940, a turning point in history that eventually led to the Allied victory in the Second World War.

The RAF lost 544 pilots in the Battle of Britain, including 70 stationed at Hornchurch. Three are buried in Hornchurch municipal cemetery.