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Roy
Payne Originally from Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, Roy Payne joined the Army before the Second World War at the age of seventeen as a 'boy soldier', and was serving in the Royal Engineers in Belgium building pillboxes and mining bridges as a Corporal in the British Expeditionary Force prior to the German invasion and advance through Belgium. Due to his tasks, he was amongst the last English troops to leave the beaches during the evacuation, from La Panne to the north of Dunkirk, as the Engineers had small boats which were used to ferry soldiers to awaiting ships. Once all the soldiers had been evacuated, Payne hitched a lift on a Motor Torpedo Boat and came home. Following the evacuation, Payne spent a year in Cornwall organising the laying of minefields on the beaches to counter a German invasion, by which time many aircrew had been killed and there was a recruiting order for soldiers to train as rear gunners in bombers. Payne applied, but was instead selected for pilot training, doing his initial flying training in Montrose, Scotland before joining 609 Squadron in July 1942 along with Peter Raw and Humphrey Gilbert from the same Operational Training Unit. Peter Raw was also ex-army – in his case an officer in ?. Because of this shared background, and through their training together, they were already friends. Once on the squadron Joe Atkinson looked after them. On 30th Oct 1942, the Boulting Brothers were at Biggin Hill, filming ‘Between Friends’ for the RAF film and Photographic Unit. This was ‘a look at a typical fighter station’. One unplanned (and un-shown to the general public, as the Hawker Typhoon was still on the secret list) film sequence was later made into a training film for the Royal Air Force, to show how a forced landing should be done. Payne had suffered a puncture on takeoff as a result of "too many landings on a runway" instead of grass. Someone in the control tower had spotted it, and radioed Payne telling him to hang around in the sky for a while until the Boulting Bros could get the cameras ready. . During the film, there is a sequence where Payne plays a tune on the clarinet. They had hired this especially for the film, and at great expense... only to have Payne shot down in Hawker Typhoon PRV R7708 by British anti aircraft fire the very next day, 31st October 1942 He baled out, and the aircraft crashed into Pegwell Bay near Manston, (This aircraft was recovered on ? from deep in the mud about by the Hawkinge Battle of Britain Museum. Some of the parts, such as the engine, are earmarked for a Typhoon reconstruction by Councillor ? Smith.) Roy ended up in hospital with burns from this incident. Payne's logbook states that he took one and a half feet of film when he shot down a FW 190 on 14th February 1943. He also took 3 feet on 1st June 1943 when he sunk a 400-ton ship, plus one foot on 28th June 1943 taken during an attack on some 'E' boats off Boulogne. After 609, Payne was transferred to the Bristol Aircraft Company in Filton, to head up the Centaurus Flight Test pilots, as a Squadron Leader. They were flight-testing the Centaurus engines in a variety of aircraft including the Hawker Tempest prototype. He was there until July 1945, just after the end of the European War, when an engine failed in a Beaufighter forcing him to crash land once more. The plane was destroyed by fire, and once again he was burned, becoming a two-time member of the Guinea Pig Club. His burns meant he was non-operational for over a year. In the years between 1946 and 1951, Payne was landlord of the Ship Inn at Oldbury on Severn before returning to the RAF and served as a flying instructor from 1951 until 1969, with periods in Germany seconded to the United States Air Force and the German Luftwaffe. During this time he had the pleasure of converting Germany's third-ranking fighter ace, Gunther Rall, to jets. Roy left the RAF in 1969 with the rank of Squadron Leader, and joined Airwork Services, who contracted him to the Nigerian Air force, where he was General Manager of Nigerian Air Force Flight Training. Roy Payne retired to Bournemouth in 1974.
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