Jack Kemp at Biggin Hill prior to his memorial Spitfire flight.
Jack Kemp at Biggin Hill prior to his memorial Spitfire flight.
On this Anzac Day Kerikeri resident Jack Kemp reflects on his illustrious namesake, his uncle John Richard Kemp, a New Zealand fighter pilot who was shot down and killed in the opening days of the Battle of Britain. This year’s Anzac Day commemorations will be particularly meaningful.
In recentyears Jack worked as a volunteer researcher for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and used his experience to shed light on the story behind his uncle.
“John Kemp was educated at Wellington College. In February 1938 he applied for a short-term commission as an RAF Acting Pilot Officer and was accepted. In 1940 he was a pilot attached to 141 Squadron and flew an aircraft called the Boulton Paul Defiant,” he says.
“The Defiant had one particularly serious design flaw. It was believed bombers would be able to reach England from Germany, though German fighter planes, whose job was to protect the bombers from counter-attacking RAF fighters, would not have sufficient range and the Defiant was designed with that in mind.
“For that reason, the plane had no forward-facing machine guns and had only a single turret machine gun at the midway point at the top of the fuselage,” says Jack.
“The idea was the gunner could fire up from beneath the underbelly of a bomber or side-on on the assumption there would be no fighter aircraft to protect the bomber and that’s where they were sadly wrong.”
In July 1940 – just over a week into the Battle of Britain – 141 Squadron was deployed for the first time to protect a convoy of ships. Midway through their mission they were “bounced” by a group of German Messerschmitt BF 109s with disastrous results.
Jack Kemp from Kerikeri with a plaque depicting a Boulton Paul Defiant. Photo/Supplied
“In that single encounter, 141 Squadron lost six of its nine aircraft with 10 aircrew killed. My Uncle John, who was 25 years old at the time, was one of them,” says Jack.
“The German planes attacked them from beneath and shot them down. The result was catastrophic and after that, the Defiant was only used with night bombing raids.”
The memory of his uncle’s service was brought into sharp focus on a recent trip to England Jack and his wife Annette took in 2019. As an ex-private pilot licence holder, Jack was keen to experience a charter Spitfire flight based at Biggin Hill, one of the principal RAF fighter bases protecting London during the Battle of Britain.
“I wandered into the St George’s RAF Chapel of Remembrance at Biggin Hill where to my astonishment they were holding a memorial service for the airmen of 141 Squadron who died in 1940,” says Jack.
“They read out all the names of the airmen and crew who died including the name of my uncle, John Richard Kemp. By complete coincidence we had arrived on July 19, the exact date my uncle had been shot down.
“I found myself, 79 years to the day my uncle was killed, in a Spitfire flying over Beachy Head, the White Cliffs of Dover, and the famous Folkestone White Horse before returning back to Biggin Hill.”
Jack was even given the controls briefly, enabling him to perform a perfect triple barrel roll, as good a tribute as any to his uncle.
“The rolls were exhilarating and you definitely got a sense of what a powerful plane the Spitfire was.”
Although he never knew his uncle, he feels a connection along with tremendous pride in what he contributed.
