TONY TRUMBLE served in a number of Fleet Air Arm squadrons before control was transferred from the RAF to Royal Navy in 1939, and was involved in the deck landing trials of the Navy’s first monoplane fleet fighter, the Blackburn Skua. Later, having returned to RAF service he found himself taking off from an aircraft carrier once more, in 1940, when he was part of a flight of Hurricanes which reinforced Malta from the aircraft carrier Argus.
Anthony John Trumble was born in 1915 and joined the RAF on a short-service commission in 1935. After flying training he joined 56 Squadron flying Bristol Bulldogs, in 1936. He subsequently went to RAF Gosport to train on floatplanes.
Since the disbanding of the Royal Naval Air Service at the end of the First World War, naval aviation had been under the control of the Air Ministry, and many RAF pilots found themselves being trained in deck landing techniques. In 1936 Trumble was posted to Leuchars, where he did a Fleet Air Arm conversion course. Thereafter he joined 801 Squadron based at Southampton and on the aircraft carrier Furious, operating the biplane Hawker Osprey reconnaisance fighter.
When the Royal Navy’s first modern metal monoplane, the Skua fighter-divebomber, made its appearance, Trumble was involved as member of a deck landing training unit in demonstrating its capabilities as a carrier-borne aircraft, flying from HMS Courageous in January 1939.
The Navy took over the Fleet Air Arm in May 1939 and Trumble reverted to RAF service, first on staff duties at HQ 23 Group and then with the Air Component of the British Expeditionary Force in France. After the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk he was posted to 264 Squadron as a flight commander in the early part of the Battle of Britain.
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In July, Trumble was seconded to a mission to reinforce the air defences of Malta. The island’s aircraft at that time were a miscellany of odds and ends (including, famously, the Gladiator biplanes Faith, Hope and Charity), pitted against more than 200 Italian aircraft based in nearby Sicily. Trumble and his fellow pilots embarked in the carrier Argus at Greenock as part of a special flight of 12 Hurricanes, No 418. When Argus had passed the Strait of Gibraltar and come within range of Malta, on August 2, the Hurricanes were flown off to Luqa airfield, all but one of them making it.
Trumble was appointed commanding officer of a new squadron, No 261, which was formed there. It was soon in action and suffering heavy losses against the great odds. But in November a second attempt to reinforce it by the same means ended in tragedy. With the Italian Fleet known to be at sea, the Hurricanes were ordered off from Argus at extreme range, 450 miles west of Luqa, and only four of the twelve, plus one of two escorting Skuas, reached Malta.
In 1941 Trumble was posted to Cairo, and then to Crete, where he became station commander at RAF Heraklion just as the Germans invaded the island in May. When the station was overrun by airborne troops, he was captured.
He then spent the next four years in captivity, at first in Crete and latterly at Stalag Luft III at Sagan in Silesia. As a wing commander he was for a time the senior camp officer, responsible for the welfare of Allied prisoners, and after his return to Britain he was appointed OBE in December 1945 for his inspiring leadership among the prisoners of war.
After a refresher flying course he later converted to jets and then flew Meteors with the Far East Air Force. Among his other postwar appointments were command of the Central Flying School, Little Rissington, and RAF Bridgenorth, the training centre for National Servicemen. His last appointment was as deputy director, organisation of establishments, an appointment which required worldwide travel as he reviewed RAF bases. Among his decorations was the Order of Leopold II of Belgium, awarded for services to the Belgian Air Force.
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He retired from the RAF in 1966 and became secretary of the Royal Thames Yacht Club.
He is survived by his wife Robin and by a daughter and two sons.
Group Captain Tony Trumble, OBE, wartime fighter pilot, was born on December 15, 1915. He died on April 21, 2004, aged 88.