The Airmen's Stories - F/Lt. C B F Kingcome

Group Captain (Flight Lieutenant during the Battle) Brian Kingcome, who has died aged 76, was a Battle of Britain fighter ace and later fought with equal distinction in the Mediterranean.

Kingcome's method for attacking the mass of enemy bombers over London was, as he put it:

.....to leap into the middle of them and run amok, firing at everything in sight and hitting as many as you could as often as possible.

By the end of the Second World War he had an official score of 11 kills but his true score was more like 20; rather than wait to confirm the destruction of an enemy aircraft, he preferred to continue to lay about him. In 1940 Kingcome fought doggedly from July to October. In one engagement he was temporarily in command 92 Squadron when, after shooting down an enemy bomber, he found himself separated from his fellows.

Suddenly: Bang! The aeroplane was full of holes, I was bloody indignant  he recorded. He always believed he had been shot down by another Spitfire. Unable to control his fighter, Kingcome baled out at 20,000ft and allowed himself to freefall until well away from the fighting, lest he be shot at while swinging from his parachute.

Brian Fabris Kingcome was born on May 31st 1917 in Calcutta, where his father was in trade. He was educated at Bedford and entered the RAF College, Cranwell in 1936. Soon after he began his pilot course he was seriously injured in a car accident. A RAF medical board told him he would never fly again as he was expected to suffer permanent double vision. But after months in hospital the resilience, will and strength which characterised both his service and civilian careers assured him a fighter cockpit. In 1938 he was posted to No 65, a biplane Gladiator fighter squadron based at Hornchurch; by May 1940 he was elevated to Spitfires as a flight commander in No 92.
Kingcome was "blooded" on May 25 when he shared a Dornier 17; on June 2 he destroyed two Heinkel 111’s and damaged a third.

He frequently led the squadron on a temporary basis then received full command early in 1941 and later that year he was posted as flight commander at No 61 Operational Training Unit.
In February 1942 he returned to operations as leader of No 72, another Spitfire squadron. Almost immediately be was ordered to provide escort cover for tbe ill-fated Fleet Air Arm Swordfish attack on the capital sbips ‘Scharnhorst’ and ‘Gneisenau’ and and the cruiser ‘Prinz Eugen’ as they sailed througb the Channel.

In atrocious weather Kingcome caught a fleeting glimpse of tbe ‘Scharnhorst’ - "Oh what a beautiful battleboat!" he exclaimed, just as a shell made a hole the size of a dustbin lid in his port wing.
After stints at the Kenley fighter wing and the new Fighter Leaders School he was posted to North Africa, where he received command of No 244 Wing; he was promoted Group Captain at the age of 25. Kingcome found himself leading five hardened Spitfire squadrons - Nos 92, 145, 601, 417 (Canadian) and 1 (Soutb African). He went on to lead the Wing through the Sicilian and Italian campaigns, before ending the war as Senior Air Staff Officer of No 205, a, Liberator bomber group with which he flew occasionally as a waist-gunner over northern Yugoslavia.

But war had taken a toll on his health and, after being treated for tuberculosis, he was invalided from the service in 1954.

In civilian life he engaged successfully in a London garage and car hire business with his Battle of Britain comrade Paddy Barthropp. In 1969, with his wife Lesley (whom he had married in 1957) he set up ‘Kingcome Sofas’ an enterprise which involved the employment of Devon boat builders to craft sofas to each customer's measurements.

Such was Kingcome's charm and salesmanship that on occasion even his bank manager drove his delivery van. The company was recently bought by Colefax & Fowler.

Kingcome was awarded the DFC in 1940, a Bar in 1941 and the DSO in 1942.

He had two sons and a daughter.

With acknowledgment to the Daily Telegraph.