The Airmen's Stories - F/O R McG Waterston

Robin McGregor Waterston was born on 10th January 1917 in Leith, the son of James Sime Waterston and Mabel Waterston.

He attended Melville College (now Stewart's Melville College).

Waterston joined 603 Squadron, Auxiliary Air Force at Turnhouse in 1937. He was then studying in Scotland for an engineering degree.

Above image courtesy of and copyright the David Ross Collection.

Called to full-time service on 24th August 1939, Waterston was serving with 603 Squadron, by then at Dyce, in early July 1940. About this time he picked up the nickname 'Bubbles'. On the 20th he shared a Do17, shot down into the North Sea thirty miles east of Aberdeen.

The squadron was sent south to Hornchurch in late August and Waterston claimed a Me109 destroyed on 30th August over Canterbury. He returned to Hornchurch with a punctured oil tank after being attacked by other 109s.

The next day Waterston was killed in a combat over London and is believed to have been shot down by Me109s of I/JG3. He was either unconscious or already dead when his Spitfire, X4273, was seen to emerge from the haze and spin out of control into the ground near Repository Road in Woolwich, South London.

Waterston was 23.

He was cremated at Warriston Crematorium, Edinburgh and his ashes interred in a family grave there.

Above image courtesy of Finches.

In 2009 his crash site was marked by a permanent memorial by the Shoreham Aircraft Museum (for more information click here)