The Airmen's Stories - S/Ldr. D S MacDonald

Group Captain (Squadron Leader during the Battle) Stuart Wilson-MacDonald, who has died aged 83, was a distinguished fighter pilot in the Second World War. Beginning with a posting in Aden during the Abyssinian crisis of 1936, his wartime career embraced the Battle of Britain in 1940, Middle East operations from 1941 to 1942, and command of a fighter wing in the RAF's Balkan Air Force.

Though a late entrant in the Battle of Britain, Wilson-MacDonald was in the thick of the fighting from Sept 7 when, after only a week in command, his No 213 Squadron moved from Devon to Tangmere in Sussex. On that day Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, switched the assault from Fighter Command's reeling South-East airfields to London. Earlier Tangmere - as well as Biggin Hill and other fighter airfields - had taken a terrible pasting. While Londoners now had to suffer an intensive week of daylight attacks, the respite on the ground for Fighter Command was welcomed by Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding as "a miracle".

Wilson-MacDonald scrambled 86 times in his Hawker Hurricane and in the dog-fights over the Channel, the South Coast and London he accounted for one Me109 and two Me110 fighters. Although he was not shot down, his Hurricane was on several occasions so badly damaged by cannon fire that he needed a replacement aircraft for the next sortie. For many years Wilson-MacDonald dwelt on these tempestuous weeks and later in life tape-recorded his recollections for the Imperial War Museum's archive. In addition to the customary fighter pilot's recall of the waves of enemy aircraft crossing the Channel, and the repeated scrambles, he recounted one story which aptly illustrates the vulnerability of a Hurricane pilot with minimal radio and navigational aids. After mixing it at altitude with Me109s he put the Hurricane's nose down to land but noticed that the traffic was driving on the wrong side of the road. Realising he was not over Sussex, he re-crossed the Channel to base.

Duncan Stuart MacDonald (he added the Wilson, his wife's surname, in 1947) was born on March 5 1912 at Oban, in Scotland, where his father was a doctor. He was educated locally at St Anne's and at the High School. As a child he witnessed RAF flying boats visiting the harbour. As he grew up it seemed unlikely that his health would permit a service career; he suffered tuberculosis, pleurisy and pneumonia. At 17, with the help of his father's patient Francis Patmore - the son of Coventry Patmore, the poet - he obtained a post in Kenya as an assistant coffee planter. But the plantation failed to prosper and he returned home. Shortly afterwards he was granted a short service commission.
In 1936, he was posted to No 41 Squadron at Aden flying Hawker Demon biplane fighters; the squadron was occupied with the usual aerial policing duties of the period.

In the run up to the outbreak of war he qualified as a flying instructor and taught at No 8 Flying Training School until he joined No 213 Squadron at Exeter on August 28th 1940. In November, following the Battle of Britain, the squadron was posted to Yorkshire and in February 1941 to defend the Fleet at Scapa Flow. But fighter rein-forcements were desperately needed in Egypt and in the spring of 1941 the squadron was embarked in the aircraft-carrier ‘Furious’ .

On May 21, Wilson-MacDonald and his fellow pilots took off from the carrier in the Mediterranean, refuelled at Malta and landed in Egypt the same day. Soon the squadron was employed in a ground attack role against Vichy French troops in Syria, an action in which the British Army made its last cavalry charge. In the Levant he got his first taste of more senior command when he was appointed to lead No 241 Wing, before moving to 251 Wing - comprising 213 and 815 Fleet Air Arm squadrons - and then to the Air HQ Levant staff.

After the defeat of Rommel and the Afrika Corps emphasis switched to operations in Italy. Wilson-MacDonald first formed and then commanded No 283 Wing of the Balkan Air Force comprising his ever faithful 213 - now flying North American Mustangs - and two South African Bristol Beaufighter squadrons. In the summer of 1944 he led the wing in support of partisans and guerillas in the Balkans. Often attacks were at such low level that enemy scrambles for cover were clearly visible. After strafing the exiled King Zog of Albania's palace at Tirana, he reported enemy troops clutching heavy curtains in their bid for safety.

The Balkan air operations wereof a necessarily piratical nature and Wilson-MacDonald enjoyed the opportunities that came his way. On one occasion he responded on his own to a British destroyer's request to help deal with enemy artillery on an Adriatic island. Another time, together with 213's commander, he sank an E-boat.

After the war he took up a permanent commission and received various station commands and staff appointments at home and in Malta before commanding stations on the Frisian island of Sylt and in Germany. His posting as Senior Air Staff Officer at No 11 Group HQ returned him to the group in which he had served during the Battle of Britain as Commander of 213 Squadron.

In 1960 he was appointed Air Attache at the Embassy in Stockholm. He retired three years later.
Wilson-MacDonald was an accomplished golfer. He played with Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader and other celebrities in RAF charitable tournaments.

Wilson-MacDonald was awarded the DFC in 1940 and DSO in 1945. He was mentioned in despatches in 1944. An extremely handsome man, he was always noted for his courage, charm, kindness and humility.

Stuart Wilson-MacDonald married in 1947, Rosemary Wilson, a wartime Wren who was his first cousin, they had a son and a daughter.