The Airmen's Stories - P/O R D Rutter

Squadron Leader (Pilot Officer during the Battle) Robert Rutter, who has died aged 79, was one of the last fighter pilots to leave France as it fell in 1940. Rutter had been posted to No 73, a Hurricane squadron with the Advanced Air Striking Force in France on May 11 1940, the day after Germany invaded the Low Countries. By that time the RAF had lost more than 200 Hurricanes in supporting the BEF retreat and by mid-June the squadron was covering the last stages of the evacuation. There was desperate fighting around Nantes and on June 18 Rutter was ordered to fly to England with a message, hurriedly written in pencil by Air Vice-Marshal DCS Evill, asking for immediate transport to evacuate RAF personnel. When Rutter landed at Tangmere, Sussex, the station's officers were at breakfast and after telephoning Evill's message to the Air Ministry Rutter tucked into a hearty breakfast. He then luxuriated in the first bath he had had for several weeks. Later that day the remaining survivors of 73 Squadron joined him.

Robert Durham Rutter was born on August 3 1919, at Gosford, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and brought up in Belgium, where his father represented British coal exporters. He was educated at the College St Michel and at the Athenaeum at Uccle, a suburb of Brussels. He was granted a short service commission shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939.

Following its return from France, 73 Squadron was stationed at Church Fenton in Yorkshire. As the Battle of Britain came to its climax the squadron was ordered to Castle Camps, Cambridgeshire, on September 5th 1940. Four hours after arriving, Rutter was sent to engage a raid over the Thames estuary. He had set a He111 bomber on fire and was attacking a second enemy aircraft when bullets came through his cockpit floor. He dived steeply and was wiping oil from his eyes at 5,000 ft when the engine exploded. Smothered in smoke, he baled out and landed in a beet field. He learnt in hospital that a bullet had lodged in his ankle while another had gone through the foot. He was not operational again until the following spring, when he flew briefly with 17 Squadron before being posted to West Africa. He took passage to Takoradi on the Gold Coast, in the troopship ‘Anselm’. But this was torpedoed, and Rutter only saved himself by diving overboard. He was picked up and made it to Takoradi, where he served with the harbour defence flight.

In April 1943 he took command of No 263's Typhoons, at Harrowbeer, Devon. In August 1944 he led 263 to Normandy to attack enemy armour and shipping. Unhappily, this role led to Rutter's involvement in one of the war's more serious"friendly fire" incidents. On August 27, 263 and 266 squadrons were ordered to attack a hostile formation and consequently ripped into the First Minesweeping Flotilla off Cap d'Antifer, sinking two vessels and causing much loss of life. Area naval headquarters had not been notified that a change of plan to move the minesweepers had been countermanded and that they were still in their original position: radar sightings therefore convinced the Navy that the flotilla was hostile.

To the RAF's credit, Wing Commander Johnnie Baldwin, leading the Typhoon Wing, queried the order before attacking while during the operation both he and Rutter continued to seek confirmation. Although Rutter was absolved from any blame, he was always saddened by the affair, for which the Navy was held accountable.

There was no such confusion about Rutter's last big target of the war, Gestapo headquarters in Amsterdam. Rutter led 263 Squadron in at low level, timing the attack for lunchtime so as not to endanger children in the school behind the building. The attack was a complete success; Rutter later learnt that his delayed-action bomb had sailed right in through the Gestapo's front door.

In January 1946 Rutter joined the directing staff at the School of Air Support, Old Sarum only to be admitted a month later to hospital with tuberculosis. He was invalided out in 1947 and joined the advertising agency J Walter Thompson. His fluency in French brought him posts in the Paris and Brussels offices and he was given the Whitbread account when the company sought to break into the
Belgian beer market. He joined the agency's management committee in 1968.

Robert Rutter was mentioned in dispatches in 1940. He was awarded the DFC in 1944 and the Croix de Guerre in 1945.

He married, in 1961, Fay Smyth; they had two daughters.

With acknowledgments to the Daily Telegraph October 1998