Caesar Barrand Hull, DFC (26 February 1914 – 7 September 1940) was a Royal Air Force (RAF) flying ace during the Second World War, noted especially for his part in the fighting for Narvik during the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, and for being one of "The Few"—the Allied pilots of the Battle of Britain, in which he was shot down and killed.

After being turned down by the South African Air Force because he did not speak Afrikaans, he joined the RAF and, on becoming a pilot officer in August 1936, mustered into No.

263 Squadron, he downed four German aircraft in an hour over the Bodø area south-west of Narvik on 26 May, a feat that earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Along with Peter Townsend (who joined the squadron at the same time as Hull) and Sergeant Frank Reginald Carey, they formed an aerobatic flight that performed stunts such as loops, barrel rolls and stall turns.

Piloting a Hawker Fury, Hull flew the individual aerobatics at the air show at Hendon in 1937 honouring the coronation of King George VI.

[8][9] Amid severe weather conditions, Hull scored the squadron's first victory of the war on 30 January 1940, when he shot down a Heinkel He 111 bomber of the Luftwaffe near the island of Coquet.

263 Squadron was deployed to the area around Narvik, a strategically valuable port city in northern Norway then under German control, but fiercely contested by the Norwegians and Allies.

Hull and two other pilots together downed a He 111 over Salangen on 24 May 1940, killing two of the five German crew; the other three were captured by Norwegian troops after making an emergency landing at Fjordbotneidet.

Arriving to find the airfield extremely muddy, the pilots had great difficulty moving their aircraft to drier ground to refuel from four-gallon (18-l) tin cans.

Falkson's plane crashed after mud clung to its wheels, and while Lydekker took off successfully, he had so little fuel that Hull almost immediately ordered him to land to add more.

After engaging the German aircraft and shooting down Feldwebel Kurt Zube's Stuka, which fell into the sea, Hull was overcome by one of the Bf 110s, piloted by Oberleutnant Helmut Lent, and forced to crash near the Bodø airfield.

[21][22] Wounded in the head and the knee,[23] he was initially treated at Bodø Hospital before being evacuated back to Britain for further treatment on a Sunderland flying boat via Harstad.

[26] Hull was declared fit to return to operational duty after about two months' rest and recuperation in Guildford,[23] and on 31 August 1940 he was appointed commanding officer of his former unit, No.

Concurrently promoted to squadron leader, Hull expressed disbelief at his sudden elevation and "as if to emphasise his surprise", Andy Saunders records, suffixed his first description of himself on paper as "Commanding No.

Pilot Officer A E A van den Hove d'Ertsenrijck, from Belgium, pursued a fourth back out to sea and sent it crashing into the English Channel, but was hit himself and compelled to make an emergency landing at RAF Ford.

Hull led six of the aircraft towards the German bombers while Flight Lieutenant John "Killy" Kilmartin, from Ireland, headed a section of three tasked with countering the fighter escort.

[2] A very fast engagement followed in which Hull was killed while diving to the aid of Flight Lieutenant Dick Reynell, an Australian pilot who had come under heavy attack.

[33] After Hull's death, the people of Shangani organised the construction of a memorial in his honour—a granite plinth to which a brass plaque was affixed commemorating the pilot's service and bravery.

[2] A memorial to the actions of Hull, Jack Falkson and Lydekker at Bodø was built at the town's airport three decades later, and inaugurated on 17 June 1977 with the Norwegian Minister of Defence, Rolf Arthur Hansen, in attendance.

[2] After Rhodesia's reconstitution as Zimbabwe in 1980, Robert Mugabe's government disowned many old monuments making reference to the fallen of the World Wars, including the Hull memorial at Shangani.

The plaque was removed, flown to England free of charge by MK Airlines—a freight carrier owned by a former Rhodesian Air Force pilot, Mike Kruger—and ceremonially delivered to the Tangmere museum curator on 17 April 2004 by Hull's sister, Wendy Bryan.

[4] John Simpson, who joined the unit as a pilot officer two months after Hull, recalled finding "a confidence when flying with Caesar that was wholly lacking otherwise.

"Caesar Barrand Hull, of the crinkly hair and the croaky voice, the laughing warrior whose idea of a lark was to change seats in the air ... who had a phobia about worms or slugs, who would look under the bed 'in case there are any feenies about', then kneel beside it and say his prayers.

According to Bolitho, Hull was "possessed of a magic power of creating happiness in others; making them belittle their cares, of inspiring them with confidence, not simply in him but in themselves.