Joseph Berry (RAF officer)

[1] Berry was born in Quarrington, Teesdale, County Durham and attended Dukes Grammar School in Alnwick, Northumberland.

In August 1941, after completing pilot training, Berry was appointed to the rank of sergeant and posted to a night fighter unit, No.

On 11 April, while Berry and his observer were returning from patrol, the port engine caught fire on Beaufighter VIF ("TB-N"; V8629), forcing them to bale out over the Mediterranean, and wait in a rubber dinghy for six-and-a-half hours, before they were rescued.

255 Squadron RAF, which in August moved to Western Sicily, where sorties were flown over the Salerno invasion fleet and beachhead in September.

[7] The citation for Berry's DFC read: This officer is an exceptionally capable pilot who has destroyed three enemy aircraft in the course of a long and strenuous tour of duty.

Flying Officer Berry has been forced to abandon his aircraft on two occasions and has operated with coolness and courage in the face of heavy enemy action.On 3 October 1943, while serving with No.

The attack had mixed results due to heavy enemy fire and bad weather with head winds on the return journey; the Allied squadrons took overall losses of 27%.

[1][8] In 1944, Berry was posted to the elite Fighter Interception Unit (FIU) at RAF Wittering in East Anglia as a temporary squadron leader, and began flying night sorties against V-1s in single-engined Hawker Tempests and was awarded a Bar to his DFC on 1 September 1944.

On the morning of 2 October 1944 Berry was flying a "dawn ranger" patrol south-west of Assen in a Tempest Mark V (serial number EJ600, squadron code SD-F).

His aircraft was hit by small arms fire while he was flying at 50 feet over Veendam, in Groningen, leading two other Tempests on a sortie against an airfield and rail yards near Bad Zwischenahn.