In December 1938 Squadron Leader Cross was appointed Auxiliary Liaison Officer at HQ, No 12 Group, Fighter Command.

Cross served in the Second World War and in October 1939 was appointed Officer Commanding No.

[3] Ordered to return to the United Kingdom in June 1940, his pilots achieved the seemingly impossible task of landing all their Hurricanes on the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious without arresting gear,[1] along with ten Gloster Gladiators of No.

263 Squadron Their success was short-lived because on 8 June 1940 HMS Glorious and her two escort ships were attacked and sunk by the German battleship Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

[1] He had spent nearly three days and nights on a float in freezing temperatures before being rescued by a Norwegian fishing boat.

[2] In 1945 he married Brenda Megan Powell, a former Women's Auxiliary Air Force office; they had two sons and a daughter.