Memory Lane - RAF Uniform

This year the Trinity School Archive has had the good fortune of acquiring the RAF uniform of alumni Air-Vice Marshall John Nicol Stacey, CBE, DSO, DFC, a student of Whitgift Middle School from 1932 to 1936. The uniform was bought at auction by Richard Black, another alum who left the school in 1992. Richard then kindly donated it to our archive.

John Stacey left Whitgift Middle to join the Merchant Navy as an apprentice and in 1938 joined the RAF initially specialising in Flying Boats. He flew anti-submarine and convoy patrols in the northern waters off Shetland.

Air-Vice Marshall John Stacey

During 1942, he moved to Gibraltar and flew Catalinas and was involved in the patrols of the Mediterranean and East Atlantic, before transferring again to be based in Ceylon. He was involved in anti-shipping and antiinvasion patrols as well as air sea rescue. One such mission involved a search for 60 survivors in three lifeboats whose ship had been sunk by an enemy submarine. Stacey circled and protected them for 10 hours before being relieved by another aircraft.

He was awarded the DFC after a successful bombing and reconnaissance mission against airfields and harbours in northern Sumatra. He was described as: “a fearless captain, whose determination to achieve success set a most inspiring example”.

In 1945 he led eight Liberator bombers on a 3,640 mile mission to lay mines in Singapore harbour. After a 21 hour operation, all planes touched down safely in Ceylon after one of the longest bombing raids of the second world war. He was awarded the DSO for “a high degree of courage and resolution”. Stacey was also mentioned in dispatches three times.

The uniform took pride of place in our Remembrance Week display alongside the service stories of our four Battle of Britain pilots.