ONE of the last surviving Typhoon fighter pilots of the Second World War is celebrating his 100th birthday today.
Bernard Gardiner will be joined by family and friends to mark the occasion and is also to be presented with a card from The Queen by the Lieutenant-Governor Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton.
Mr Gardiner flew Hawker Hurricanes and Hawker Typhoons during the war after joining the RAF as an 18-year-old in 1940.
As a trainee pilot he sailed to Rhodesia – during which time his convoy was in the same waters as the German battleship Tirpitz – and Egypt where he trained on a Tiger Moth and Harvard before returning to fly Hurricanes. His first operational mission was in a Typhoon in October 1944.
He didn’t have the chance, however, to fly the iconic Spitfire. His long-time ambition to pilot that particular aircraft was fulfilled at the age of 98, when his family, along with an aircraft restoration company, organised a surprise flight for him at the Duxford airfield in Cambridgeshire.
‘I’d never flown a Spitfire but always wanted to. I didn’t know it was happening and my family took me over there and installed me in the Spitfire. It was very exciting and I was able to handle it myself and it was really nice to fly,’ said Mr Gardiner, who candidly admitted that he prefers his wartime planes.
‘I probably shouldn’t say this, but I don’t think it was as good as a Hurricane. That was a lovely airplane but it was slower than the Messerschmitt and outdated. The Typhoon that replaced it was lovely to fly and it had lots of power and speed.
The Spitfire lived up to expectations but I found the controls not as well balanced as the Hurricane or Typhoon. It was sensitive on the elevators and heavier on the ailerons,’ he said.
Mr Gardiner was born in Moose Jaw, Canada, to Reginald and Emily Gardiner, who had emigrated from Gloucestershire in 1919 after the end of the First World War, in which his father had served.
The family returned to the county and the small village of Churchdown in 1926, where four-year-old Bernard, his sisters Mary, Rae and youngest brother Peter grew up.
After the war Mr Gardiner first flew for Scottish Airlines, piloting Dakotas on passenger and commercial flights, and when the company disbanded he and his wife Jean moved to Jersey after he answered an advert in a flying magazine.
‘They wanted a pilot to come to fly a day trip to Dinard over Easter – and that was the very beginning of Jersey Airlines. There was me, the pilot, the boss and one secretary,’ said Mr Gardiner, who flew the de Havilland Rapide, Dakotas and the Handley Page Dart Herald aircraft for the company.
‘The Herald was the best. It was bigger and more powerful – it had a nice modern turboprop engine,’ he said.
Mr Gardiner retired from flying when he reached 60 and was married to Jean for 69 years before she died suddenly at the age of 92. Since retirement he has enjoyed gardening, walking and time with his family.
Asked if there was still an aircraft he would like to fly he said: ‘I was a fighter pilot so I’d like to have flown the Gloster Meteor. I saw it being developed near Gloucester aerodrome so that would have been good. So, yes, I’d like to have flown a jet aeroplane.’
For now Mr Gardiner is looking forward to celebrating today with his son John and his wife Pauline, grandsons Matthew and Kim (and wife Ivy); step grandchildren Sara (and husband Chris) and Paul (and wife Jenna) along with Sara and Chris’s two children Lyra (7) and Bryn (4), who are both very excited about grandpa’s 100th birthday.
