October 24, 1935, No. 3 Flying School, Royal Air Force Station, Grantham, England. An Avro Tutor biplane trainer sits on the end of the grass runway. In the front cockpit is a student pilot officer with 13 hours of dual instruction behind him–obviously a slow learner. If he doesn’t do well on this flight, he will be sent home. His name is Robert Tuck.

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Roland Robert Stanford Tuck was born on July 1, 1916, at Catford, London, the second son of Stanley Lewis and Ethel Clara Tuck. Tuck received a formal education at St. Dunstan’s Preparatory School and at St. Dunstan’s College. He left school in 1932 to became a cadet in the British Merchant Marine. During his two years aboard the Lamport and Holt Line’s refrigerator ship Marconi, Tuck liked to shoot sharks swimming near the ship with an old Lee-Enfield .303-caliber rifle, often killing them with a single bullet.

A newspaper ad caught Tuck’s attention in September 1935, while he was on leave at his father’s home in Catford. He decided to heed its call: ‘Fly with the RAF.’

The Royal Air Force was a small organization in 1935. Many applicants for flight training were interviewed, but only a few were accepted. Tuck took written and medical examinations and was interviewed by a selection board of five RAF officers. Two weeks later, he received a letter from the Air Ministry informing him that he was accepted for flight training with the temporary rank of pilot officer.

Tuck, along with 33 other young men, reported to the RAF station in Uxbridge, England, on September 16, 1935, for two weeks of drills, lectures and aptitude tests. He then was transferred to No. 3 Flying Training School at Grantham and got his first close-up look at an airplane–the Avro Tutor twin-seat biplane trainer.

On October 24, Tuck flew so well for 15 minutes that, after a smooth landing, he was sent up again…alone. He soloed successfully, and his rocky start at flight training was behind him at last. By August 1936, he had earned his pilot wings and was posted to No. 65 Squadron at Hornchurch, flying Gloster Gladiator I biplane fighters. During his two years with 65 Squadron, Tuck led the squadron in aerobatics, radio navigation, formation flying, interception and ground attack. He took little interest in the outside world. ‘All of his extraordinary energy,’ wrote his biographer Larry Forrester, ‘his spirit of adventure and his masculine pride were directed to a single end–to keeping his place as the squadron’s best pilot.’

Tuck and two other 65 Squadron pilots were practicing formation flying 3,000 feet over Sussex on January 18, 1938, when tragedy struck. Flying Officer Adrian Hope-Boyd was leading, Flight Sgt. Geoffrey Gaskell was second and Tuck was last, flying slightly higher and to the right of Gaskell’s plane to stay out of his slipstream, when suddenly the Gladiators hit turbulence.

Gaskell’s Gladiator bucked, veered left, was caught by Hope-Boyd’s slipstream and was thrown into a steep right bank. Tuck saw Gaskell’s plane rear up in front of him, and he slammed his stick forward to avoid a collision. But his Gladiator struck Gaskell’s, his propeller slicing into the other biplane’s cockpit, killing Gaskell. Tuck’s wings crumpled, and his Gladiator plunged toward the ground.

Tuck unstrapped himself and tried to slide the Gladiator’s cockpit canopy open, but it wouldn’t budge. Then the crushed wings that had hindered his escape broke loose, taking the canopy with them. Tuck struggled from the cockpit, pulled the ripcord on his parachute and floated down. Only then did he notice that his right cheek had been slashed by a razor-sharp piece of wire strutting. He lost much blood from the wound and twisted his ankle on landing.

The young airman was in the hospital for six days and was left with a permanent scar on his face. A court of inquiry absolved him of blame for the accident, and he was flying again nine days later. The incident changed Tuck’s flying style, however. His nerve remained steady, his judgment good and his enthusiasm high–but he no longer took needless risks in flying. ‘He knew that only luck–not skill, not daring–had saved him,’ Forrester wrote, ‘and he had learned that in military flying there were unpredictable factors that killed the best and the worst pilots with terrible impartiality.’

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