Colin 'Hoppy' Hodgkinson
In the summer of 1938, Hodgkinson was accepted for pilot training as a Midshipman in the Fleet Air Arm.
Fleet Air Arm course in HMS
Courageous, 1939. Hodgkinson is sixth from the right in the rear
rank.
Next to him on his left
is Anthony Day. In the second rank, second from the right is Bobby
Kearsley, and fourth from the right
in the same rank is Freddie
Charlton. In the front rank, second from the right is 'Tiddly" Ford.
HMS Courageous was laying
in Fareham Harbour at the time.
After training aboard the
aircraft carrier Courageous, he had gone solo and completed 20 hours in
Tiger Moths
when he collided whilst
practising blind flying with another Tiger Moth.
The wreckage of Hodgkinson's Tiger Moth
The Tiger crashed from 500ft
at Gravesend, and so grievously injured Hodgkinson that his legs were amputated.
Although he was a naval type,
Hodgkinson was welcomed
into McIndoe's Guinea Pig Club brotherhood of burned airmen. Such
was their spirit that he determined to emulate Bader
and fly again. He
set his heart on flying Spitfires and by the autumn of 1942 had left the
Navy and went into the RAF as a pilot officer.
He was briefly with number
131 squadron, successively to 610 and 510 squadrons, then 611 squadron,
then in the famous Biggin Hill wing.
The RAF talked about him
as "a second Bader" when he joined 611 squadron in June 1943 under Wing-Commander
"Laddie" Lucas,
the hero of the Battle of
Malta.
Flight magazine, 25th May 1939
Colin "Hoppy" Hodgkinson,
who died aged 76, lost both his legs learning to fly, but, inspired by
the example of the legless fighter ace Douglas Bader,
became an accomplished fighter
pilot in the RAF. Although he called himself "the poor man's Bader"
Hodgkinson had no cause to cast himself
as an understudy.
Such was his courage that he succeeded despite bouts of claustrophobia
and an admitted fear of flying and combat.
He also had a horror of
being forced to ditch in the Channel and stuffed his hollow legs with ping-pong
balls, hoping that they would help
to keep him afloat.
Once, at 30,000 ft, he took violent evasive action before realising that
what he had taken to be a clatter of gunfire
was the noise of ping-pongballs
exploding at that altitude. B ut his self-doubt was masked by the bluff,
boisterous bonhomie that characterised
not only his wartime career
as a fighter pilot but also his postwar success in the competitive world
of advertising and public relations.
Hodgkinson was already beginning
to be talked about as "a second Bader" when he joined No 611 squadron in
June 1943.
He flew Spitfires from Coltishall,
Norfolk, under Wing-Commander "Laddie" Lucas, the hero of the Battle of
Malta.
One August morning Hodgkinson
was part of an escort to 36 American B-26 bombers in an attack on Bernay
airfield near Evreux, north-west of Paris.
The wing was turning for
home when more than 50 FW 190s appeared up-sun.
The Luftwaffe fighter pilots
fell upon the Spitfires. Lucas turned 611's Spitfires into the attack.
There was a furious melee in which the squadron
fought all the way back
to the coast. Hodgkinson, remembering his father teaching him to shoot
on the family's Somerset estate, shouted:
"Swing with it" and,making
a well judged beam-into-quarter attack, picked off a 190 and sent it spinning
earthwards just as it was
fastening onto Lucas's tail.
Lucas recalled: "It was an uncommonly quick and accurate piece of shooting.
Hodgkinson contributed handsomely
to a total of five 190s destroyed against two Spit's. "In 12 rough
and eventful minutes Hodgkinson
had demonstrated that, despite
his massive disability, he could match his skills against the best that
General Adolf Galland
and his JagdBeschwader 26
had to offer." It was Hodgkinson's second "kill". Earlier he
had shot down a FW 190 just off the end of Brighton pier.
Colin Gerald Shaw Hodgkinson
was born at Wells, Somerset, on Feb. 11 1920. His father had been
awarded the MC and Bar
as a Royal Flying Corps
pilot in the First World War, and was to serve as an intelligence wing-commander
in the Second World War.
Hodgkinson's earliest memories
of his father were of a powerful man in hunting pink. As he learned
later, he was an outstanding
Master of Foxhounds with
the Mendip, a big-game hunter and a fine shot. S oon in the saddle himself,
the squire's son followed his father's
country pursuits until,
being judged difficult and unruly, he was condemned to the harsh discipline
of a cadetship at the Nautical College,
Pangbourne. In the summer
of 1938 Hodgkinson spent an idyllic holiday riding with the French Cavalry
School at Saumur,
in the Loire, before being
accepted for pilot training as a midshipman in the Fleet Air Arm.
After training aboard the aircraft carrier Courageous,
he had gone solo and completed
20 hours in a Tiger Moth biplane trainer when he collided with another
Tiger Moth.
At the time, acconipanied
by his instructor, Hodgkinson was practicing blind flying on instruments
with a hood over his head.
The Tiger crashed from 800ft
at Gravesend, killing the instructor and so grievously injuring Hodgkinson
that his legs were amputated.
During a long period in
hospital he encountered Sir Archibald McIndoe who invited him to his celebrated
wartime RAF plastic surgery unit
at the Queen Victoria Hospital,
East Grinstead, for some work on his face. Although he was a naval
type, Hodgkinson was welcomed into
Mclndoe's Guinea Pig Club
brotherhood of burned airmen. Such was their spirit that he determined
to emulate Bader and to fly again.
He set his heart on flying
Spitfires and by the autumn of 1942 had wheedled his way out of the Navy
and into the RAF as a pilot officer.
He was briefly with No.131,
a Spitfire squadron before moving on in the new year, successively to 610
and 510 squadrons.
He learned his trade by
flying sweeps over occupied France. The following March he was promoted
Flying Officer and in June joined 611,
then in the famous Biggin
Hill wing. After his August bomber escort exploit over France, Hodgkinson
returned to 501 as a flight commander.
In November, during a high
altitude weather reconnaissance his oxygen supply failed, and he crashed
into a French field.
Badly mangled and minus
one of his tin legs he was rescued from the blazing Spitfire by two farm
workers. He was reunited with them in 1983,
when they presented him
with a part of his aircraft's propeller. He had not seen them since
being stretchered away en route for a prisoner of war camp
via a railway station where
his guards abandoned him for some hours in a lavatory while they sheltered
from air-raids.
After 10 months Flt.Lt.
Hodgkinson was repatriated, being deemed of no further use to his country.
Yet such was his irrepressible spirit
that after being mended
again by McIndoe, he resumed flying, ending the war with a ferry unit at
Filton, Bristol.
This gave him, as he was
to admit, the opportunity of indulging
in some pocket-money smuggling,
trading such "contraband" as nylons, utility cloth, tea and coffee for
cases of brandy among other "imports".
Once, he said, he carried
gold in his tin legs. Although he was released from the service in
1946 Hodgkinson returned in 1949 as a weekend flyer.
He became a jet pilot and
flew Vampires with 501 and 604 squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force
until the early 1950s.
Civilian life presented
fresh challenges, and he plunged enthusiastically into the postwar regeneration
of advertising and public relations.
From the agency Erwin Wasey
he moved into PR, learned the ropes and broke away to establish Colin Hodgkinson
Associates.
With the drive and presson
spirit he carried over from fighter days, Hodgkinson prospered, and attracted
a mix of prestigious and solid industrial accounts.
He also tried politics,
standing as a Conservative in the safe Labour seat of South West Islington
in the 1955 general election.
He made an impressive debut
and rediscovered his youthful boxing skills in a punch-up with Labour supporters.
Articulate and a fluent
writer, Hodgkinson was briefly air correspondent with the fledgling ITN.
In 1957 he published "Best Foot Forward",
an entertaining account
of his life until then. In 1986 he moved permanently to his holiday
home in the Dordogne.
He married first June Hunter,
a former fashion model. After her death he married Georgina, a Frenchwoman,
who survives him.
And here is a British Pathé film of his book launch of 'Best Food Forward' in 1957.
Hodgkinson is second from left, front row
Flight magazine, 17th May 1957
This article appeared in
the Wells Journal, April 8th 2010.
A high resolution copy can
be read here.
Colin Hodgkinson, 1943 - a drawing by Sir William Rothenstein