I see that John Crampton died in June and his obituary is published today in the Daily Telegraph. He was the C.O of No 97 Squadron at Hemswell equipped with Lincoln B2s when he was selected in July 1951 to overfly Russia using the latest USAF aircraft, the RB 45 Tornado.This required him and others chosen to train to convert to the new aircraft in the US.He had, to this point,only flown piston engined jobs, seeing service during the war on Halifaxes and was as, his obituary states,an excellent engineer and technically gifted airman.The full story is told elsewhere but the clandestine flights were overrun by events as the Soviet Union were able to develop their radar and interceptors capable of dealing with the speed and ceiling of the Tornado intruders.The U2 flights was a further development in order to intrude at a higher ceiling knowing that the aircraft would be safe from Soviet interception.Of course the U2 was to become a victim of interception by missile. We were only discussing John Crampton at our RAF reunion in April and while on the remains of the 10-28 runway at Hemswell,his former Flight Engineer remarked to me,"this is where John used to practise with his Maserati on Wednesday afternoons,(traditionally an afternoon in the Royal Air Force when most things stood down for sports activities) I said to his former Flight Engineer,"How did he leave the squadron".He said, "He just disappeared",a case of those with a need to know,knowing.The public knowledge of the operations were revealed over 40 years after the events. By all accounts,a modest man with a good tale to tell.
