Ricketts and Lukhmanoff

Text: Jan Bobek Jan

Ilustration: Adam Tooby

Cat. No. 82146

A four-year-old French boy was sitting three meters above the ground on the terrace of a former pigeon loft near Calais. It was the summer of 1942, and the boy watched in amazement as aerial battles unfolded in the sky. Suddenly, not far from where he was sitting, a twin-engined British aircraft flew low over the ground. The right engine was running at full power, while the left engine was on fire, and much of the tail surface was missing. The crew was attempting an emergency landing, and the boy had the impression that the pilot waved at him. However, upon contact with the ground, the aircraft exploded.

The boy, named Michel Ringot, grew up to be the head of flight operations at one of the French Air Force bases. This memory of the war never erased from his mind. In 2020, with the help of his family and others, he learned who were the pilots whose crash he had witnessed.

It was July 12, 1942, and the aircraft belonged to No. 1 PRU RAF. It was  Mosquito PR Mk.II W4089, piloted by  29 year-old F/Lt V. A. Ricketts, DFC, with 24 year-old navigator P/O G. B. Lukhmanoff, DFM. By the time they flew their first reconnaissance mission together, Ricketts had already conducted such missions along the French-Spanish border while piloting the Mosquito. Meanwhile, Lukhmanoff, as navigator, had flown several missions over Norway and Vichy North Africa.

Victor Anthony Ricketts was born in January 1913 in Penzance, Cornwall. Interested in flying from a young age, he became an aviation correspondent for the London Daily Express and earned his pilot's license in February 1936. In February 1938, together with New Zealander Arthur E. Clouston, he attempted a record-breaking flight to Australia, but it was unsuccessful. A second attempt was scheduled for March 15, 1938, with the DH88 Comet (G-ACSS) “The Burberry.” This time, they returned to the UK after covering a route of 26,450 miles in ten days, twenty-one hours, and twenty-two minutes, achieving a total of eleven records.

After the war, Clouston wrote a book, The Dangerous Skies, in which he confessed that in 1938 he was part of a private initiative to kill Adolf Hitler. His mission was to use a modified DH88 Comet (G-ACSS) to bomb Hitler during a parade in Berlin on Unter den Linden. Clouston ultimately refused to carry out this action. The aircraft is currently part of The Shuttleworth Collection.

Ricketts became a member of the RAFVR in March 1939, achieved officer rank in February 1940, was assigned to No. 248 Sqn RAF that same month, and transferred to No. 1 PRU in early 1942. He received a DFC for a photographic mission he completed on March 4, 1942, in extremely difficult weather conditions at low altitude. His navigator Lukhmanoff received a DFM for this mission. Their target was the Renault factory at Boulogne-Billancourt, which had been hit by RAF bombers the previous night. Together, they flew over Augsburg, Pilsen and Marseille, among other missions.

George Boris Lukhmanoff was born in March 1918 in Harbin, China, to Russian parents as Boris Dimitry (Dmitrievich) Lukhmanov. His father, Boris, was a representative of the auxiliary naval organization Dobrovolnyi Flot in Shanghai and later became Harbour Master of the Port of Woosung. However, the Soviet government stripped them of citizenship, prompting them to emigrate to the US. Boris later returned to China, where he was tortured to death by the Japanese in 1943 because his son was a member of the RAF. Interestingly, Boris's father was likely the legendary Russian and Soviet captain Dmitry Afanasyevich Lukhmanov (1867-1946), who was married three times and authored many publications on naval issues.

Dmitry's grandson, Boris Dimitry, became a naturalised British citizen as George Boris Lukhmanoff, first studying at Margate College in Kent and then gaining a degree in mechanical and electrical engineering from Glasgow Technical College in June 1939. In April 1940 he joined the RAF and his first combat unit was No. 206 Sq. RAF in Gibraltar. Further details of the crew can be found at The Battle of Britain London Monument. 

The promising careers of both airmen was ended on July 12, 1942, by Obfw. Erwin Leibold of Stab I./JG 26. At the time we were preparing the box art for this kit, Mr. Ringot's testimony was not yet available. As we already know, the British crew almost succeeded in making an emergency landing. Erwin Leibold survived his victims by only two weeks. After being hit by an American or Canadian Spitfire, his Focke-Wulf exploded. Although Leibold miraculously survived and his parachute opened, he drowned after landing in the sea.