Strana 78
BL829, F/Lt John Plagis, No. 64 Squadron, RAF Coltishall, United Kingdom, March-September 1943
BL547, F/O Rick R. Richards, No. 402 Squadron, RAF Horne, Great Britain, June 1944
John Plagis was born on March 10, 1919,
in Hartley, Southern Rhodesia. After the outbreak
of war, he applied to join the Rhodesian Air
Force but was rejected because he was officially
a Greek citizen. He therefore joined the RAF in
1940. At the end of June, he first joined No. 65
Squadron, then transferred to No. 266 Squadron.
At the end of January 1942, he was transferred
to the Middle East, and on March 7, he became
one of the first pilots to fly Spitfires to Malta
from HMS Eagle during Operation Spotter.
He initially flew with No. 249 Squadron, shooting
down nine aircraft between March and May, two
of which were shared. He was then transferred
to No. 185 Squadron as commander of A Flight
and shot down three more enemies by the end
of June. In early July, he returned to Great
Britain and was transferred to No. 53 OTU.
He returned to operational duty in April 1943 with
No. 64 Squadron, with which he participated in
Operation Starkey in September and scored
two more kills by the end of the year. In July
1944, he took command of No. 126 Squadron and
scored three more kills during the Normandy
landings. In December, the unit re-equipped
with Mustangs and Plagis was promoted to
Wing Commander. After the war, he commanded
No. 234 Squadron and No. 266 Squadron flying
Meteor Mk.III aircraft. He left the RAF in May
1948 and returned to Rhodesia. During the
war, he shot down 15 aircraft solo and two in
cooperation with others, becoming the most
successful Greek pilot of the war.
On D
-
Day, No. 402 Squadron had a mixture of
older Mk.Vb and Mk.Vc Spitfires in its armament
and was led by the famous ace S/Ldr G. W.
Northcott. The squadron was part of No. 142
Wing, which, under the command of another
well-known Canadian ace, W/Cdr John Milne
Checketts, operated as part of the air defense
of Great Britain, albeit under 2 TAF operational
control in the role of fighter-bombers. No. 402
Squadron was re-equipped with Spitfires Mk.IX
in July, but their time with the unit was brief.
Early August 1944 saw a move to Hawkinge,
where the Squadron was rearmed with the new
Spitfires Mk.XIV with which they immediately
engaged in combat against V-1 flying bombs.
In late September 1944 the squadron was
transferred to 2 TAF in Belgium and joined
No. 125 Wing. In December it then joined
No. 126 Wing RCAF, where it flew alongside Mk.IX
Spitfires. The end of the war found the unit
on German soil at Wunstorf with a total score
of 49.5 enemy shot down. One of the Spitfires
Mk.Vb operating with No. 402 Squadron during
D
-
Day was serial number BL547 which sported
the fuselage codes AE
-
R. It was most often
flown by F/O Rick Richards who had a drawing of
Black Rufe, a character from the comic strip Li’l
Abner, painted on the nose of his Spitfire. Under
the cockpit, it bore the standard markings of
most No. 402 Squadron Spitfires, a red Canadian
leaf in a white crest with the City of Winnipeg in
white lettering.
KITS 12/2025
INFO Eduard78
December 2025