82 AIR CLASSICS/August 2022
Grumman Martlet Mk. IV (before the type standardized on the name Wildcat) running up its engine aboard HMS Searcher off the
Scottish coast during 1944. The Grumman was assigned to 882 Squadron.Captured Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (Stork) was taken by the British in the Western Desert during 1943. It became the “personal” aircraft of
Battle of Britain ace Air Vice Marshal Harry Broadhurst. He was the senior air staff officer to the commander of the Desert Air Force. When
he returned to England, the Storch went with him and he used the aircraft to visit various bases in preparation for Operation Overlord as
commander of 83 Group. Some six weeks after D-Day, Broadhurst used the Storch to pilot Winston Churchill over Normandy.