Ronnie Hamlyn was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire in 1914 and educated in the county. He joined the RAF as a direct-entry Airman u/t Pilot in 1936.
He carried out his intermediate and advanced training at 8 FTS, Montrose and passed out as a Sergeant-Pilot. Hamlyn was with No 72 Squadron at Church Fenton at the outbreak of war.
Hamlyn was attached to No 610 Squadron at Gravesend on 6 June 1940, an attachment that later became a posting. In later life Hamlyn would explain that he made a wheels-up landing during this period and was charged with damaging His Majesty’s property. The charge was dismissed because of his achievements in the Battle of Britain.
On 3 July Hamlyn shared a Do 17, on the 29th he damaged a Do 17, on August 14 he damaged a Bf 109, on the 24th shot down a Ju 88 and four Bf 109s, on the 26th a Bf 109 and probably another and on the 28th and 30th he destroyed Bf 109s. He was awarded the DFM on 13 September. He became one of the RAF personnel to broadcast anonymously on the BBC about his experiences.
Commissioned in January 1941, Hamlyn was posted to No 242 Squadron at North Weald on 13 June. On a Blenheim escort to Bethune on 4 July he destroyed a Bf 109 and on the 27th he shot one down into the sea.
He was made a Flight Commander in late July and remained with the squadron until 15 October 1941, when his tour ended.
He was posted to form and command No 275 Squadron at Valley, operating with Lysanders and Walruses in the Air Sea Rescue role. Hamlyn was later given command of another ASR squadron, No 276 at Harrowbeer.
He was awarded the AFC on 1 January 1943 for his work on air sea rescue and went to the staff of Bomber Command as ASR Officer. This was presumably a demanding appointment. The Command’s Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Air Chief Marshal Harris, was passionate about ASR. His biographer, Henry Probert, quoted one of Harris’s PAs as saying that, early in the war, the only time he saw his boss display emotion was when a Bomber Command crew that was known to him ditched and were seen in their dinghy but not found. Harris believed the rescue effort had been incompetently led.
In 1944 Hamlyn was Tactics Liaison Officer with the 9th Air Force, USAAF in Normandy and later he was posted to Air Ministry on Air Staff Policy.
In 1945 he served at OTUs and in September he became Station Commander RAF Maiduguri, West Africa. He retired from the RAF in 1957 as a Squadron Leader.
Shortly before his death in April 1991, Hamlyn agreed to be interviewed by a researcher writing an article about No 610 Squadron in the Battle of Britain. The visitor mentioned that he had done a charity parachute jump. Ronnie Hamlyn’s response was: “That’s an experience you’ve had and I haven’t. I never needed to.”
