Seventy years ago this summer above the skies of southern England young men from the Bradford district were fighting for their lives in one of the biggest air battles in history.

And many involved in the life or death dogfights of the Battle of Britain had been trained to fly Spitfires and Hurricanes by Ernest Markham and his fellow instructors.

Now 89, Mr Markham is one of few men still alive who can recall those days and remember the sacrifice made by people like his heroic brother-in-law Oswald Pigg.

The Battle of Britain, fought in the summer and autumn of 1940, claimed the lives of 14 Bradford airmen – a total only exceeded in Yorkshire by Hull, which lost 21.

Also among those killed was Sergeant Pilot James Hopewell, who lived in Mornington Road, Bingley, and whose memorial plaque is at Priestthorpe Primary School in the town, where he had been a pupil.

Flight Lieutenant Pigg died on September 1, 1940, in one of the terrifying dog-fights, his Spitfire coming down in a field in Kent. He was only 22.

Mr Markham, of Nelson Street, Cross Roads, near Haworth, still has all his brother-in-law’s documents including a combat report in which he shot down a Messerschmitt.

“I have letters written to his mother and father – his dad was a clergyman – right up until his death. It was a great tragedy for the family.

“But it was a reflection of the sadness and loss felt by hundreds of families at that time as Britain fought that aerial battle,” said Mr Markham who later met and married Flt Lt Pigg’s sister, Adel, a driver in the Women’s Royal Air Force.

Mr Markham joined the RAF in 1938 as an engineer fitter, a year before the outbreak of the Second World War. He later serving at the Central Flying School in Uphaven, Wiltshire, where pilots were trained as instructors.

But in December 1939 he was posted to Canada with the Empire Training Scheme, where he spent three years helping train fighter pilots for the battle in Europe.

“We were there so we could get on with the job away from the threats of bombing,” he said.

“People thought it was a plum job, especially when compared to being posted to Malta where they were bombed to pieces, but we had to work extremely hard.

“We were very short of pilots and worked flat out. I did months of night flying.

“Many of them went on to be killed and I knew a lot of them – it was very sad. I recall the Commander calling me in and showing me a photograph of some of the pilots we had trained – nearly all had rings round their faces to indicate they had died.”

Mr Markham, still an active golfer, came back to Keighley and returned to his profession as an engineer.

  • Mark Andrew, a member of the Battle of Britain Historical Society, is seeking information about men who died in the Battle of Britain. They include George Roberts, of Queensbury or Thornton, who retired in 1946 as a Flight Lieutenant, Pilot Officer Lingard who died in 1995, who retired in 1958 as a Wing Commander and Wing Commander John Topham, of Bradford. He can be contacted at faxmark@blueyonder.co.uk.