--- title: "Robert Stanford Tuck, RAF Battle of Britain ace, became godfather to German rival Adolf Galland’s son" url: https://badiyaa.com/robert-stanford-tuck-raf-ace-galland/ published: 2026-11-13T22:36:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-13T22:36:00+00:00 section: History publisher: Badiyaa --- # Robert Stanford Tuck, RAF Battle of Britain ace, became godfather to German rival Adolf Galland’s son Robert Stanford Tuck, the RAF ace with 27 kills, was shot down in 1942, escaped captivity in 1945 and later became godfather to Adolf Galland's son. Robert Stanford Tuck spent 1940 shooting down German aircraft over Dunkirk and southern England. Twenty-six years later, in 1966, he became godfather to the newborn son of Adolf Galland, one of the most famous German fighter pilots of the same war. That unlikely friendship sums up a career so full of narrow escapes that the RAF ace had a name for the way he kept surviving: “Tuck’s luck.” ## From merchant seaman to Spitfire leader Tuck was born in Catford, southeast London, on July 1, 1916. He went to sea as a Merchant Navy cadet after school and worked for a window joinery firm before joining the Royal Air Force in September 1935. His luck was tested early. In January 1938 a training collision in a Gladiator biplane over Uckfield, East Sussex, cost the other pilot his life; Tuck parachuted out with facial injuries. A second mid-air collision that April left both pilots unhurt. His first combat patrol came on May 23, 1940, over Dunkirk, where he claimed three German fighters. Within weeks he received the Distinguished Flying Cross from King George VI. His citation praised “great dash and gallantry.” ## The Battle of Britain and a run of escapes On August 18, 1940, cannon fire from a German bomber forced him to bail out near Tunbridge Wells, Kent. By coincidence he came down at a house called Tucks Cottage. A week later he glided a Spitfire with a dead engine back from 15 miles out to sea and landed it. In September he took command of No. 257 Squadron, flying Hurricanes. In June 1941 he was shot down over the English Channel and picked up by a coal barge from Gravesend. His luck finally ran out on January 28, 1942, when ground fire hit his Spitfire near Boulogne in northern France and he crash-landed among the gunners he had just been strafing. Then came the strangest twist of all. One of his 20mm cannon shells had gone straight down the barrel of a German gun, splitting it open “like a banana.” The soldiers found it so funny that they congratulated their prisoner on his shooting. ## Prison camp, escape and a mushroom farm Tuck was held at Stalag Luft III and helped with early planning for the Great Escape, but he was moved to a subcamp before the March 1944 breakout. On February 1, 1945, he slipped away during a forced march with Polish ace Zbigniew Kustrzyński, reached the Soviet lines and eventually sailed home to Southampton from Odessa. His final tally was 27 enemy aircraft destroyed plus two shared, with six probables. Here is how that record built up, using the official citations: - **October 1940:** six more destroyed in the four months since June 11, by his second DFC citation. - **January 1941:** “at least eighteen” victories, by his DSO citation. - **April 1941:** twenty-two, by his third DFC citation. - **Retirement, 1949:** 27 destroyed and two shared. Read side by side, the citations show his tally rising by at least four between January and April 1941, and by five more before his capture in January 1942. After leaving the RAF in May 1949 he worked for English Electric, then started a mushroom farm at Eastry in Kent. He was a technical adviser on the 1969 film Battle of Britain alongside Galland, and the two veterans’ friendship led to Tuck standing as godfather to Galland’s son Andreas Hubertus, born on November 7, 1966. For more wartime history, read how [Josephine Baker spied for the French Resistance with notes in invisible ink](https://badiyaa.com/josephine-baker-french-resistance-spy/), or browse the [Badiyaa history section](https://badiyaa.com/category/history/). A plaque to Tuck was unveiled at St Clement’s Church in Sandwich, Kent, on May 9, 2008, honoring the man who defended “the skies above Kent during the Battle of Britain in 1940.” ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Robert Stanford Tuck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stanford_Tuck) *Image: Daventry B J (Mr), Royal Air Force official photographer, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*