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As this summer’s Paris Olympics draw to a close, I can’t help but think about an amazing American, a daredevil who won Olympic glory – twice - and also fought with great courage in WWII: the dashing, Chicago-born William Meade Lindsley Fiske III, the so-called “King of Speed”.
In the summer of 1940 the Second World War had been under way for nearly a year. Hitler’s Germany was triumphant. The United States was neutral. It was a time, Winston Churchill later observed, when “the British people held the fort alone till those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready.” Some Americans, however, did not remain on the sidelines. They included “Billy” Fiske.
Eleven American citizens fought against the Nazis in the Battle of Britain. This remarkable bunch of rogue flyers included ex-barnstormers, a Minnesota farm boy, and Fiske – one of the greatest bobsled champions in Olympic history. All had defied strict neutrality laws—thereby risking loss of their citizenship and imprisonment if they dared return home—in order to join what they regarded as the best flying club in the world: Britain’s Royal Air Force. With only minimal training, they dueled with some of the Luftwaffe’s finest aces in the greatest man-on-man contest in the history of aviation and, by October 1940, had helped save England from Nazi invasion.
The first American to enlist in the RAF during World War II was no ordinary American. Twenty-nine-year-old Fiske had spent much of his adolescence in Europe, graduating from Cambridge University, and had worked as a banker in London and New York. In his spare time, he had also completed the Le Mans 24-hour auto race, aged just 19. He earned the unofficial title “The King of Speed” by dominating bobsledding between the wars. In 1928, Fiske became, at age 16, the youngest-ever winner of a Winter Olympics gold medal for the bobsled. In 1932, at the Lake Placid Winter Games, he carried the Stars and Stripes for the Americans at the opening ceremonies, presided over by Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York; and he also won gold again, as his bobsled’s driver.
At the outbreak of war in September 1939, Fiske decided he would pretend to be a Canadian in order to circumvent American neutrality laws. Before an interview with an RAF recruiter, he played a round of golf to give himself a “healthy look.” In his diary he wrote: “Needless to say, for once, I had a quiet Saturday night—I didn’t want to have eyes looking like blood-stained oysters the next day.” Fiske’s interviewer was impressed and recommended he be sent to the RAF No. 10 Elementary Flying School. Fiske duly pledged his life and loyalty to the king, George VI, and was formally admitted into the RAF. In his diary, a joyous Fiske wrote: “I believe I can lay claim to being the first U.S. citizen to join the RAF in England after the outbreak of hostilities."
On July 10, 1940, the Luftwaffe opened a daylight bombing campaign against Britain. The Battle of Britain was on. Two days later, Billy Fiske was posted to 601 (County of London) Auxiliary Air Force Squadron at Tangmere, on England’s south coast. Also known as the Millionaires’ Squadron, it had been composed since the 1920s of mostly wealthy aristocrats, recruited at the elite gentleman’s club, White’s, by Lord Edward Grosvenor.
There was some apprehension in 601 about “the untried American adventurer,” according to the squadron’s official record book. But Fiske made no pretensions about his flying skill and was soon popular with the squadron’s other flamboyant and daring pilots. When not on duty, he invariably beat them in races to local golf courses and pubs in his 4.5 liter open Bentley, painted British racing green, complete with bonnet strap and projecting supercharger.
On July 20, Fiske flew for the first time in a 601 plane, making two patrols. Over the coming weeks, he would fly with the same exceptional skill that he guided bobsleds, pushing his plane to its operational limits without being reckless. When the call to scramble sounded, Fiske was often first to sprint to his “kite,” so eager was he to test himself in the ultimate thrill ride.
On August 13, 1940, the Luftwaffe launched its first all-out mass attack, codenamed Eagle Day. More than 50 Stuka dive-bombers attacked airdromes in the area of Portland naval base on England’s south coast. Above the English Channel, Billy Fiske shot up a German bandit’s underbelly but was unable to claim the kill because he did not see the German crash or burst into flames.
Three days later, on August 16, the Luftwaffe singled out Fiske’s base at Tangmere for attack. RAF Fighter Command ordered 601 to patrol over Tangmere at about 12,000 feet: Ju 87 dive-bombers had been detected as they crossed the English coast at nearby Selsey Bill. Soon, the Stukas started to dive on Tangmere, killing several ground staff and badly damaging the airfields. Fiske and his fellow 601 pilots chased the Germans out to sea just to the south around Pagham Harbor and downed several enemy planes.
Someone spotted Fiske’s Hurricane returning to the base. It was badly damaged and was seen to “glide over the boundary and land on its belly.” Medical and fire crews rushed to the plane. The squadron’s operations record book recorded what happened next: “Pilot officer Fiske was seen to land on the aerodrome and his aircraft immediately caught fire. He was taken from the machine but sustained severe burns….”
Fiske was rushed to the Royal West Sussex Hospital in Chichester but died the following morning from shock. He was just 29, the first American pilot to be killed during the Battle of Britain. On August 20, six members of Tangmere’s ground staff carried Billy Fiske to his final resting place. As his coffin, covered in the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes, was borne on a bier to Boxgrove Priory Church, the RAF’s Central Band played funeral marches. Buglers gave the “supreme artist of the run” a farewell, and then a rifle squad cracked the silence with a salute.
Today, as the Olympics reach their glorious climax, in a corner of Boxgrove graveyard in England, “The King of Speed” lies between two British soldiers, a sapper in the Royal Engineers and a corporal in the East Lancashire Regiment. A small American flag sometimes snaps in the wind above the final resting place of one of America’s greatest ever Olympians. On his headstone the following words are inscribed for all to see: “He died for England.”
