As Gifted by Squadron Leader C. A. C. Stone, D.F.C., and Thence by Direct Descent

‘To me, the saddest thing about the whole campaign was the failure to reward Bunny Stone for the absolutely magnificent job he did as the senior fighter squadron commander of the R.A.F. forces in Burma. The fact that in Burma he was credited with two confirmed and two damaged aircraft in the air, destroyed two of their bombers on the ground, led the unit which sank the troop ship, and took part in numerous strafing sorties was, in itself, worthy of the addition of a Bar to his DFC ... It was quite shameful that they were never recognised by his own service’s higher command at the time.’

Hurricanes Over Burma, by Squadron Leader M. C. “Bush” Cotton, D.F.C., O.A.M., refers.



An exceptional Second World War fall of France fighter ace’s D.F.C. group of six awarded to Wing Commander C. A. C. “Bunny” Stone, Royal Air Force, who, having gained three confirmed victories as a Hurricane pilot in No. 3 Squadron in May 1940, added to his score as C.O. of No. 17 Squadron over Burma in early 1942 - the latter chapter in his wartime career being recounted in his own words in the above cited Hurricanes Over Burma

Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1940’ and privately inscribed, ‘F./Lt. C. A. C. Stone; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star, clasp, Atlantic; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, mounted as worn, contained in an old Spink & Son glazed case, nearly extremely fine (6) £4000-5000


D.F.C. London Gazette 31 May 1940. The original recommendation states:

‘Early in May, this officer destroyed three enemy aircraft and led his section with great courage and determination.’

Cedric Arthur Cuthbert “Bunny” Stone was born in Amritsar, India, in December 1916, the son of a subaltern in Rattray’s Scouts who was killed in action in Mesopotamia in the Great War. Educated at Broadstairs and Charterhouse, he next attended the College of Aeronautical Engineering at Chelsea before going up to Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he joined the University Air Squadron.



Baptism of Fire - France 1940 - D.F.C.

Appointed an Acting Pilot Officer in January 1937, he gained his “Wings” at No. 2 F.T.S., Digby, and was posted to No. 3 Squadron at Kenley in February 1938. Ordered to France in support of the Advanced Air Striking Force on 10 May 1940, Stone and his fellow Hurricane pilots were quickly in action, the former claiming a confirmed Hs. 126 and another damaged on the 12th. Twelve Days in May, by Brian Cull and Bruce Lander takes up the story:

‘At 1010 it was the turn of six Hurricanes of 3 Squadron’s A Flight, the aircraft patrolling the Diest-St. Trond area. At about 1100, two aircraft were seen below at low level and the Hurricanes dropped down to investigate; the aircraft were recognised as Hs. 126s, one of which Red Section - Flight Lieutenant Walter Churchill (P3318), Flying Officer Bunny Stone (N2351) and Sergeant Roy Wilkinson (N2653) - attacked. The Henschel, from 1 (H)/23, which had been spotting for the 6th Armee, crashed near Diest, killing both Uffz. Wolfgang Ulbrich and his observer, Fw. Johannes von Kienlin ... Not until an evening patrol by A Flight was there a further success, when Flying Officer Bunny Stone (N2351) engaged and shot down another Hs. 126 near St. Trond; he noted in his logbook: ‘I got one - tail came off’. This was another 6th Armee machine from 1 (H)/41, which was reported missing from an observation sortie near Wavre. Both Fw. Hans Poller and his observer, Fw. Wilhelm Meyer, were killed.’

Two days later, in a combat over Sedan on the 14th, Stone added a confirmed Me.109 and Ju. 87 to his score, in addition to probably destroying another of the latter type. But the very next day he was compelled to undertake a force-landing at Vitry after his Hurricane was shot up by return fire from Do. 17s. He was awarded the D.F.C.

Having then been posted to No. 263 Squadron in early June, he was appointed a Flight Commander in No. 245 Squadron in Scotland four weeks later - but the unit quickly moved to Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to undertake convoy defensive patrols. And Stone served in a similar capacity in No. 607 Squadron from December 1940 until July 1941, when he received his first command, No. 17 Squadron.

Burma - Squadron C.O.

Ordered to the Middle East at the end of 1941, the Squadron was in fact diverted to the Burma front on the advent of hostilities in the Pacific, in which theatre of war Stone quickly added to his score - thus a Ki. 21 confirmed and two others damaged in a combat over Rangoon on 24 January 1942, another Ki. 21 confirmed at night on the 27th and a brace of ‘Army 96’ bombers destroyed on the ground at Mingaladon on 21 March. In Hurricanes Over Burma, Squadron Leader M. C. “Bush” Cotton, D.F.C., describes his first impressions of his new C.O.:

‘Bunny behaved like a lot of upper-class Englishmen, with a seeming lack of any serious thought and a playboy attitude to everything. Fortunately, I had by this time come to realise that many of the English loved to disguise their true feelings by playing down their achievements and appearing outwardly to be irresponsible fatheads. It did not take long for we colonials to realise that this was a deliberate front calculated to get others to misunderstand them. In fact if one looks back through their history one cannot help but conclude that the path to world domination was strewn with the corpses of the nations who under-estimated the English. Bunny turned out to be a true exponent of this tactic, and in fact had a deep core of determination and was a better judge of character than ever given credit for. I came to admire and respect him greatly.’

Early combats

Of early operations - and frustration occasioned by an unyielding A.O.C. - Cotton continues:

‘On 23 January, however, No. 17 Squadron's frustrations came to an end when the first three Hurricanes arrived from the Middle East. As already mentioned, these were armed with twelve machine-guns, four of which were removed very smartly by Bunny Stone at Mingaladon, but the Air Officer Commanding in Rangoon insisted that the long-range tanks remain fixed to the aircraft. Soon after the Hurricanes had landed, the extra guns had been whipped out and the aircraft had been refuelled, the air-raid warning sounded. Bunny Stone, together with another pilot and Squadron Leader Jimmy Elsdon, scrambled. The long-range tanks caused them to take ages to get up to 10,000 feet, where Bunny saw a fight going on between some Japanese bombers and the American Volunteer Group (A.V.G.). While he was getting his group into position to join the fight, they were bounced by ten Army 97 Japanese fighters.




In spite of all the stories we had been fed about myopic Japanese pilots who could not even see straight, let alone fly properly, Bunny and his group soon found out how wrong all these tales were. Jimmy and the other pilot quickly realised they were totally outclassed and dived away to land, but Bunny unwisely tried to out-climb the Japanese to stay in the fight. His own description, in his memoirs, records the one-sided combat that followed. Needless to say, his machine was shot-up very badly and the Air Officer Commanding regretfully allowed the long-range tanks to be removed.

After the long-range tank fiasco, Bunny's Hurricane was so badly damaged that it never flew again and was scrapped for spare parts. On the following day he regained his confidence as the early-warning radar (the only one available for the whole of the campaign) detected a large formation of hostiles approaching. No. 67 Squadron's four remaining Buffaloes, plus eight of the A.V.G. and No. 17's two remaining Hurricanes, took off to intercept. With the burden of long-range tanks having been shed, and flying with Jimmy Elsdon as his wingman, Bunny climbed up to 15,000 feet. Coming from the south-east were seven Japanese bombers escorted by Army 97s, which were being kept busy by the AVG.

Once again Bunny's account of what happened is fully recorded in his memoirs. On that occasion none of the Japanese bombers reached Rangoon, bur Bunny's aircraft had its propeller damaged by bullets and there were no proper tools to change it. The maintenance crews had an almost impossible task in trying to keep the machines airborne, and it was only with the co-operation of the British Rangoon Railway engineers, who actually made the specialised aircraft tools for them, that the Hurries were kept flying. The whole of the R.A.F. ground organisation was in a complete mess. Spares and tools from the support depots never seemed to arrive when they were needed. Motor transport was almost non-existent and 17 had to scrounge some from local car dealers and the American Volunteer Group, whom we helped by lending some ground crew to them.

The saga of the long-range ranks was not yet over, because the Air Officer Commanding issued an order to the squadron to refit them and strafe the airfield at Bangkok 350 miles away! Bunny pointed out that, by his calculations, they would only have some three minutes over the airfield and they would in any event be sitting ducks for any Japanese fighters because of their inability to jettison the tanks. Even if they did survive any combat, the chances of getting back to their base would be nil because of the time taken and the fuel used.

Headquarters persisted in their request but agreed to let Bunny nominate the pilots. His choice, apart from himself, was Squadron Leader Frank Carey, D.F.C. and Bar, D.F.M., and one of the flight commanders. As soon as someone in Headquarters realised that there was every chance of losing the three most experienced R.A.F. pilots then in Burma, no more was heard of the request. By this time Bunny and the other commanding officers had had a bellyful of the Air Officer Commanding and his disregard for their welfare, beginning from the time they arrived at Rangoon to be told by a Sergeant from Group Headquarters, who picked them up, that they were to sleep in the Rangoon gaol. This reception was not appreciated when it was later learned that some 300 Group personnel were, at the time, comfortably installed in the upper middle-class business quarters in Rangoon.

On 27 January, No. 17 Squadron, which had pilots trained in night flying, agreed to try intercepting the bombers then raiding Rangoon at night. The American Volunteer Group had tried this, using the headlights of motorcars to illuminate the runway, but had lost two aircraft in doing so. The Hurricane pilots had been trained in England and the reader will know by now that their night-flying training was excellent.

The night-time weather in Burma is beautiful in the winter and the Japanese normally took advantage of the full moon to mount their raids, so, on the night in question, the A.V.G. took all their aircraft to a nearby satellite strip and left Mingaladon to 17 Squadron. Bunny Stone and Jimmy Elsdon placed themselves on readiness and took off when the warning of a raid came through. They decided that Bunny would patrol above 20,000 feet and Jimmy below. Anti-aircraft fire was noticed, but they could not spot anything at first until Bunny saw what looked like a moving star and realised he was looking at the exhausts of two Japanese bombers flying in formation.

As he moved in for the kill, one of them opened fire, but this stopped as soon as Bunny also opened fire. He lined up on the other bomber and gave it a burst which sent it into a vertical dive, which he followed, firing at it until it burst into flames and crashed into the Irrawaddy.

On landing, he discovered that Jimmy had also located the two bombers and was about to open fire on one, when the tracer bullets from Bunny's guns passed over him and ripped into the bomber. The following day, both machines were confirmed destroyed, and the pilots became the toast of Rangoon for a period.’


Strain of command

But the heavy responsibilities being shouldered by Stone were beginning to show. Cotton continues:

‘Bunny seemed somewhat distraught by the experiences he had been through and, one day at the flight hut on the aerodrome, pulled out a silver whisky flask from a pocket and took a nip from it. He was showing me how it had lost its original curved shape because the high-altitude flying had acted to distort it outwards and, when I asked him why he carried it with him in the air he replied: “Well, Bush old chap, when I have a hangover and I am flying the next day I carry it; then if I see any spots before my eyes I take a quick nip. If the spots go away I know they were liver spots but if they don't, I know the buggers are Japs.” ’



Two-fingered salute

The spots certainly went away in one combat January 1942, as evidenced by Stone’s own account of the ensuing action:

‘After ten minutes flying I spotted some dark specks ahead and below, and warned the others by radio. Increasing speed, I hastily switched on the reflector gun sight, turned the gun button to “Fire”, pulled the booster plug and adjusted the pitch control. The specks quickly materialised into a tight vic formation of seven Mitsubishi twin-engine bombers, their red roundels standing out from the camouflage of their wings. We were in a perfect position for an attack, stepped up into the sun, and 1,500 feet above our quarry. I was somewhat puzzled, because I could not see any fighter escort; I put my thumb up against the sun to ensure that there were no fighters lurking above. I found out later that the American Volunteer Group were engaging them.

I yelled over the radio, “Going in now! Will take the far one.” This tactic enabled us to arrive more or less together, confusing the rear gunners. I moved over into a dive, every faculty tensed and intent upon one thing; as I arrived at about 200 yards, I opened fire. The pungent and pleasurable smell of burnt cordite filled the cockpit. I felt a slight arrest of progress caused by 160 rounds a second speeding away. Now, nearly line astern, I altered my deflection and opened fire again, as I heard a clatter behind me. Red tracer-bullet smoke flashed past my starboard wing. Thinking that a Japanese fighter was on my tail, I broke violently up into the sun, with gravity pulling at my lower eyelids and cheeks. I just had time to see a Buffalo from 67 Squadron, which had appeared from nowhere, pulling away as the Japanese blew up in a shower of sparks and a mushroom of black oily smoke. Two others were falling, and another had smoke trailing astern.

This left three Japanese bombers, still in close formation, heading for the aerodrome. I could not help admiring the discipline of our opponents who, as one of their comrades fell, merely closed up on their leader to fill the gap, pushing on towards the field, now almost within bombing distance. Finding myself alone, I attacked again, taking the bomber nearest to me. After I knocked chunks off him, he started to turn away, tilting on his port wing. I turned my attention to the leader, whose rear gunner I could see firing at me. I realised I was closing far too quickly in my excitement, and just managed to slither past him to be confronted by a Japanese 97 fighter, coming at me head on.



We both fired at each other and missed. I distinctly remember wondering, as we approached each other, whether the Japanese knew the rules of the air, so decided to carry straight on. The Japanese pulled up over my head as we reached each other at about 500 miles an hour. We continued this incongruous joust until all our ammunition had gone. As he turned away for home, and a drink of saki, I flew up alongside and made a rude two-fingered gesture, which he returned likewise, to my astonishment. “At least some of the Japs have a sense of humour,” I thought, as I flew back over several funeral pyres littering the earth below, with dark columns of smoke rising vertically in the still air.’

Decimation of a troopship

Stone continues:

‘As we approached Marta Ban, then occupied by the Japanese, situated on the north bank where the estuary broadens into the gulf, we spotted a large river boat, with one smokestack forward, steaming on a course to the west of the Sittang river. We were in a perfect position for strafing. I closed my hood, and turned on the gun button and the reflector sight. I went into a shallow dive, increasing speed; I told the others on the R./T. to follow in line astern. I went in to the attack.

As I descended, a cannon, mounted on the top awning just forward of the funnel on the top deck, winked at me. Waiting until I was in range, I opened up on the cannon, whose crew promptly collapsed, one falling over the side. I kept my finger on the button and raked the boat from stern to stern. Pulling out of my dive, I swept over the boat at about 10 feet and saw at a glance that the boat was full of Japanese troops in full war-gear. I watched Sergeant Wheatley going in as I circled up and around. The boat appeared to burst into a white sheet of flame from the funnel to the stern.

The other chaps went in, and smoke started to billow up, casting a long shadow on the glassy waters beneath. As I went in for the second time, figures appeared like fleas, disturbed by powder, jumping from a dog's fur. Some disappeared beneath the water, others popped up to be extinguished by the spray kicked up by eight guns delivering 160 bullets a second from each aeroplane.

My imagination told me they were not my guns and the dots on the water were not human beings, but like the puppet figures of a miniature rifle range at the circus, whizzing round on an axis when hit.

When we had no ammunition left, I called the boys together and we made off home as fast as possible at sea level, leaving the boat still burning, but afloat and not moving. The Blenheims went in shortly after and sank it.  I was sure that these Japanese troops intended to cut the road towards Pegu, behind the lines of 17 Indian Division, which was then fighting further on towards the Sittang.’

Having been stood down from operations in June 1942, Stone next served as C.O. of 135 Squadron in India from November 1943 until March 1944 and was advanced to Wing Commander in 222 Group in Ceylon at the War’s end.

The latter days

As stated in his obituary in The Times following his death in 1990:

‘Released from the service in 1945 he set out to develop a career as an artist - his log book sketches at the time of the Burma retreat are now in the R.A.F. Museum at Hendon. The following year he flew his first wife in a tiny Auster to Cape Town, where they built a house at Hermanus.

Stone lived in South Africa as an artist, principally from portrait commissions - including one of Roy Welensky, the Rhodesian leader - but when his marriage was dissolved in the early 1960s he returned to Britain and painted from a cottage at Yattendon, provided by Lord Iliffe, who employed Stone’s second wife as a secretary. His second marriage was dissolved. There were no children.’

It was while based in Yattendon that Stone was approached by his old 3 Squadron friend “Bush” Cotton, as a result of which his own account of the Burma operations 1941-42, and flying log book illustrations, appeared in Part II of the former’s history, Hurricanes Over Burma. As stated, his log books are now held by the R.A.F. Museum, Hendon.

Sold with the recipient’s original Buckingham Palace D.F.C. investiture letter, dated 22 June 1940, together with congratulatory Air Ministry letter, his commission warrant for the rank of Acting Pilot Officer, dated 17 August 1937, and an R.A.F. Driving Permit, dated 20 September 1944; also a quantity of original wartime Burma front maps, in khaki carrying case.