Epiphone Special Ii


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Epiphone Special Ii

Epiphone Special Ii

Early Years

Born in Brazil in 1921, the only child of a French diplomatic family the young Clostermann completed his secondary education in France. At age 16 he gained his private pilot’s licence and on the outbreak of war in September 1939 he applied for service in the Armee de l’Air, but to his dismay this was refused. As a result he sailed to a then-neutral America to become a commercial pilot, studying at the California Institute of Technology.

Alsace Squadron

In March 1942 Clostermann joined the Free French Air Force in Britain, and following training at RAF Cranwell he was assigned to an operational training unit in Wales for a two-month course on Spitfires. On completion, with the rank of sergeant pilot, Clostermann was posted to 341 squadron RAF based at Turnhouse, Edinburgh. This new unit gained fame as the ‘Alsace’ squadron, composed of Free French pilots who journeyed from far and wide to be part of this unique force. In a surprisingly short time the Alsace squadron was melded into an efficient unit and one month later was posted to the Biggin Hill Wing, south of London. It was a singular honour for so new a squadron to be selected, for prestigious Biggin Hill was the base with the highest number of victories to its credit. At this stage of the war Fighter Command was involved in mounting large-scale offensive sweeps over northern France. To counter these actions the Luftwaffe reacted strongly, notably with the Focke-Wulf 190, which was appearing in increasing numbers. Front-line RAF squadrons were being equipped with the Spitfire IX, at the time the last word in aero-technique and fairly evenly matched against the FW 190. It was during Clostermann’s second such mission that he scored his first combat victories with the downing of two FW 190s.

City of Glasgow Squadron

In September 1943 Clostermann was posted to 602 (‘City of Glasgow’) squadron based at Ashford. During the Battle of Britain this unit had played a starring role and since then had been relegated to a secondary position. It was one of the first units to be transferred to the Tactical Air Force in preparation for the eventual invasion of the continent when it would provide close co-operation with the Army. After the glamorous status of Biggin Hill, 125 Airfield gave a rather ‘country cousin’ impression and for four months the pilots lived under canvas learning to refuel re-arm and camouflage their aircraft and also defend them, leading a real ‘commando’ existence. For the moment they operated with the Spitfire V-D, a clipped-wing variant which gave improved manoeuvrability and speed at low altitudes, but with its lower rated Merlin 45 engine the performance fell away markedly above 5000 feet. Nevertheless the squadron was required to carry out further cross-Channel sweeps before the arrival of their brand new Spitfire IXs, In the meantime it flew fighter sweeps, bomber escorts and dive-bombing and strafing attacks on V-1 launch sites on the French coast.