"Wing Commander Archie Boyd, who has died aged 95, flew during the Battle of Britain and was later one of the RAF’s most successful night fighter leaders. In March 1943 Boyd was given command of No 219 Squadron, with the task of preparing it for an unknown destination overseas. After re-equipping with the latest night-fighter version of the Beaufighter, and with a new air intercept radar, the squadron was ready to depart at the end of May. Led by Boyd and his long-serving navigator, Alex Glegg, 18 aircraft headed for an airfield in Cornwall before leaving at five-minute intervals on the long flight across the Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar. Operating from Bone in Algeria, the squadron was ready for action by the end of June, and two days later Boyd opened its account by shooting down two Junkers 88 bombers. As the Axis forces were driven out of North Africa, No 219 moved to Tunisia to provide escorts for the convoys supporting the invasion of Sicily. Towards the end of August, Boyd shot down another Junkers 88. Following the advance into Italy, the squadron covered the landings at Salerno and provided an aircraft at constant readiness against German intruders attacking rear areas. During this period Boyd and Glegg shot down two Heinkel 111 bombers — the second of these, on September 18, being the final success for No 219 in North Africa. As the Luftwaffe became less active in that arena, the squadron returned to Britain in January 1944 to re-equip with the Mosquito. Four months later Boyd’s long partnership with Alex Glegg came to an end. They had been together since the Battle of Britain, flying no fewer than 595 sorties. Boyd was awarded a DSO for his “outstanding courage and initiative in action”, while Glegg received a Bar to the DFC he had earned earlier in the war. Although the squadron was moved to Essex to cover the D-Day landings, it soon found itself chasing the V-1 “Doodlebugs” launched by the enemy from sites in the Pas de Calais. Boyd shot one of them down on June 15, but four days later an engine on his Mosquito caught fire — his laconic comment was: “The fire extinguisher did its stuff and we landed safely.” He claimed a second V-1 and shortly afterwards was posted to HQ Fighter Command. Archibald Douglas McNeill Boyd was born in Sheffield on June 20 1918 and educated at Harrow, where he was a sergeant in the OTC. At Trinity College, Oxford, he joined the University Air Squadron and learned to fly before cutting short his studies on the outbreak of war to join the RAF. Posted to No 600 (City of London) Squadron, which operated the obsolescent Blenheim fighter, he flew throughout the Battle of Britain on night sorties, but always said that he “didn’t really qualify as one of the Few”. Notwithstanding this modest claim, he flew many night patrols from Manston in Kent during the German blitz on London. When the squadron re-equipped with the potent Beaufighter in September, he flew the squadron’s first operational patrol with the aircraft.£ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10770863/Wing-Commander-Archie-Boyd-obituary.html
