AA36213 Gloster Gladiator Mk.II - N5752/NW/G - Fl. Off. Alan Boyd

Although the Gloster Gladiator represented the very pinnacle of fighter capability on entering Royal Air Force service at the beginning of 1937, the pace of aviation development at that time dictated that it would be considered essentially obsolete with the arrival of the eight-gun Hawker Hurricane later that same year. 

By the start of the Second World War, Gladiators were not considered capable of defending Britain’s airspace against Luftwaffe attack, however, the impressive fighting qualities of the Gladiator were to be demonstrated in combat far away from home skies. 

Pilot Alan Boyd was one of several notable Australian pilots to fly the Gladiator against Italian CR42 fighters in the Middle East, one of the RAAF’s celebrated No.3 Squadron ‘Originals’ who served with such distinction during WWII, credited with three enemy aircraft destroyed and a further one as ‘probable’ during the RAAF’s very first combat engagement in theatre. 

On 13th December 1940, Boyd claimed a further two enemy aircraft destroyed, but had his own fighter damaged during the combat, forcing him to make a landing on the desert floor. Incredibly, he managed to make running repairs to the control lines of his fighter, and was later able to take off again to make the flight back to Gerawala airfield. During a six week period, Boyd would become a Gladiator ‘Ace’, credited with at least six enemy aircraft destroyed, with four, possibly five of this number secured whilst flying his usually assigned fighter, N5752.