Flight Lieutenant Kevin Thomas Anthony O’SULLIVAN , DFC No. 127032 Royal Air Force.
Died 21 February 1968 aged 47.
Credit the following extract to Aces High (book)
Kevin O’Sullivan served as a Flying night fighter pilot with 255 Squadron in North Africa in Spring 1943 claiming three victories there. He subsequently returned to the UK and joined 125 Squadron where he made one further claim. The award of a DFC was gazetted in September 1944 by which time he had become a Flight Lieutenant, this crediting him with four victories by night and on by day. The latter claim has not been found and little else is known regarding this pilot save that he remained in the RAF after the war, serving at the Aircrew Selection Centre, Hornchurch in the the late 1950s
This extract credit to
http://www.255.org.uk/people.html It a sad reading.
What happened next is best expressed in Gillian’s own words:
"My sister, a friend and I were home from boarding school for half term. The day we were due to return to school, 20 February 1968, my father was driving us to the railway station in fog. My sister recalls our father saying “I don't like this, I don't like this at all” and slowing right down. The fog then became extremely severe. A roadwork vehicle was parked on the side of the road with no lights on; because of the fog my father did not see it in time and we crashed into the back of it. My sister and her friend were unhurt, my step-mother hit the windscreen suffering a badly cut eyelid, my father sustained a fractured rib and concussion and I sustained an injury to the right side of my forehead.
"We were all taken to RAF Little Rissington Medical Centre. My father borrowed a car and took my sister and her friend home and then to the railway station and they returned to school. My step-mother and I were taken to hospital.
"The next day, 21 February, I was visited at the hospital by an RAF Officer who told me that my father had taken his own life earlier that day. I can’t remember whether it was this person or someone else but I was taken to stay with an RAF Officer and his wife that night. The next day my uncle, Bernard O'Sullivan, took me back to boarding school.
“At an Inquest held on 26 February 1968 at Stow-on-the-Wold, the Cotswold Coroner recorded on Flight Lieutenant O'Sullivan the verdict of suicide whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed."
At rest at Little Rissington St Peter Churchyard, Gloucestershire.
