Published May 9, 2025

St Joseph’s Catholic School commemorated VE Day yesterday (May 8th) with lots of bunting, a tea party, and a special visit from Group Captain Ron Burrows.

The afternoon began with the whole school joining in with the national 2-minute silence at midday, to pause and reflect on Britain’s effort in the war and the lives that were lost.

Then later on, with the school adorned with lots of bunting, the History Club came together for a tea party with a very special guest: Group Captain and Chief Test Pilot Ron Burrows.

Burrows joined the RAF in 1962 and flew Hunter fighter/ground attack aircraft on close air support missions over what is now Southern Yemen. In 1970, he graduated from the US Navy Test Pilots’ School with a posting to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down.

During his subsequent four test flying tours, he flight tested all the fast-jets and trainers of the time. He was the CO of the Fighter Test Squadron during the period of urgent flight trials that became necessary in support of the re-capture of the Falkland Islands. He was promoted to group captain in 1985 and became A&AEE’s chief test pilot. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1976 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1987.

The pupils and staff alike were completely enthralled in Ron Burrows’ stories of the two times we had to eject himself out of burning planes from high in the air, once landing (along with his plane) in the onion patch in the back garden of an American farmstead, and once losing 2cm in height due to the gravitational force of the ejection which caused fractured vertebrae. He also talked about the skills and training required to be a pilot, and how back in the war, pilots would be as young as 19 and would train to fly within nine months.

Thank you to Ron Burrows for visiting our school and taking the time to share your incredible stories, to Miss Ingham and Ms Shuttleworth for organising it, and to our History Club for asking such great questions!

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