Sergeant Pilot, RAFVR
Born: December 7th 1916
Died: September 8th 1940
Age at Death: 23
Gerald was born on 7 December 1916 to Charles Clayton, a wartime Captain in the Royal Field Artillery who later became an architect, and his wife Olive (née Westbrook). At the College he was in the Modern Section, which concentrated on maths and science rather than the Classics.
In 1937 he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, fulfilling a boyhood dream to serve with the RAF. During the war he flew as an observer in the Blenheim bomber with 218 Squadron from RAF Oakington in Cambridgeshire.
In September 1940 he participated in a reprisal mission on Germany in response to the German bombing of Britain – the first such reprisal mission to take place in daylight. Operating outside the cover of darkness proved dangerous: five aircraft were lost, including Clayton’s.
Writing to the Head Master, his father was frank about the conflict between Christian philosophy and his thoughts of revenge, writing:
“The loss strikes me to greater effort to see this madness through and get one’s own back somehow. It took a lot of my faith in “the other cheek” philosophy I’m afraid.”
Clayton is commemorated in the Runnymede Memorial to air force personnel with no known grave, and in the Framfield War Memorial in East Sussex.