F/O. Oswald St. John "Ossie" Pigg
Royal Air Force 72 Squadron
(d.2nd Sep 1940)
Oswald St John Pigg was born in Jarrow in 1918 and was the son of the Reverend John James Pigg and Mabel Tyson Pigg of Chatton Vicarage, Northumberland. He went to the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle. Rev John Pigg, was curate at St John's Church in Grainger Street, Newcastle, then chaplain at Durham Prison and vicar of Chatton in Northumberland.
F/O Oswald St John Pigg served in the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain. He joined the RAF in March 1937 on a Short Service Commission and was posted to 72 Sqn at Church Fenton on 27 November 1937. On June 2, 1940 he shot down a Ju87 over Dunkirk, then crash-landed, slightly wounding himself, at Gravesend. On 15 August 1940 Oswald shot down a Bf109. The 22-year-old had been involved in an aerial fight and he died when his Spitfire, P9458, was shot down by a Messerschmitt 109 at 11:15am on September 1, 1940. His aircraft crashed and burned out at Elvey Farm, Pluckley. Oswald lies in the Cemetery at Durham, St. Oswald’s Burial Ground and is commemorated on the WW2 Roll of Honour Plaque in the entrance of Jarrow Town Hall.
