Some Personal Observations on Buzz

The outstanding thing about Beurling was his eyesight. He could see things that most of the rest of us could not. As an example: I was sitting alert, one early morning there was fog, quite a bit of fog around at, Headcorn in Kent airfield, and he was in the next revetment painting iron crosses on the side of his air plane. And they released us from two minute readiness so I got out of the cockpit and was sitting on the wing of my aircraft and he came over and struck up a conversation and I said to him you know "How, do you really see these things that no one else can see in the air? " and he said "Oh yeah, I see them." And he said "For example, do you, can you see that tree over there? " I said "Yes." It was about 150 yards away I guess. He said "Look up on the right-hand side of the trunk about three feet above the ground. There's a brown leaf on that tree." I couldn't see it, and I thought oh yeah, sure. Anyway, you could tell me anything in that stage in my fighter career, but particularly Buzz Beurling. Anyway, at any rate he went back to painting some iron crosses on the side of his air plane and so I just wandered over to have a look. And sure enough it was there. Now whether he had seen it before or not I have no idea, but it was there. So I believed him after that.

Interviewer: As you know Mr. Lindsey, Buzz Beurling is a controversial figure. What was your assessment of the man when you knew him with 403 squadron?

Great fighter pilot, great eyes, great gunnery instructor, but a loner. He was not what one would think of as, as a real fighter squadron buddy. Because he could see things further out than other people he was able to get in first but he was, he wasn't you know a leader...a squadron leader. He wanted to be first there and get the victory for himself.

Interviewer: He was highly competitive was he?

Oh very. Extremely competitive.