Joining the RAF in 1938, Mike Cooper-Slipper was already an experienced combat pilot before the Battle of Britain began. Becoming an ace (five kills) before the end of it, he went on to serve in the Far East, taking part in the desperate air battles that were part of the doomed defence of Singapore, and shooting down several Japanese bombers.

Later, as head of a special performance Spitfire flight, he took part in some of the highest altitude combats of the war, on one occasion attacking an enemy reconnaissance aircraft at 44,000ft, an extraordinary feat for piston-engined aircraft. Cooper-Slipper ended the war with nine combat victories.

After the war he went to Canada where he became a test pilot of the Canadian Avro CF100 — the country’s only home-grown jet fighter to see service with the RCAF.

Thomas Paul Michael Cooper-Slipper was born in 1921 at Kinver, Staffordshire. Educated at King Edward VI School, Stourbridge, he joined the RAF on a short-service commission straight from school, in 1938. In July 1939 he went to 74 Squadron, which was still flying the biplane Gladiator, but shortly after war began he was sent to 11 Group Pool to convert to Hurricanes.

In late December he joined 605 Squadron, equipped with Hurricanes. On May 10, 1940, the Blitzkrieg burst on the Western Front and very soon the British Expeditionary Force was recoiling towards the Channel Coast. On May 21 the squadron was rushed from its base at Wick, in the far north of Scotland, to Hawkinge in Kent, to provide air cover for the BEF’s retreat to Dunkirk.

On the squadron’s first patrol, at dawn on the following day, Cooper-Slipper and another pilot of his flight attacked and shot down a Heinkel He111 bomber. Three days later he shot down a Ju87 Stuka and on the day after that, a Ju88.

Such bald statistics give little idea of the immense strain on the thinly-stretched RAF squadrons, sent to do battle over France. These aerial combats, against tremendous odds, fought high above the troops on the ground who had little idea of the RAF’s costly exertions on their behalf, resulted in heavy casualties for No 605.

Within a week the squadron had lost half its pilots and was sent north to Drem, on the Firth of Forth, supposedly to rest. There, on August 15, the heaviest Luftwaffe assault of the Battle of Britain, it was engaged in repelling attacks against Tyneside, launched from German air bases in Denmark and Norway.

On September 7 it was brought south again, this time to Croydon. From the next day onwards, it was involved in intense action as the Battle of Britain approached its climax. Over the next few days Cooper-Slipper had a number of combat victories over both enemy fighters and bombers.

One of the most extraordinary of these was on September 15, the culmination of the daylight air fighting over Britain. Attacking a formation of bombers over Kent, Cooper-Slipper had his controls shot away by their return fire and had also run out of ammunition. In desperation he rammed a Dornier Do17 amidships and sent it crashing down into a field. In the collision his own aircraft had suffered fatal damage and he baled out, suffering only minor injury in the process, and came down on farmland near Marden.

His last combat of the Battle of Britain was on September 27, when he damaged an Me109. Thereafter he was rested from operations and in November was awarded the DFC.

In 1941 came postings as a flight commander to 96 Squadron at Cranage, Cheshire, where it was involved in the defence of Liverpool, and to 74 Squadron at Acklington, Northumberland. Then, in November 1941 he joined 135 Squadron which was intended for Burma.

Before it could get there the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and were advancing on Singapore. Cooper-Slipper and several of its pilots were retained in Singapore to join 232 Squadron, which was woefully under strength since its pilots were, in the confusion of the time, only arriving in the island in dribs and drabs. Its aircraft were the first Hurricanes to see action against the renowned Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force, and they gave a good account of themselves.