Tributes were paid yesterday after the death of a Second World War airman who had become the RAF’s most decorated gunner.

Wallace McIntosh, 87, who died on Monday, was described as a “true hero” who repeatedly cheated death during his 55 sorties as a rear gunner in Bomber Command’s 207 Squadron.

Based at Langar, Nottinghamshire, and Spilsby, Lincolnshire, Flying Officer McIntosh is believed to hold the record for the most enemy kills, with eight confirmed hits and one “probable” during bombing raids in 1943 and 1944.

On one mission he shot down three German fighter planes, a record, as his Lancaster bomber carried out a raid on German tanks during the D-Day advance. He received a telegram of congratulations from Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, one of only three signed by the commander. By the end of his flying career, the Scot had received the Distinguished Flying Medal and had twice been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross – the RAF’s highest honour for bravery.

Mr McIntosh’s children spoke yesterday of his modesty and zest for life, which enabled him to overcome years of hardship. Born in a barn near Tarves in Aberdeenshire in 1920, he was brought up by his grandparents after his teenage mother, an unmarried servant, abandoned him.

According to a 2003 biography, Gunning for the Enemy, by Mel Rolfe, he spent much of his youth as a farm labourer and had not heard of Christmas until he was 7. After leaving the RAF in 1948, he worked as a clerk, then as an agricultural salesman. He married and had three children.

Mary McIntosh, 44, his younger daughter, said: “We never really became aware of his achievements until after he retired. He had a very hard start to life and did well to overcome that.” Anne Blaha, 48, his elder daughter, added: “He was an active man and was a member of the Air Gunners’ Association, helping them raise memorial funds. He was terrific.”

A spokesman for the RAF said: “This guy was a true hero. Anyone who flew in Lancasters during the bombings knew the odds were against them. Your life was on the line every moment. To do the job as well as he did was truly exceptional.” Mr McIntosh, who died at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary of lung cancer, joined the RAF at the height of the Second World War.

According to Rolfe’s book, he joined because it was a way out of poverty. Rolfe wrote: “He could steal, kill and skin a sheep before he was 12, snare anything that could be cooked in a pot and whip salmon out of rivers with the skill of a master poacher.” However, his ultimate feats were to be when he was crouched at the back of a Lancaster. RAF aircrews faced some of the most hazardous combat conditions of the war, and rear gunners were often the first casualties.

Some 1,177 men from 207 Squadron were killed or went missing during its operations. Mr McIntosh’s finest moment, commemorated in a painting in 2003, was on May 11, 1944, when he shot down the three German fighters – two over France, and another over the South Coast as the bomber returned to England.

Nearly 70 years later he said: “We knew that this was something out of the ordinary we had just been through. As it turned out, it was the only time it ever happened.”

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