Alfred Outram Pullman DFC (21 May 1916 – 6 February 1954) was a British soldier and airman who fought in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the

Mau Mau Uprising The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the ''Mau Mau'', an ...

. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for gallant service after being killed in an air crash in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

Early life

Pullman was the only son of Major Alfred Hopewell Pullman, of the

Royal West Kent Regiment The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army based in the county of Kent in existence from 1881 to 1961. The regiment was created on 1 July 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms, originally as the Quee ...

, and his wife Emilie Louisa Outram, daughter of Rev. Outram Marshall. His parents were married in June 1915, during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. His father, born in 1881, was the third son of Henry Pullman JP of Teddington, and had received the

Queen's South Africa Medal The Queen's South Africa Medal is a British campaign medal awarded to British and Colonial military personnel, and to civilians employed in an official capacity, who served in the Second Boer War in South Africa. Altogether twenty-six clasps wer ...

with five clasps for service in the

Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...

. In 1915 he was awarded the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typ ...

, for service at the

Battle of Loos The Battle of Loos took place from 1915 in France on the Western Front, during the First World War. It was the biggest British attack of 1915, the first time that the British used poison gas and the first mass engagement of New Army units. Th ...

."Major A. H. Pullman D.S.O." (obituary) in ''The Queen’s Own Gazette'', no. 824, May 1942
pp. 81, 86–87
"Pullman, Alfred Hopewell", at militaryarchive.co.uk

accessed 2 May 2020 Pullman was born in May 1916 and baptized at St Paul's, Woking, on 10 June 1916. His father died in 1942. The young Pullman was educated at

Cheltenham College ("Work Conquers All") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent School Day and Boarding School , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Nicola Huggett ...

and then trained at the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infantry a ...

, for a career in the British Army, graduating on 30 January 1936, aged nineteen.''

The London Gazette ''The London Gazette'' is one of the official journals of record or government gazettes of the Government of the United Kingdom, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are ...

'', Issue 34251, 31 January 1936, pp
670

671
/ref> Two weeks before, on 16 January, his grandmother Emilie Marshall had died, leaving an estate valued at £9,207, , with probate being granted to his mother.

Career

Immediately after Sandhurst, in January 1936, Pullman was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the

Middlesex Regiment The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1966. The regiment was formed, as the Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment), in 1881 as part of the Childers Re ...

. In October 1939, he was living in

Esher Esher ( ) is a town in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole. Esher is an outlying suburb of London near the London-Surrey Border, and with Esher Commons at its southern end, the town marks one limit of the Greater London Built-Up Ar ...

with his mother and was a General Aircraft Student. In February 1942, he was appointed as a probationary Pilot Officer in the

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) was established in 1936 to support the preparedness of the U.K. Royal Air Force in the event of another war. The Air Ministry intended it to form a supplement to the Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF ...

, in November 1947 was promoted to Flying Officer, and then in January 1951 to

Flight Lieutenant Flight lieutenant is a junior commissioned rank in air forces that use the Royal Air Force (RAF) system of ranks, especially in Commonwealth countries. It has a NATO rank code of OF-2. Flight lieutenant is abbreviated as Flt Lt in the India ...

. He next attended the

Central Flying School The Central Flying School (CFS) is the Royal Air Force's primary institution for the training of military flying instructors. Established in 1912 at the Upavon Aerodrome, it is the longest existing flying training school. The school was based at R ...

RAF Little Rissington RAF Little Rissington is an RAF aerodrome and RAF station in Gloucestershire, England. It was once home to the Central Flying School, the Vintage Pair and the Red Arrows. Built during the 1930s, the station was opened in 1938 and closed in ...

, which had the purpose of training flying instructors, and on 7 August 1951 passed out as a Qualified Service Pilot. In 1952, Pullman was posted to

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

, in support of the

Southern Rhodesian Air Force The Rhodesian Air Force (RhAF) was an air force based in Salisbury (now Harare) which represented several entities under various names between 1935 and 1980: originally serving the British self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia, it was the ...

, and took his wife and children to live there with him. On 27 March 1953, he was transferred from the short service list onto the permanent commission list, and four days later was posted with No 1340 Flight of Harvards to Kenya, on active service during the

. He led the flight in aerial attacks on Mau Mau bases in wooded country, sometimes "diving steeply into the gorges of the Mathioya, Chania, Gura, and Zuti rivers, often in conditions of low cloud and driving rain". He showed a fine offensive spirit and was determined in making attacks. On 6 February 1954, Pullman was killed when his plane crashed,"Posthumous Kenya Award" in ''

Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

'', 9 July 1954, p. 64 and his wife and children, at home in Rhodesia, were informed by telegram.Laura La Bella, ''Philip Pullman'' (Rosen Publishing Group Inc, 2013), pp. 10–12 His remains were buried in Kenya at

Nyeri Nyeri is a town situated in the Central Highlands of Kenya. It is the county headquarters of Nyeri County. The town was the central administrative headquarters of the country's former Central Province. Following the dissolution of the former pr ...

. On 29 June 1954 Pullman was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, "in recognition of gallant and distinguished service in operations in Kenya".''The London Gazette'', Issue 40219, 29 June 1954
p. 3829
/ref> He had completed a total of 3,040 flying hours, including 220 sorties for bombing and strafing. His widow and two young sons attended an investiture at

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It ...

Private life

On 7 April 1945, at St Andrew's,

Kirby Bedon Kirby Bedon is a hamlet in South Norfolk which lies approximately 3½ miles (5½ km) south-east of Norwich on the road to Bramerton. It covers an area of and had a population of 186 in 77 households at the 2001 census, the population incr ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, Pullman married Audrey Evelyn Merrifield, a

WAAF WAAF may refer to: * w3af, (short for web application attack and audit framework), an open-source web application security scanner * Women's Auxiliary Air Force, a British military service in World War II ** Waaf, a member of the service * WAAF (AM ...

Officer, the daughter of the Rev. Sidney Merrifield, Rector of the parish. Their son

Philip Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...

was born in October 1946, and a second son, Francis, in 1949. In October 1954, after her husband's death, Audrey Pullman married Henry J. Dodgson, known as Johnnie, another Royal Air Force pilot. After Audrey's death in 1989, papers came to light which suggested that at the time of Pullman's death in 1954 he and his wife had separated and were seeking a divorce.

Later criticism

Pullman's son Philip became a fantasy novelist, and in 2008 he commented on his father "I have never fully understood why he got the medal. As far as I can make out, it was an accident. His plane crashed... Given what we now know about British behaviour during the insurgency, my father probably doesn't come out of this with very much credit, judged by the standards of modern liberal progressive thought."Cole Moreton
"Philip Pullman: His dark materials"
in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 25 May 2008, accessed 2 May 2020 He has also claimed that his father had gambling debts and might have killed himself, and also that he suspected the death had been faked and that his father was "alive somewhere in hiding with a different name".

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pullman, Alfred Outram 1916 births 1954 deaths British Army personnel of World War II British people of the Mau Mau Uprising Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Middlesex Regiment officers Royal Air Force officers Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom) People educated at Cheltenham College Royal Air Force pilots of World War II Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1954 Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II