We are saddened to announce the death of a key supporter of Berkshire Air Cadets, Air Commodore Jack Frost CBE DFC FL RAF (Ret’d).
Air Commodore has a distinguished record in Royal Air Force having learnt to fly in America in 1941 before converting to the Typhoon which he flew in anger during the lead up to D-Day “The war was in force by then and we started flying from there before D-Day, attacking targets of various sorts in France, mainly in Normandy sealing off the approaches to Normandy so the Germans could not attack us,” he said “Once we crossed the Channel we stayed in Normandy. We were trying to stop German reinforcement coming to the beach – the Germans had a very good defence, Field Marshall Rommell was in charge. By the time I had finished my tour of operations in December I had carried out 100 operational missions and I survived them all. One hundred and fifty one pilots were killed during the operations but morale remained high” Air Commodore Frost was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and was also made Chevalier of the Order of Leopold II for services to Belgium.
After the war Air Commodore Frost became a peacetime flying officer and after a training course in Bracknell was posted around the world including Malay, Hong Kong and Libya. It was while in Trieste, Italy, that he met his wife Shelagh, a radio operator during the war who was visiting family. The couple married in 1950 and have three daughters and two grandsons. Between 1972 and 1976 he was Britain’s deputy military representative at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. On his return, he worked for the MoD until his retirement in 1983.
On his retirement he remained very busy, becoming a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for the County of Berkshire, Chairman of the Berkshire Joint service Cadet Committee, President of the Burghfield Branch of the Royal British Legion. He was also a stalwart supporter of the cadet forces and in particular the Air Cadet Squadrons at Burghfield and nearby Aldermaston. In this role he would regularly visit the cadets for awards evenings and parades include the affiliation of 2402 (Burghfield) Squadron to the Royal British Legion in 2008.
Air Commodore Frost’s memory will live on within the cadet forces through an annual Joint Service competition, which he instigated, which is held annually amongst the Sea Cadets, Army cadets and Air cadets of Berkshire.