Charley Fox: Spitfire pilot credited with wounding General Rommel

Charley Fox was one of the foremost Canadian air aces of the Second World War, who in particular is credited with taking Germany's most celebrated general, Erwin Rommel, out of the war. It is highly likely that it was one of his attacks which badly injured the field marshal and ended his military career some weeks after D-Day. But such was Fox's reticence that he did not publicly disclose his involvement in the attack until many years later. By coincidence his death, at the age of 88, was the result of a car accident.

Rommel was badly injured when his staff car crashed after Fox attacked it from his Spitfire. Attacking vehicles on the ground was very much Fox's speciality, and he did much damageto the Nazi war effort in a relatively short but intense combat career which twice earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Aircraft which he flew were themselves damaged 14 times during his 220 missions. One of his citations gives an idea of his effectiveness: "This officer has led his section against a variety of targets, often in the face of intense anti-aircraft fire. He has personally destroyed or damaged 22 locomotives, with a total of 153 vehicles destroyed or damaged. In addition, he has destroyed at least a further three enemy aircraft and damaged two others."

He was born in Ontario, the idea of flying catching his imagination at the age of 14 when five RAF fighters flew low over his home. "They were silver-coloured fighter biplanes," he recalled. "Five of them came zooming over the top of College Hill, glinting in the sunlight. Then, swoosh, they were gone. But I never forgot it."

He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force when war broke out, inevitably acquiring the nickname "Flying Fox". He spent several years as a flight instructor, during which time he had a narrow escape and had to bale out after a mid-air collision with another plane. He finally saw action with 412 Squadron as a flight lieutenant, revelling in flying Spitfires.

From early 1944 he showed a marked talent for inflicting accurate destruction with ground-attack sorties. He flew against the rocket sites which were launching V1 and V2 rockets at English cities, as well as carrying out reconnaissance and escort duties. He also excelled at missions, both before and after D-Day, aimed at disrupting German communications by targeting enemy locomotives, convoys and vehicles, including tanks. He flew three missions on D-Day itself. Later he would take part in the "Bridge Too Far" manoeuvre aimed at driving through the Netherlands.

It was a month after D-Day that Rommel, known as the Desert Fox, had the misfortune to appear in the Flying Fox's gunsights. The German general, who had made his reputation with the Afrika Korps, was attempting to drive the Allies back to the Channel.

The incident took place near the French city of Caen after Rommel had visited some of his troops. Brushing aside suggestions from another officer that he might be less conspicuous if he avoided main roads and used a jeep, he travelled in his large open staff car instead. Fox's squadron, meanwhile, left their Normandy airfield on the hunt for targets of opportunity, which he defined as "anything that was moving". Fox recalled: "I saw this staff car coming along between a line of trees on a main road. I did a diving, curving attack down and I probably started firing at about 300 yards.

"I timed the shots so that I was able to fire and get him as the car came through a small opening in the trees. I got him on that pass. We were moving pretty fast, but I knew I got him. I saw hits on the car and I saw it start to curve and go off the road."

Rommel, who was sitting in the front of the vehicle, suffered serious head injuries. Within months he had died – not from his injuries but by his own hand, as he fell under suspicion of involvement in an assassination attempt on Hitler.

A number of other pilots claimed they had hit Rommel's car, but it was more than half a century later that Fox's name was publicly mentioned, after research identified him as the most likely candidate. He said after the revelation: "It's something that I never wanted to make a fuss about. Throughout the years others have claimed it, but I never wanted to make anything out of it and I do feel a little bit uncomfortable.

"There are so many what-ifs. What if I hadn't been airborne at the time? What if I hadn't shot him up? Would that have changed the war? Or would it have lengthened it?"

After the war, Fox went into the shoe business in Ontario, working with the firm Tender Tootsies Ltd until his retirement in 1998. He maintained a keen interest in flying, but for many years he did not speak of his wartime experiences. Many factors may have contributed to this. He was shaken, for example, when the mother of Andy Howden, a childhood friend who had been killed in the war, approached him and asked, "Why my Andy, and not you?" Fox's son, Jim, said that the question haunted him, so much so that when he died he was writing a book entitled "Why Not Me?"

For the last decade and a half of his life he threw himself into giving talks at schools, colleges and other venues, explaining what he and other Canadian veterans did during the war. His family said that describing his experiences gave him a new purpose in life.

"Talking about what he had been through seemed to form an answer in his own mind," said Jim Fox. "Maybe the reason he did survive was to share the stories, share the experiences and let other Canadians know what role our veterans had played in past wars."

He was wearing his uniform when he died, killed in a car crash just after addressing a meeting of an aircraft association. Following his funeral service, a fly-past of military planes included a Spitfire.

David McKittrick

Charley Fox, fighter pilot: born Guelph, Ontario 16 February 1920; married 1942 Helen Jean Doughty (one son, two daughters); died Tillsonburg, Ontario 18 October 2008.