Hulton-Harrop, Montague Leslie “John”, born in Betton Strange, near Shrewsbury, 
Canada on 14-06-1913. to Cyril Charles Montagu and Edith Priscilla Hulton-Harrop of Shrewsbury, Shropshire. At the time his father was a rancher in British Columbia. His parents had married in Cornwall in 1912. In 1915 his father enlisted in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force and went on to win a Military Cross in the First World War. Shortly after his father enlisted, John Hulton-Harrop sailed from Montreal to London with his mother and sister, Patricia, who had also been born in Canada on 13-01-1915. A brother, Paul, was born in 1916 in Cornwall. A further brother, Robert, was born in 1919 but died after only a few months.
One of his 1930s friends in Shrewsbury was Kenneth More,
later to become a famous actor, but who back then was working at the Sentinel Works in the county town.
Seeking to join the RAF, 
Hulton-Harrop and More presented themselves to the Air Ministry in London. John was accepted, More was turned down. John was posted in 1937 to 56 Squadron, 
nicknames Punjab, ‘Firebirds, which became only the third fighter squadron in the RAF to be equipped with the Hawker Hurricane monoplane fighter. 
John must have cut a bit of a dash. He had a Lagonda, and later a Frazer Nash 
. He was one of the pilots picked to fly at the Empire Air Day in 1938. On the outbreak of war, his desire to get in on the action may have contributed to his death.
Death and burial ground of Hulton-Harrop, Montague Leslie “John”.
John Hulton-Harrop was the first Old Blue to die in the Second World War and was also the RAF’s first casualty. The circumstances were bizarre as he was flying a Hurricane which was shot down by a Spitfire by mistake. This was the first plane shot down by a Spitfire in the war. The pilot was court-martialled but exonerated and went on to win both the DFC and a bar during the rest of the war.
John sitting left and three days later 
Paul Hulton-Harrop served in the RAF and was shot down over Holland on 11-05-1940.
John Connell Freeborn 
, DFC & Bar, born 01-12-1919, was also a fighter pilot and flying ace in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. In 1939, John shot, down another RAF fighter, Hulton-Harrop, Montague Leslie, also a “John”, in a friendly-fire incident that marked the first death of an RAF fighter pilot in the war, as well as the first aircraft shot down by a Supermarine Spitfire. The following year, he flew more operational hours than any other RAF pilot during the Battle of Britain. Freeborn survived the war and passed away, aged 90, in Southport, Merseyside on 28-08-2010. The year before he died he said of Hulton-Harrop: “I think about him every day. I always have done. I’ve had a good life, and he should have had a good life too.”
Hulton-Harrop was not one of the 56 Squadron pilots scrambled following reports of unidentified aircraft approaching from the east. But he and Tommy Rose, perhaps motivated by a desire not to miss out, grabbed a couple of spare Hurricanes and took off to join the fray.
At that stage of the war Hurricanes had no armour plating, and Hulton-Harrop was hit in the back of the head. His aircraft was seen to drop in a gentle glide, crashing at Hintlesham, near Ipswich. Rose was also shot down, but survived.
John’s brother Paul also served as an RAF pilot. He was shot down in his Hurricane over Holland on 11-05-1940, and spent the rest of the war a prisoner.
Sister Pat Hulton-Harrop married an Australian pilot, John Harry Chisholm. 
Squadron Leader Chisholm was killed in action on 16-09-1944, while flying with 157 Squadron, 
which was a Mosquito night fighter squadron. His name is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial for those airmen who have no known grave.
Montague Leslie “John” Hulton-Harro’s grave is at St Andrew’s Church, North Weald, Essex, not far from North Weald airfield from which he had taken off on his last fatal flight. Inscribed on the gravestone is: “In loving memory of John, ‘Gone to the singing and the gold, beyond the end’.”
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