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Sylvester Lindsay Quine

Record type: War Memorials

Parish: Braddan

Town / Village residence: Douglas

Biography: Sylvester Quine was born on 25th January 1894 at 52 Derby Square, Douglas.

On leaving school in 1911 he joined the law firm of Dickinson, Cruickshank and Co, but on the outbreak of war in 1914 he joined the Manx Volunteers who were attached to the 7th Battalion King's Liverpool Regiment. In March 1915 he was commissioned in the 16th Battalion of the same regiment and posted to France. Sylvester qualified as a pilot and spent some fifteen months in Greece and Egypt before he returned to the Western Front in April 1917. For his courage and determination as a pilot he was awarded the Military Cross.

He was a founder member of the RAF and served as an instructor in the RAF Electrical and Wireless School, spending some time in the Middle East as where he learnt Arabic. He was based in Cairo and filled a 3 year appointment as chief signals officer.

In 1937 Sylvester was appointed commanding officer of RAF Driffield in Yorkshire and was closely engaged in organising simulated long-distant strategic attacks with the use of parachute bombs and accurate navigation techniques.

After Driffield, Sylvester was posted to France as chief signals officer, returning just before Dunkirk to the UK where he remained for the rest of the war with Signals Command HQ. His involvement, connected with top secret radar navigation, included the air-to-surface radar which helped him to turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic by 1943. He retired in 1945.

Gender: Male

Name Variant: Sylvester Lindsay Quine

Memorial: Law Society War Memorial, Douglas (30 October 1917)

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