Cyril Joe Barton, VC (5 June 1921 – 31 March 1944) was a Second World War bomber pilot in the Royal Air Force who received the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth Armed Forces. Early life Cyril Barton was born in Elveden, in the county of Suffolk on 5 June 1921, the son of Ethel (1896–1958) and Frederick (1892–1963). He received his early schooling at the Beverley Boys' School, in New Malden, in the county of Surrey. In his childhood he was a Boy Scout. At 16 years of age he was apprenticed as an engineer at the Parnall Aircraft Factory works in Tolworth, and was a part-time student of engineering at Kingston Technical College, in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. Second World War Barton left his reserved occupation apprenticeship at the Parnall Aircraft Factory and volunteered for the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 16 April 1941, when he was 19 years of age. After pilot training via the Arnold Scheme at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama, and 'Darr Aero Tech' at Albany, Georgia in the United States, he qualified as a sergeant pilot on 10 November 1942. He then returned to England and completed his training with No. 1663 Heavy Conversion Unit at Rufforth, Yorkshire. On 5 September 1943, he joined an aircrew assigned to Bomber Command's No. 78 Squadron, with Barton receiving a commission as a pilot officer three weeks later. Their first operational mission was against a target at Montlucon in occupied France. Barton completed nine sorties with No. 78 Squadron until 15 January 1944, when he was posted to No. 578 Squadron, based at RAF Burn in North Yorkshire. His second sortie with the new squadron was an attack upon the city of Stuttgart in Germany, flying in Halifax LK797 (codename LK-E). By 30 March 1944, he had completed six sorties in LK797, which the crew had named Excalibur. Prior to his final mission from RAF Burn, Barton had already taken part in four attacks upon Berlin. Attack on Nuremberg On the night of 30 March 1944, while flying in an attack on the city of Nuremberg, in Germany, during the Battle of Berlin air offensive, whilst from the target, Pilot Officer Barton's Handley Page Halifax bomber (Serial number: LK797) was badly shot-up in attacks by two Luftwaffe night-fighters, a Junkers Ju 88 and