shared in the destruction of another. The next day, Deere led the squadron, now down to eight serviceable aircraft, on its final dawn patrol before it was withdrawn for a rest. Coming across a Dornier Do 17 light bomber, he led a section of his flight in pursuit while the rest the squadron continued with its patrol. In making an attack on the Do 17, his own Spitfire was damaged by machine-gun fire from its rear gunner. This forced him to make an emergency landing on a Belgian beach, during which he was knocked unconscious. After coming to, he made his way on foot to a nearby town where his head injuries were dressed. He hitched a ride on a British Army lorry to Dunkirk, and boarded a boat to Dover, then travelled via London to Hornchurch, where he had taken off some 19 hours earlier. During his boat ride to Dover, he was subject to scathing comments from soldiers about the effectiveness of the RAF's fighter cover. For its rest, No. 54 Squadron had moved to RAF Catterick in Yorkshire. After ten days of non-stop flying over Dunkirk, it had been depleted in both pilots and aircraft. It returned to Hornchurch on 4 June 1940, with new Spitfires and replacement pilots, and began flying reconnaissance missions to northern France and Belgium. On one such mission in the Abbeville area, Deere and Leathart between them badly damaged a Ju 88, counting it as a probable. Later in the month Deere's award of the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) was announced, and was presented to him by King George VI at a ceremony at Hornchurch on 27 June. His citation for the DFC read: By July 1940, No. 54 Squadron was back to flying convoy and coastal patrols. On the afternoon of 9 July, while leading a patrol between Deal and Dover, a Heinkel He 59 seaplane was sighted along with an escort of several Bf 109s. Ordering one section to pursue the seaplane, Deere took another section to deal with the escort. He shot down one Bf 109 but collided with a second, flown by Oberfeldwebel Johann Illner of Jagdgeschwader 51. As a result of the glancing blow with the Bf 109, the propeller blades of Deere's Spitfire were bent backwards, his cockpit hood partially stove in, the engine disabled, and much of the fin and rudder lost. Already heading inland