shot down, Lang killed and Gross so seriously wounded that he did not return to service before the end of the war. In November, Spencer led No. 41 Squadron's advance party to Diest, arriving in Belgium almost a month ahead of the rest of the unit. He then returned to RAF Lympne to brief the Squadron on conditions at their first continental base of the war. Promoted to squadron leader, Spencer was posted to No. 350 (Belgian) Squadron on 4 January 1945. On 26 February, he was hit by flak in the Rheine-Lingen area of Germany and captured. Just over a month later, when the camp's main gate was left open, he escaped by bicycle, and subsequently motorcycle, with another ex-No. 41 Squadron pilot, Squadron Leader K. F. "Jimmy" Thiele, in a Steve-McQueen-style getaway, in which the pair made it back to Allied lines. Rejoining No. 350 Squadron, Spencer resumed command between 2 and 19 April 1945. On this latter date, he was shot down, this time by rocket fire while strafing a trawler in Wismar Bay. He succeeded in baling out and deploying his parachute at a height of just , which he miraculously survived, only to be captured again. The successful jump has since been credited by the Guinness Book of Records as having been the lowest authenticated survived bail-out on record. Spencer was injured and hospitalised, but liberated by advancing Allied armies approximately two weeks later. Spencer was awarded an immediate Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for his exploits and, in 1947, was also awarded the Territorial Efficiency Medal and the Belgian Croix de Guerre with Palm. The citation for his DFC on 22 June 1945 read: Combat Record Photographic career In February 1946, after being demobilised, Spencer was asked by the Percival Aircraft Company to ferry solo a Percival Proctor, a small single-engine plane, without radio, dinghy or emergency supplies, on an flight to South Africa. Based outside Johannesburg, Spencer and his wife started a successful aerial photography business based around a Piper Cub. In 1952, he started shooting for Life magazine, covering war stories in African continent, including Sharpville and the Congo Crisis, many of the independence struggles in emerging African nations, the horrors of apartheid, Nelson Mandela on the run and Jomo Kenyatta in detention. In 1962 Spencer returned to England to photograph "Swinging London". While there, at the request of his daughter Cara, Spencer