Vance Drummond, DFC, AFC was a New Zealand-born Australian pilot. He fought in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Drummond was shot down by a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 in December 1951 and imprisoned for almost two years. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1965 and the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star in October 1966.
About Vance Drummond in brief
Vance Drummond, DFC, AFC was a New Zealand-born Australian pilot. He fought in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Drummond was shot down by a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 in December 1951 and imprisoned for almost two years. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1965 and the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star in October 1966. In February 1967, Drummond’s Mirage IIIO crashed into the sea during a training exercise; neither Drummond nor the plane was found. His brother Frederick Agnew Vance Drummond had died on active service with the RAAF during World War II. He served in the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force from 1949 to 1967. He died in a plane crash in 1969. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Josephine May, née McKnight, and his three brothers and two sisters, all of whom served with him in the RNZAF in the 1950s and 1960s. He also had a son, Michael, who served with the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s and 1970s and died in an aircraft crash in the South Pacific in 1998. He had a daughter, Victoria, with whom he had two children, and a son-in-law, Peter, who also served with RAAF in the 1970s. Drummonds was a member of the Australian Order of Australia and the Australian Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and served as an officer in the Australian Army Air Corps.
He flew Gloster Meteor jet fighters in Korea and earned the US Air Medal for his combat skills. In 1966 he was posted to South Vietnam on staff duties with the United States Air Force. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his part in rescuing a company of soldiers surrounded by Viet Cong forces. In October 1967 he took command of No. 3 Squadron, flying Dassault MirageIIIO supersonic fighters out of Williamtown, New South Wales, in February 1967. In December 1967 he was commissioned as a probationary pilot. In January 1968 he was promoted to acting wing commander. In March 1968 he became a flight commander with No. 75 Squadron. He converted to CAC Sabre jets in December 1961 and in December 1962 he led the squadron’s Black Diamonds aerobatic team, and was awarded a Air ForceCross in 1965. In June 1966 he converted to the North American P-51 Mustangs and De Havilland Vampires. In September 1951 he was among a formation of twelve pilots attacked by a superior force of Soviet Meteorsei MiGs, three of whom were killed.
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