Date of Birth: 17th of April 1921, at Cambridge
Personal Details: Alec was the son of Adam Neilson Thomson and Mabel Thomson (nee Newsham). He attended New Plymouth Boys' High School, where he was the tennis champion, and then Otago University.

Service Details: Alec joined the Navy on the 2nd of May 1941,and set of for Britain on the 5th of May, being attached to the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. He arrived in the UK on the 16th of June 1941 and proceeded to begin training at HMS St Vincent, Gosport, which is near to Portsmouth. This is the school where all Fleet Air Arm personnel went through for basic training and to learn how to be sailors.

After passing this phase of training, Alec moved onto HMS Daedalus, at Lee-on-Solent on the 10th of August 1941, where he began flying training on No. 14 Elementary Flying Training School, RAF, de Havilland Tiger Moths.

The next course began on the29th of September, which was an attachment to No. 1 Service Flying Training School for advanced flying training. He was awarded his Pilots Badge and was commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant (A) on the 14th of February 1942.

Alec was posted back to Lee-on-Solent on the 23rd of February 1942, and was then posted on the 2nd of March 1942 to No. 760 Squadron NAS, at RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset, where he would begin flying the Sea Hurricane fighter.

Date of Death: 22nd of April 1942, aged 21. Alec was undertaking a reconnaissance practice in Sea Hurricane IB R4214, when he crashed at 15.20 hours at Milton, near Gillingham in Dorset and was killed.
Buried: at St Bartholomew Churchyard, Yeovilton, Somerset, UK

Connection with Cambridge: Alec was born in Cambridge

Thanks To: Errol Martyn for providing information on this airman, and further details from his books For Your Tomorrow Volumes 1 to 3