Group captain Group captain is a senior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force, where it originated, as well as the air forces of many countries that have historical British influence. It is sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank i ...

Richard Charles Marler Collard (25 August 1911 – 9 August 1962) was a British

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

officer and politician. His sudden death at the age of 50 occurred less than three years after he was first elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

Joining the RAF

Collard was the son of a stockbroker, and was educated at

Haileybury and Imperial Service College Haileybury is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) near Hertford in England. It is a member of the Rugby Group and, though originally a major boys' public school in the Victorian era, it is now co-educational, enr ...

. On leaving school he was commissioned into the

. Serving with No. 4 Squadron and No. 615 Squadron, he then became a flying instructor. He also played Rugby in the RAF first team.

Wartime service

At the outbreak of war in 1939, Collard joined the Advanced Air Striking Force which was based in France. After the withdrawal from France, he transferred to

Bomber Command Bomber Command is an organisational military unit, generally subordinate to the air force of a country. The best known were in Britain and the United States. A Bomber Command is generally used for strategic bombing (although at times, e.g. during t ...

for a while, and then to the Middle East in command of No. 37 Squadron and then No. 12 Squadron stationed at Binbrook, Lincolnshire. In 1941, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and in 1942, he received the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typi ...

. He also received the King Haakon V11 Freedom Cross for the help he gave Norwegian prisoners of war.

Post-war

During a bomber raid on

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in No ...

in 1942, Collard was shot down and taken prisoner by the Germans. He was imprisoned in Stalag Luft 3 and then Stalag 3a where he was Senior British Officer. He remaining there until the end of the war when the camp was liberated by the Russians. He then rejoined the RAF. In 1946, he commanded the

Avro Lancaster The Avro Lancaster is a British World War II, Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the S ...

goodwill tour of the United States, and became commander of

RAF Stradishall Royal Air Force Stradishall or more simply RAF Stradishall is a former Royal Air Force station located north east of Haverhill, Suffolk and south west of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. Part of the site remains in use as Stradishall Traini ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

until 1948. He spent the next year in charge of development at the Central Bomber Establishment. He was then posted to the middle east to serve as Group Captain Operations in 1950, and from 1951 he was Group Captain Operations for

RAF Coastal Command RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was founded in 1936, when the RAF was restructured into Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands and played an important role during the Second World War. Maritime Aviation ...

until he retired from the RAF in 1953.

Politics

On leaving the RAF, Collard joined the Handley Page Aircraft Company, and became a Director in May 1958. He also became involved in politics, and in November 1957 he was chosen to follow Brigadier Sir Frank Medlicott as Conservative Party candidate for Central Norfolk for the next general election; Medlicott was in dispute with his Association over the Suez crisis, and had resigned the Conservative whip. At the 1959 general election, Collard found himself in an energetic contest with the Liberal candidate, Maxwell Goode; however, Collard won with an increased majority of nearly 7,000 and Goode came third.

Parliamentary contributions

His Parliamentary speeches concentrated on RAF and aviation issues. He also took up farming issues, based on his mostly agricultural constituency. In March 1960 he appealed to Members of Parliament who visited British forces' bases in foreign countries to think about what they reported about the morale of the servicemen. He defended the government's decision to abandon the

Blue Streak missile The de Havilland Propellers Blue Streak was a British Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), and later the first stage of the Europa satellite launch vehicle. Blue Streak was cancelled without entering full production. The project was ...

and buy the American Skybolt. Collard was ill in June 1961 and was advised to rest for two months. He did return to Parliament and in July 1962 objected to noise abatement rules and their effects on airlines, arguing that aircraft took off at the maximum load and the pilots should not be distracted by other considerations. However, in the middle of August he was found dead at his home in Whitwell. His brother Peter, whom he trained to fly and was also awarded the DFC, was shot down and killed in his Hurricane serving with 615 Squadron in the Battle of Britain. Peter Collard has a road named after him in Kenley Surrey, adjacent to the former site of

RAF Kenley The former Royal Air Force Station Kenley, more commonly known as RAF Kenley was an airfield station of the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and the RAF in the Second World War. It played a significant role during the Battle of Britai ...

References

*M. Stenton and S. Lees, "Who's Who of British MPs" Vol. IV (Harvester Press, 1981) *Obituary, ''The Times'', 10 August 1962 {{DEFAULTSORT:Collard, Richard 1911 births 1962 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies People educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College Royal Air Force officers Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom) British World War II pilots UK MPs 1959–1964 Royal Air Force personnel of World War II