Pilot Officer H.P.M. Edridge, one of the last of the RAF's casualties in the Battle of Britain, commemorated both in Bath, Somerset and in the village of Northiam in Sussex.

On this day, October 30th, in 1940, RAF Fighter Command suffered its last fatalities of the Battle of Britain when nine men lost their lives.  One of them was Pilot Officer Hilary Patrick Michael Edridge whose parents, Ray and Georgina, came from Bath in Somerset.

Edridge joined the RAF in January 1939 and by the end of May 1940 he was flying Spitfires with 222 Squadron based at Hornchurch. 

While covering the Dunkirk evacuation he probably destroyed a Me109 on June 1st.  On August 30th he baled out after a combat with Me109s and landed in Broome Park in Kent with burns to his face.

On the 15th of October he force landed in Essex after his aircraft’s engine failed.  On the 20th October he shared in the destruction of a Me110.

On the 30th October, the day before the official end of The Battle of Britain, Edridge was in combat with Me109s when his Spitfire was damaged and he was wounded in the head.  He attempted a crash landing near the village of Northiam in East Sussex, but his aircraft crashed and caught fire.  He was cut from the wreckage and taken to an emergency hospital at nearby Brickwall House, but died that day of his injuries.

Hilary Patrick Michael Edridge is buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery at Widcombe, Bath, Somerset. He is also commemorated by a memorial plaque beside the village green in Northiam near the site where he crashed.