became a banker in the financial district of London.
In November 1957, Blount was assigned to lead 45 Squadron in Singapore, where the squadron was operating the single-seat Venom fighter bomber and getting ready to swap it out for the twin-engine Canberra bomber. Eight crews, including Blount and his two navigators, learned about the Canberra at a base in Lincolnshire.
On 7 December 1957, four planes, led by Blount, flew out to Singapore by way of Libya, Cyprus, Bahrain, Karachi and Ceylon, where one of the aircraft was held up. Blount and the remaining two proceeded to Butterworth, near Penang, before continuing on to Singapore.
As they approached RAF Tengah, though, they encountered cloud, and one of the planes collided with the rear of Blount's, severing its tail and making it unflyable. Blount and one of his navigators managed to get out, though their troubles were far from over.
The aircraft was inverted at a mere 5,000 feet when he ejected, and the Martin Baker ejection seats were somewhat primitive by modern standards. The parachute opened for merely 30 seconds prior to Blount landing with minor injuries in a plantation. Unfortunately, his second navigator lost his life, as did the three men in the other Canberra. It marked a tragic start to the new era for 45 Squadron.
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The historian James Pope-Hennessy was given a tour of Balmoral by Blount in 1957. Blount appeared "rushing down the stairs when he saw me - a fleeting, pale-skinned, smooth-faced face with rather protruding blue eyes that looked at me suspiciously as if I might be Lord Altrincham [a well-known critic of the Queen] in disguise. He was visibly shy and awkward; more than anything, I felt like a Christian daubing into the wrong quarter of a mosque."
This reserved exterior, however, hid a knack for getting into trouble. One evening at Windsor Castle, Blount hid a decanter of whisky so that the Queen’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, wouldn’t find it, thereby getting everyone to bed earlier. But the Duke "sniffed about – he knew it was somewhere", Blount remembered, and eventually tracked it down behind a curtain.
Blount was appointed an MVO, and lived to be the Queen Elizabeth II's oldest surviving equerry.
Christopher Charles Blount was born in London on 6 February 1925. He was the son of Air Vice-Marshal Charles Blount CB, CBE, MC, an old Royal Flying Corps pilot who sadly died in a plane accident near Hendon airfield in October 1940, and Beatrice, who originally came from a well-known Australian family.
A century later, Christopher Blount arranged a reunion dinner at the Cavalry and Guards Club for descendants of those who had taken part in what they said “might just be the greatest cricket match of all time”, as argued by The Spectator.
Whose ambition, even then, was to become head of the Army.
Blount represented Harrow in the match against Eton, then joined the RAF, initially being dispatched to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read a general arts course. He finished his pilot training just as the war in Europe came to an end, subsequently flying Mosquitos in a night fighter capacity before becoming a flight instructor.
He departed for Aden in 1950 to join the 8 Squadron, which had just been equipped with the twin-engine Brigand attack aircraft. This was described as the "quiet years", a time of showing military strength in the Arabian Peninsula. However, tensions were rising in the Aden Protectorate, the Persian Gulf and Iraq. The squadron patrolled areas inhabited by disloyal tribes, and spent time in Shaibah, Iraq, which was experiencing disturbances against the Anglo-Iranian oil company.
After almost two years with 8 Squadron, Blount was seconded to serve as the aide-de-camp to the Officer commanding British Forces in Aden, Air Vice-Marshal Douglas Macfadyen, undertaking extensive travel around the Middle East and East Africa.
He was subsequently despatched to Biggin Hill, where at the bar he was asked if he was interested in ferrying single-engine Vampires to India, for the payment of £200 per flight. Despite never having flown the type, he assured the person enquiring that he had done so and was prepared to take on this "freelance" undertaking.
After a long, anxious night spent pouring over the pilot's notes, he successfully delivered the first Vampire from the De Havilland factory. Everything went smoothly until the fourth flight, when the aircraft caught fire during take-off at Jodhpur.
In nineteen fifty-eight, after his arrival in Singapore to assume command of 45 Squadron, he was soon actively involved in supporting Operation Firedog, the campaign to combat communist insurgents in the Malayan jungle. On eighteen March, Blount led the squadron's first bombing mission, with each of the four aircraft dropping six 500lb bombs on targets in northern Malaya's jungle terrain.
There was another anxious moment a year later, when, on an exercise near Don Muang in Bangkok, the undercarriage of Blount's Canberra aircraft refused to come down, but he executed a smooth "pancake" landing on the plane's underside.
On 17 August 1959, 45 Squadron carried out its final Operation Firedog mission with Blount leading three aircraft to bomb a terrorist camp. Shortly after, he and his crew emerged victorious in a bombing competition against other nearby squadrons. On 26 May 1960, Blount formally passed on his command of 45 Squadron to his successor.
In that particular year, he opted to leave the Royal Air Force and joined Hambros Bank, taking on a directorial role in 1973; he subsequently moved to Lazard’s, and retired in 1984.
In 1965, the Blount family experienced a devastating loss, when Christopher's older brother, Air Commodore John Blount, DFC, who was a veteran Spitfire pilot and former prisoner of war, tragically died in a helicopter crash. This occurred whilst he was serving as Captain of the Queen's Flight, and it was caused by a Whirlwind helicopter experiencing a rotor blade failure, resulting in the loss of all four aboard.
Chrisopher Blount was a gentleman with a smooth and charming way with words. As the most accomplished angler at Hambros, he was entrusted with the responsibility of hosting and entertaining clients on a trip to the Suldal river in Norway, where Hambros had the exclusive fishing rights. He was also a skilled marksman, and for several years he had returned to the island of Tiree for the shooting.
He and his wife were adventurous travellers, and frequently visited their son James when he was on diplomatic assignments to Peru and Pakistan. Blount was particularly pleased to revisit Peshawar, a place he had previously known well in his time as an airman, and to see the North-West Frontier again.
He also served as chairman of trusts for Harrow School, was a school governor at Elstree, and a prominent figure in the village of Barkway in Hertfordshire, where he resided for nearly 60 years at the family's Jacobean manor.
In 1957, he married Susan Cobbold, daughter of the 1st Baron Cobbold, a previous Governor of the Bank of England, and his wife Lady Hermione (née Lytton). Susan passed away in 2021 and he is survived by their two sons and two daughters.
Wing Commander Christopher Blount, born February 6, 1925, died December 18, 2024
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