He shot down 3 planes in 4 minutes: meet the WW2 pilot you won't have heard about

"Everyone cried unashamedly at the news of this young pilot’s death", writes Kavita Puri

A black and white photograph of a plane with Japanese characters written on its side

Published: December 19, 2025 at 9:00 AM

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If you stroll across the green swathe of the Maidan in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) – past the monumental marble Victoria Memorial built to honour that Empress of India – and keep heading south, the city noise fades, and so too does the bustle. Off Debendra Lal Khan Road by the Tolly Canal, and opposite the zoological garden, are the gates of Bhowanipore Cemetery. Walk through them and you enter a world of order and peace.

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At the back, beyond lines of graves from the 19th and 20th century, are the headstones of young, mainly British men who fought in both world wars and died here. Many perished from diseases such as malaria and smallpox; some were killed in accidents, and one was apparently murdered while off duty. Also here are the graves of 14 Scottish soldiers from the Black Watch battalion who died in the cyclone of 16 October 1942 in Midnapore, west of Kolkata, as well as troops from a merchant ship hit by the Japanese in the Second World War.

On one headstone is etched the name of a man I had heard about from elderly Indians and British people who had lived in the city during the war. Arthur Maurice Owers Pring – known to everyone simply as Pring – was a pilot in the Royal Air Force. He was killed at the age of just 22 while defending Calcutta from an aerial bombing attack by Japanese forces.

This dark chapter opened on 20 December 1942, when Japanese fighter planes filled the skies. Navigating by moonlight, a force of eight Imperial Japanese Army Air Service medium bombers, code-named ‘Sally’ by the Allies, scattered their weapons around the city. The oil plant at Budge Budge, on the Hooghly river south-west of the city, was one of the places hit. Raids continued the following night, and on 23, 24 and 28 December – the most devastating assault coming on Christmas Eve.

The city was largely undefended militarily. A detachment of Beaufighters from RAF 89 Squadron in Egypt was diverted to Calcutta, arriving on 12 January 1943. Two days later, a new squadron was raised: No. 176. Its motto was Nocte Custodimus – “We keep the night watch.” The young men who made up that new squadron were already veterans. One of them, Flying Officer Arthur Maurice Pring, had successfully taken out enemy planes at night over Egypt and Sicily. He had just been initiated into his new squadron when the moon returned – and so did the Japanese bombers. By 9.45pm he was in the air east of the city, and successfully destroyed three ‘Sallys’ in just four minutes.

This was the first time Japanese planes were intercepted over Calcutta. When I interviewed 93-year-old Sri Sen, who was a teenager at the time, his eyes lit up as he recalled the incident. Even today, people who remember that time mention Pring by name, and remember his heroics. Pring’s photograph was in the newspapers, and was used on recruitment posters, above the slogan: “A cool nerve, a clear brain, and unlimited ‘guts’, that’s what it takes to make an ace pilot like Pring.” He was feted in military and civil circles around the city, as well as by locals.

When the Japanese returned on 5 December 1943, they came at noon. Among those flyers sent up to intercept them was Pring. He was hit, and his plane went up in flames. There was no sign of a parachute. His body was eventually found, and he was laid to rest on 12 December 1943 in Bhowanipore Cemetery. It was a moment that provoked profound emotion in the city: Ron Walker, at the time a young boy whose father was in the Calcutta Police, recalled how everyone “cried unashamedly” at Pring’s death.

Still today, that one young man who died in the Second World War is remembered by those who lived in Calcutta back then, his grave cared for in a quiet corner of the city, a long way from home.

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This column was first published in the December 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine

Authors

Kavita Puri

Kavita Puri is a journalist, author and broadcaster. A new edition of her book Partition Voices: Untold British Stories, marking the 75th anniversary of partition, is out now, published by Bloomsbury

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