On 3 September 1940, at 0950 hours pilot officer Richard Hillary was shot down during combat against three Messerschmitts. He landed in the sea near the North Foreland, and was rescued by the Margate lifeboat. His Spitfire (RAF serial number "X4277") had burst into flames and he was badly burned. Hillary, the grandson of the founder of the lifeboat service Sir William Hillary, recovered from his ordeal and later wrote the book "The Last Enemy". He was killed in a training flight accident in 1943, aged 24.