Brigadier General (I) e.a. of the Air Force, Byron (Notis) Sacharidis, one of the last aviators of the 40's generation and a veteran pilot of the Greek Squadrons of the Middle East. As a combat fighter pilot in World War II, Byron Sacharidis took part in operations in North Africa, the Mediterranean, Italy, Yugoslavia and occupied Crete until the liberation of Greece, flying Hurricane and Spitfire aircraft.
Brigadier General Byron Sacharidis was born in Athens in 1920. After his high school studies at the Leonetio Lyceum, in September 1939 he was admitted to the Ikaron School, with the 9th Series. With the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War, he followed as a second-year student at the Icaron School from the bombed Tatoi to the olive groves of Argos and from there to the defended Crete, where in May 1941, during the German invasion, he was taken prisoner. With the help of Cretans, he manages to escape and returns to occupied Athens with a false identity, but not for long.
At the beginning of 1942, he escaped to the Middle East by boat from the bay of Karystos, via Turkey and Syria. He will initially be based in Gaza, Palestine at a British air base where Greek airmen were trained and then sent to South Africa and Rhodesia, where he will complete his pilot training before joining the 336th Hellenic Fighter/Bomber Squadron, which operated under the operational control of the British Air Force – RAF.
As a fighter pilot he will escort allied convoys in the Mediterranean and take part in missions in North Africa and Crete, taking off from makeshift airfields in the hot Libyan desert. In September 1944 Byron Sacharidis along with 336 M/D will move to Italy as German troops collapse on European soil, and from there he will carry out offensive patrols on the Yugoslav coast. On November 14, 1944, it will return together with the other two Greek Squadrons to Athens freed from the Nazis. He will soon take part in air operations against the Germans, who were still on the islands of Milos and Crete.
He also participated in the Air Force operations of the period 1946 – 1949. After the war he will attend Weapons schools in the West. Germany, the School of National Defense and will be assigned to various staff positions. In 1967 he was demobilized by the junta of colonels with the rank of brigadier general he already held. In November 2019, he was honored for his contribution to the homeland by the National Defense Agency and the Minister of National Defense Mr. Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos with a special award.
APE-ME