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This story was contributed by Les Doble, with help from Caspar Mason. The Author is fully aware of the site's Terms and Conditions.

My father Samuel Doble (although listed in family records as 'Dobell' - we don't yet know why) was a sergeant in the RAF in 1943. As a family we followed him around the country wherever he was posted, although we retained our family house in Hanwell, West London.

In about 1943, when I was aged 12, he was posted to Thruxton Aerodrome in Hampshire and the family followed him. He found us lodgings about a mile away.
As kids we used to stand at the Aerodrome fence, looking down onto the airfield. We'd see bombers, possibly Halifaxs or Lancasters, taking off towing gliders. The bombers would disappear into the distance and turn. When they were near the airfield on the way back, the glider would release the rope, as the rope's weight would have dragged the nose of the glider down, and land on the airfield. The plane would make a second pass to drop off the rope, as it couldn't land with it attached, and the third time round it landed.

Towards the end of 1944, my father was posted, supposedly to Scotland, but we didn't know for sure as it was all very hush-hush, and then on to North Africa. The family returned to Hanwell where I remained. Only later did I realise that I had been watching the rehearsals for the D-Day landings, where the gliders were used to land troops into North West France.

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