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In 1939 I was working as a flour milling trainee at the C.W.S. flour mills Avonmouth when on September 3rd war against Germany and Adolph Hitler etc. was declared! On Jan 1st 1940 I was called to the colours and ordered to report to Brownhill Barracks, Plymouth for service with the army. I was kitted out as a Private and endured a few weeks emergency training - mostly on the barrack square - but very soon boarded a ship bound for France. The ship had cleared Southampton docks and was just leaving the harbour when it suddenly turned around and re-entered the docks - Dunkirk!! Our battalion, the Royal Duke of Wellingtons Infantry, was hurriedly off-loaded together with Bren carriers, guns and tanks. We were marched to a large school in Southampton where we played cards for a few days whilst Dunkirk was evacuated and our re-organisation was effected.

One day we boarded a train and made our way up North to Renfrew in Scotland. We were told we joining the 8th Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters who had recently retreated from Norway when the Huns moved in!! We were paraded in platoons and fanned out night and early morning to repel the German paratroops who thank God never came. Later, about 1000 of us were divided into companies 1, 2, 3, 4 and H. Q. Comp., and sub-divided into sections i.e. cooks, drivers, Bren gun carriers and crews (5 men), clerks etc. etc. I volunteered for the Intelligence Section in Headquarters Company. I was quartered in the Renfrew Town Hall which had been burnt out in the blitz and we had a hell of a job cleaning it up. However, we had just got it liveable when we were off again! This time to Enniskillen in Northern Ireland where the bells play a beautiful melody.

Headquarters Company was established in the N.I. army barracks by the side of Lock Enne. Intelligence work was interesting, marking maps, building sand table terrain (for mock exercises), learning German, surveying the country etc, arms drill and sniping! The chief clerk of H.Q. Company was Ralph Webb a fellow Bristolian, and my best friend. Together we would run of an evening a few miles to a remote part of the loch - strip off all of our uniforms, dive into the loch and practise our Tarzan crawl, sometimes in waves two feet high, when, tired but refreshed we would dress and then hare off to the Naafi for the 'special' i.e. steak, egg and chips. Round about Christmas both Ralph and I were promoted to Lance Corporals - proud day!

The Battle of Britain was still raging at home and in February a notice was promulgated on D.R.O's (daily routine orders) asking for volunteers to transfer to the RAF for pilot training. Both Ralph Webb and I jumped at the chance and in March 1941 we left the 8th Btn of the Sherwood Foresters and reported to Stratford-upon-Avon receiving wing to be made L.A.C. (leading aircraftsmen) in the RAF. Ralph elected to be a fighter pilot and was posted to somewhere down South. I elected to fly larger aircraft and was posted to RAF Scarborough Nav. School. After passing the navigation training course I went to the Initial Flying Training at Scone, Perth and did 50 hours of D.H. 82 Tiger Moths. Having scraped through I.T.F. I was posted to Wellesbourne Mountsford (near Stratford) I.T.W. flying Wellington 1c's for bomber command training. S.L.R. Bruce H. Williams A.F.C. was my flight commander.

Night flying was the order of the day and after about 10 trips and however long it took, I was declared a Bomber Pilot and was posted to 1115 or that is 115 Squadron at Marham (near Kings Lyn, Norfolk) and set out to try and frighten the Hun as much as he frightened me! I flew my Wimper 1c on the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne and later on I was 'coned' by searchlight over Bremen and was badly shot up by a J.U. 88. He knocked out my port engine. Bill Bullock my near gunner gave the J.U. 88 a long burst of his Brownings and the fighter steered off. We bombed the target, closed our bomb doors and limped home on one engine.

The next day I was playing billiards with my navigator/bomb aimer John E. Worth when the Wing Co. came up to us and said 'You owe me a beer!' I said 'Oh yes - why?' he said, 'Your photo was of the aiming point - you've both been awarded the D.F.C.!' Later Bill Bullock got the D.F.M. We graduated to a vastly improved Wellington III and completed 33 ops, which was our tour.

I was posted back to 22 Operational Training Unit, Wellesbourne, Mountford and lo! I joined Willy as my flight commander training bomber crews for future ops.
I was an instructor there at No. 22 OUT for about 2 years, but on May 23rd 1944 was posted to 1655 Mosquito Training Unit at Warboys to convert to flying Mosquito aircraft and using 'Oboe', a curved beam remote controlled marking device. On 6th July 1944, I completed training together with F/Lt Fred Waterman, a Canadian who was my navigator for over 50 ops on Mosquitoes. On July 6th, was posted to 109 Squadron, Little Slaughter (Beds). July 19th carried out 1st operation on Alouet and carried out many operations marking for the heavy bombers until August 31st 1944 when we were detailed for an extreme range target on Nuremburg. It was too great a range for the Oboe to function so we had to abort, and low on fuel we turned for home.

Unfortunately, over the French coast at 30, 000 feet the engines started to cut out due to lack of fuel! I said to Freddy, 'Bale out!'. Freddy disconnected the electronics, oxygen etc., clipped on his chest type parachute, opened the entrance/exit door and eased his way out into the void! I turned the stuttering Mosquito out to sea, unstrapped my harness, took off my helmet, oxygen mask etc. and put on my chest type parachute and dropped through the 'hole'. The Mossie zoomed away through the night. My flying boots and socks blew off and I pulled the rip cord. My parachute blossomed out above me and I swung to and fro at about 10,000 feet going backwards in a high wind. I tried crossing my arms and pulling the shrouds but I couldn't get turned around.

I landed backwards in a willow tree, near a cow which just looked up at me, hanging there, and then carried on munching. I unclipped my parachute and dropped to the ground - about 1 foot! I heard some engines working away to the North so I made my way barefoot until I came across a platoon of Negroes stacking large shells. They were surprised to see me but spoke English (USA) and took me to their officer who took me to a British Aak-aak unit in a jeep. The British Colonel gave me some socks and army boots, size 10, which I used for 10 years! After breakfast I was taken to an airfield where I cadged a Dakota flight to Hendon. When I finally got back to Little Slaughter airfield I found that Freddy Waterman my navigator was there before me. He had got an aircraft to drop him off from France. We had both landed at the Caen beach-head a week or two after D-day!

We were given a new Mosquito and carried on operations mostly at night but occasionally marking for American B-17 and B-29 bomber groups who were slowly driving the German forces back across Germany. On October 23rd 1944 we had a few hundred Lancaster, Stirling and Halifaxes on a big raid on Essen in the heart of the Ruhr and on October 25th we were detailed to fly in formation to Wing Commander Peter Kleboe's Mosquito as back-up to mark Essen for a large force of American bombers.

Approaching the target at 33, 000 feet, close to Peter Kleboe's left wing, a burst of heavy flak knocked out our starboard engine and seriously wounded my navigator Freddy Waterman. Freddy was riddled with flak and large lump forced its way through Freddy's left palm and formed a horrible mountain standing up on the back of Freddy's hand. Peter's aircraft left us to mark the target - our Oboe was knocked out so we turned for home and made it easily on one engine. The duty ambulance took Freddy to the hospital but he insisted on coming on ops for a couple of daylights on October 28th and 29th and a visit back to Cologne on Oct. 30th. Peter Kleboe recommended me for a bar to my DFC and I recommended Freddy for a gong. We were given leave for 48 hours on February 6th 1945 and I flew Freddy to Woolbridge in an Oxford for marriage to Betty and repatriation to Canada. I returned to ops with Fl/Lt Ken Neville or Fl/Lt Matt Matthewson as navigators/Oboe operators.

We continued operations by day and by night as the Hun retreated across Europe. In March 1944 I was promoted to Squadron Leader and in May I became O.C. B Flight. At about the same time my old friend Jimmy Brown was promoted S/Ldr in charge of 'A' Flight. We were penetrating further and further into Germany until at last we were detailed to bomb Berlin, and Victory in Europe was declared. I carried out a few more operations on operation MANNA dropping food on Rotterdam, Gouda etc. for the starving Dutch people and then we were allowed to do a Cook's Tour of Europe visiting the bombed cities and flying around the Swiss Alps just for fun!

At the end of September however 109 Squadron was disbanded and we forced to fly our lovely Mosquito aircraft to Upwood where they were destroyed!! Alas! Alas! In the piping days of peace, museums and aircraft exhibitions all over the world were searching for wartime aircraft, weapons etc. but at the close of hostilities a short sighted Government had blithely scrapped the lot!!

Anyhow, after 109 Squadron closed down 29th September 1945 I was supposed to go to Cairo en route for the Far East but Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and I was posted to Uxbridge as Senior Intelligence Officer 11 Group Fighter Command. I served as such under Air Vice Marshall Sir Dermott Boyle until I was demobbed and became a First Officer Co Pilot initially seconded to B.E.A. i.e. British European Airways. This signified the end of my RAF service and the introduction of civil aviation and so on…................................................................................... Dear Christine,.............................................................................................

I hope you can read this horrible scrawl and that you pick something out of it that will be of use to you and the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½! Mummy says this writing takes too long and leaves little time for me to do all my chores! What chores? Mine's a G&T!!!
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Lots of love to you and yours xxx
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Dad. Mon 11th July 2005

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