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On April 4 1945 my fathers Lancaster bomber was shot down over the North sea off the coast of Holland. The day before had been his 22nd birthday.

About a week before he had had a premonition that he would not be coming home, he had flown more sorties than most "he'd had a good run for his money" so to speak. He had flown getting on about 30 trips.

He wrote a letter to his mother that he did'nt think he would be coming back the next time he flew, it crossed in the post with the telegram from his squadron saying he was missing believed killed.

Out of the seven crew, he was as far as he knew at the time and also for many years the only survivor. To this day he never understood why.

He was picked up off the coast of Holland by the Germans and sent to a prisoner of war camp in the north of Germany, Where he stayed for the remaining weeks of the war.

His family all the while believing him to be dead, until he turned up on the doorstep one morning and his poor mother fainted when she saw him, believing him to be dead.

My father is still alive but in poor health and living in Lincolnshire. The father of eight children and fifteen grandchildren. That's what he was saved for we always tease him.

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