A Raid Over Berlin

Epilogue Reflection

I was demobbed in December 1946. My RAF training had taken over two-and-a-half years, had involved hundreds of hours of tuition and Britain’s resources, but had ended abruptly, on only my third flight in anger. But I had completed the task for which I had been trained.

As air crews we were all too aware of the time ratio between training and operational flights. We used to say, ‘The Air Ministry say that all the training given to air crew was worth it◦– even if you only managed to drop just one load of bombs on Germany.’

They never mentioned about getting us back home afterwards though.

As for my time behind the wire, I suppose you can benefit from anything life throws at you; the experience. The comradeships were a big positive from my time in the POW camps; when it was all over, of course, while there, you hated every day of it. But when you come back, you think of the people you knew there, what characters they were.

It’s always been on my mind, how lucky I was to have been blown clear of that aeroplane when I was just twenty-one years old and all set to die. I often used to wake up in the night thinking about it all but I’m a very positive person; others didn’t fare so well afterwards. But a lot of them went through far worse than I did.

As well as my demob suit, I came out of the war with some recognition for risking life and limb as my time in Bomber Command earned me the 1939-45 Star. I also became a life member of the Caterpillar Club, which has only one criterion for membership◦– that you must have saved your life by the use of a parachute.

My crew are always on my mind. I especially think of them on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, but I also think of them all the time. I have remembered them all my life and I will never forget them.

I once went to St Clement Danes Church in London, which is a memorial church to all those who have lost their lives serving in the RAF, and there’s a great big book of remembrance there; each day they open it to a different page. Quite by coincidence, when I visited it was open on a page containing the names of some of my crew. It really got to me; it made me really cry.

For the record the names of my fallen friends found in that book are: