POST-WAR SERVICE LIFE
RAF STAFF COLLEGE, BRACKNELL
APRIL-OCTOBER 1946
The RAF Staff College had moved to its permanent home at Bracknell in Berkshire in 1945. The pre-war staff college had been sited at RAF Andover because of its proximity to the army at Salisbury Plain and Aldershot. However, at the start of the war the airfield at RAF An-dover was needed for operational purposes. During the war the two-year course was reduced to three months at either Bracknell or Bulstrode House, near Gerrard’s Cross. However, for some years the name of a graduate in the RAF list was still followed by the letters PSCA (Passed Staff College Andover).
In early April 1946 about 100 of us assembled at Bracknell. We RAF officers were leavened and strengthened by a dozen from the army and half a dozen from the navy. We were inevitably the most decorated course ever.
Amongst us we had had an immense amount of operational experience in every theatre of operations. We were the ‘types’who had resolutely avoided the safety of staff college whilst there was a war to be fought. Most of the directing staff (DS) were older, and had much less battle experience than us. We doubted their knowledge of tactics and strategy; we certainly questioned their ability to mould us into a peace-time military shape. This they believed could be accomplished by unbelievably petty rules. We tidied up our dress by buying new uniforms, adhered to sensible RAF service rules; but in no way adhered to local staff college rules as drawn up by the DS. Women, including wives of long-standing (Het and I had been married nearly seven years), were not allowed in the ladies room after 10.00 p.m. I well remember her being pushed through the window by a couple of my friends, whilst I nonchalantly walked in through the front door. Sometime later she was discovered by the duty officer, a young, pompous wing commander DS, one of those we thought was lacking in both operational experience and humour. After pointing out these deficiencies we threw him out of that self-same window.
We had frequent outside lecturers. Those we judged good were applauded. Others we subjected to relentless questioning, but we always tried to introduce some humour into the proceedings. The jester-in-chief was Cedric Masterman, who had been our best man back in 1939. He dedicated himself to getting a laugh wherever and whenever possible. I well remember the roar of laughter greeting his shout of “Bingo” when our commandant, ‘One-Armed Saunders’ appeared with the lecturer of the day, a similarly disabled senior army officer.
In May came the Victory Parade for which we were determined to tear ourselves away from our studies. It still amazes me that it took such an enormous amount of agitation, culminating in threats, before the commandant made what he called ‘a concession’ and allowed us to attend. We did not envy those who had been chosen to be on parade that day. We sympathised and felt we should be there to give them a friendly wave.
At 4.00 a.m. we left a party at RAF Blackbushe, near Yateley, in Hampshire for London. On the way there we stopped at Lightwater Court to pick up our friends, Peggie and Jock Henderson, who had come down from North Wales for the occasion. Jock was still recovering from the privations of the Burma campaign. At 6.00 a.m. when we arrived there were already people lining the route. We chose a vantage point on the Embankment which gave us a view up Northumberland Avenue, down which the parade would proceed.
This spot proved to be an excellent choice as we were able to shelter under Hungerford Bridge from the heavy downpour which started about noon and went on for the rest of the day.
We had a long wait. Although we had been the first to arrive and found seats in the front row, as time wore on Jock and I found that we were back in the tenth row. Het’s friend has never let us forget this. She loves telling the tale of how, “those two fools kept giving up their places to any woman who fluttered her eyes at them”. We knew that we were not fools but perfect gentlemen!
The parade itself was a feat of organisation. I remember it chiefly for the variety of colourful uniforms worn by the allied troops, most of which had not been seen on parade since 1939. Great cheers greeted the flypast of fifteen Spitfires led by Douglas Bader. I knew well and had flown with most of those pilots. The controller that day was another friend, Flying Officer Claire Legge of the WAAF. Her easily recognisable and calm voice, combined with their faith in her known controlling ability, had in the heat of battle given our pilots that added boost of confidence. Later as a wing commander she became the first woman to command an RAF station – the fighter control station at Neatishead in Norfolk. She married another friend of ours, Jeffrey Quill, who had been the Spitfire production test pilot. Upon retirement they lived near us in North Wales. I was not short of subject matter when I was asked to make the speech at Jeffrey’s eightieth birthday party in London.
Despite the fact that we were celebrating victory, sad thoughts could not be dispelled. There were fears for the future too, as diplomacy seemed to be playing too strong a part. The Polish forces, who since 1939 had contributed so much to the allied victory, were not allowed to march that day. Presumably, this was to appease the Russians. I think political correctness was born that day. It was also a day tinged with sadness. Our special thoughts were of Peggie’s only brother, a lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, killed in February 1945 in the Reichswald Forest when the allied troops were making their final push towards the Rhine. I had known him as an exceptionally mischievous young boy with whom I had had many altercations when attempting to lord it over him as a school prefect. As a poacher turned gamekeeper, I was well aware of his calculated irritations. We did not forget the sadness of all those years of struggle that gained us eventual victory.
That night, as what seemed a fitting close to the day, we heard the unbelievably sweet song of a nightingale in a nearby wood. That was the first and only time that I heard a nightingale’s song in England.
At Bracknell there were lots of social activities. Official cocktail parties, parties amongst ourselves, and even a garden party at which Field Marshal Montgomery was the chief guest. Some of the wives, mine included, thought they would challenge authority by questioning the wearing of hats as commanded on the invitation. During the war the Archbishop of Canterbury had announced that women need no longer wear hats for church. Their argument was that if hatlessness was good enough for God it should certainly be good enough for Montgomery!
They also asserted that they were not subject to military orders. We were rather pleased that they had entered into what we thought was the right spirit. Very few hats had been made during the war and there were still very few new ones obtainable. The wearing of headscarves, particularly made by Jacqmar, was the universal war-time fashion. Those rebellious wives, one by one, lost their nerve. Het was the last to give in. Consequently, there was little left to choose from in the one hat shop in Camberley. She vowed that the one she bought was the only one left in the shop. I had no reason to believe otherwise as she wore it only once!
Het and I at last had six happy months together in peacetime England. Our seventh anniversary in 1946 was the first we had spent together, and our best man was there too! There were not many accompanying wives. Quite a few had been lost on the way. As there were no married quarters at Bracknell married couples had to find their own accommodation. The fact that we were scattered over a wide area of Berkshire and Surrey did not inhibit our social life but often made the return journey a little more hazardous.
Whilst I was still in Germany Het had twice journeyed to Bracknell from Wales in an attempt to find somewhere for us to live. Eventually, after much searching, we ended up renting part of Lightwater Court, a remote, dilapidated mansion near Bagshot about ten miles away from the staff college. There it was that for the first time we lived together as a family. I knew little of my daughter, who was then two-and-a-half. She had seen me only during the few times that I had been on leave since she had been born in 1943. I was told that she was a beautifully behaved baby; this was hard to believe as whenever I saw her she cried and screamed at the nasty man who disrupted her life with her mother.
Many of my fellow students were also learning to be fathers. It was a long, hard struggle and staff college lectures certainly gave us no guidance!
During the mid-term break in July we spent ten days holidaying with two new friends. Group Captain Charlie Bale’s wife was a Channel Islander. He had met her in May 1940 whilst leading a flight of his squadron at their forward base in Jersey. This move had been necessitated by the rapid advance made by the German army. In June when France fell and it became evident that the Channel Islands could no longer be defended, this RAF contingent was withdrawn after only a five-week stay. Flying out from Guernsey in his aircraft with Charlie was his newly-found girlfriend. Later he married her, and later still divorced her.
In 1946 we felt lucky to have her as our guide in Guernsey. The ins and outs of the place were known to her. Perhaps more of the inns, than the outs.
Although the war had been over for a year, we found Guernsey to be very run down. We were told that there had been a rapid decline after D-Day. As the allies advanced on the continent they blocked all supplies to the German garrison on the Channel Islands. As a result they had none of the materials required for regular maintenance and for keeping up the standards of sanitation and cleanliness. At our hotel, which had been a German headquarters, they were still struggling to improve the neglected bathrooms and lavatories. The many glasshouses in which tomatoes had been produced chiefly for export to the mainland were also derelict.
Coming from Britain, where there was still food rationing and a shortage of many other foods, we enjoyed all that Guernsey had to offer. Especially plentiful were the eggs and rich Guernsey butter. Most nights we ate at a fish and chip caféin St. Peter Port where for half-a-crown we had a rare treat –eggs with our chips. This was always followed by an invitation to visit the proprietress in her parlour. There we were freely entertained with coffee and liqueurs, both of which were still in short supply. She was very blatantly anti-German as her husband had died whilst doing forced labour in Germany. Foremost in her mind was the belief that any member of the RAF deserved VIP treatment.
Despite the peace that everyone should have been enjoying, we were soon aware of much underlying animosity within the local community. There was evidence everywhere of bitter resentment towards those who had undoubtedly co-operated with the German garrison.
During this trip I revelled in wearing civilian clothes once again as we had not been allowed to previously even when on leave. Rather remarkably, all my clothes had survived wartime attacks by moths. I was told that this was because they had been regularly hung out in the sun. My ‘tidy’appearance was our downfall. We were identified as ‘collaborators’by a Royal Marine commando on demob leave in his native Guernsey. He decided to follow us round and as the week, and particularly the evenings, wore on he became more and more abusive. He seemed to be always there. I am ashamed to admit that after five days of this persistent nuisance I got so aggravated that I lashed out, knocking him through a glass door. Never had I done such a thing before, and never have since. I got into great trouble –not for throwing the punch but from Het, as the glass splinters had made numerous cuts in my new tweed jacket. Clothes were rationed and good tweed jackets in short supply. As we had used all our clothing coupons in acquiring it (with some influence), I had to go on wearing it for many years in its far from pristine condition.
It was at about this time that Het had the idea that we should emigrate. Having had what she regarded as her fill of war, she wanted nothing more to do with anything that had any war-like connection. This, of course, would have meant me leaving the RAF. She was strongly in favour of Southern Rhodesia. There, far away from conflict, we could live in peace happily ever after. After some months she dropped all thoughts of this. She was finally convinced by my constant assurance that I was not in the RAF to make war but to see that we were so efficient that we would prevent war starting. Throughout my service career I always worked with this belief in the forefront of my mind. We all did. After all, we had seen and experienced the ghastliness of war.
In October, at the end of six very pleasant months, the course came to an end. There was only one failure. Regrettably, this was Cedric Masterman. The rest of us, realising at the last moment that our future could depend upon it, treated the final exercise with great seriousness. Cedric alone chose not to do so. He wrote two lines explaining why he wished to play no part in what could only result in total disaster. The rest of us managed two pages of serious thought.
Our postings came through in September. Mine was as wing commander (night-fighter ops) at Fighter Command HQ, Bentley Priory, Stanmore. The majority of us felt that we had had our fun and were now ready to get down to serious work again. A few, albeit with outstanding wartime records, resigned their commissions. They decided that the peacetime RAF was not for them. They departed to seek adventure and their fortunes in Rhodesia, South Africa, Australia and Hong Kong. I was sad to bid farewell to some good friends. All flourished in their new jobs and countries. We met later from time to time when my RAF travels took me overseas. They were always anxious for news of the RAF. Despite all that they had later achieved, they often expressed regret that they had left the Royal Air Force.
HQ FIGHTER COMMAND
BENTLEY PRIORY OCTOBER 1946-MARCH 1947
With the rapid disbandment of squadrons my job at Bentley Priory soon became almost redundant. As there were no married quarters available, Het and Elisabeth moved into quarters at a former fighter station, Hawkinge, near Folkestone in Kent. It had been decided that Hawkinge was no longer viable as an operational station but that the much-needed housing would be retained. Only four quarters were occupied. These were sparsely furnished and in an attempt to make Elisabeth happy there I bought her a black cocker spaniel which she decided to call Bingo.
With me at Bentley Priory during the week, Het was lonely and unhappy in this unheated flight lieutenant’s quarter. I was not able to get back there until Saturday afternoon as in 1947 we worked on Saturday morning. Late on Sunday afternoon, I had to return to Bentley Priory.
After two unsatisfactory months there we moved two days before Christmas to The Old Workhouse at Ruislip Common. We drove there through a snowstorm which heralded the start of the very hard winter of 1947. We lived in a self-contained annexe in a lovely old stone country house. We were made most welcome by the owners who straightaway invited us to have Christmas lunch with their family. They were a very sociable, and humorous couple with whom we remained friendly until their deaths forty years later. We still keep in touch with their three children, at whose weddings we were front-row guests. We, despite shortages of almost everything and despite the intense cold, had returned to happier times. They were very good friends to us.
We were at the Old Workhouse for that long-remembered winter. The bitterly cold weather, compounded by a rapidly growing fuel shortage, affected every part of the country. Factories were shut. Gas pressure was so low that it took hours to cook a meal. Elisabeth felt the cold so much that when her fingers were blue with cold I would literally ‘put her head in the gas oven’. “Bad Mr Shinwell” (the minister deemed responsible for our sad state) was a frequent utterance whenever this happened. She and Het spent much of their time attempting to keep warm in the tea shops of Ruislip. Our nights were spent under a tier of blankets. We had borrowed ten blankets from the RAF. This is no exaggeration. They were wartime issue manufactured with the minimum of wool. However, we survived.
In March 1947 I was asked if I would like to go to the USA for ten months on an unaccompanied tour. I refused on the grounds that, after such long separations during the war, I was not prepared to once again leave my wife and daughter. This was not held against me as within a week I was posted to Horsham St. Faith near Norwich as station commander.
HORSHAM ST. FAITH
APRIL 1947-JANUARY 1948
This was just the posting I wanted. I was delighted with it as I knew it gave me a chance to have a hand in shaping the peacetime Royal Air Force. We had learned much during our years at war. Now we were about to put some of those lessons to the test in peacetime conditions. I was also delighted to be back at a ‘flying’station as I was again able to fly regularly in both the Meteors and Spitfires that we had situated on the base there.
I went to Horsham charged with putting into effect a new way of aircraft servicing, known as the ‘Three-Pronged System’. I was allowed to choose my senior officers for the trial, all of whom I knew to be highly competent and keen. This combination worked so well together that the trial was an overwhelming success. The success meant that this new way of working was adopted generally throughout the RAF and was still used fifty years later.
At Horsham there were four Meteor cadre squadrons 74, 245, 257 and 263 (i.e. half-strength) and 695 Squadron (an anti-aircraft co-operation unit) equipped with Spitfires and an Oxford.
I had also been charged with ‘cleaning up’ the station. The RAF had just taken over the station from the Poles who had also occupied the neighbouring fighter station of Coltishall and it had been brought to the Air Ministry’s notice that much of the ‘black market dealing’ that was still rife in East Anglia in the continuing days of rationing, could be traced back to Horsham St. Faith.
There was much to be done. Minor rackets flourished. I immediately discovered that the nearby Norwich Speedway not only had its motorbikes serviced in our hangars by RAF technicians but were also supplied with all the petrol necessary to keep the Speedway going.
The station warrant officer informed Het at their very first meeting that he could get as much chocolate as she wished (I never found out how he knew that she was a chocoholic). A very junior officer, who obviously had an eye on promotion, indicated that through him we could be ensured a constant supply of red meat. Those were but a few.
After a little amateur sleuthing, followed by a spot-check on all financial ledgers, I decided to call in the police. The much-liked civilian adjutant, after a trial found himself in Norwich jail. The middle-aged, over-confident RAF accounts officer was sentenced to three years detention. Consequent to these enquiries we got to know the chief constable of Norfolk and the town clerk of Norwich very well, and made them honorary members of the mess. We were invited by them to many official and non-official functions in Norwich. I remember vividly the visit in July 1947 of the King and Queen. In 1946 and 1947 they visited many places throughout the British Isles to thank their subjects for their contribution to victory.
Another event was the unveiling of the City of Norwich War Memorial by Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder. I had great respect for him. He recalled some amusing incidents from the times I had served under him in the Western Desert and northern Europe.
Norwich, only two miles away, was a lovely old city. A joy to the eye were the newly refurbished stalls of the open-air market in the centre of the city. There, under the brightly striped awnings, was a huge variety and quantity of local produce such as we had not seen for years. We frequently visited the market, both to buy and admire. At that time Norwich had several shoe factories. These had made nothing but military footwear for years but were producing women’s shoes once again. Shoes were still rationed but seconds (only just!) could be queued for on Friday afternoons. Many of our wives could be found in these queues.
They told us that they were happy to be able to queue and were delighted to be in a place where such lucky breaks occurred. These must seem such small things but they all contributed to a feeling of peacetime well-being which was reflected in the high morale of the station. This was helped by the lovely summer weather of 1947.
The Castle Hotel, Norwich was our favourite meeting place. There we would rendezvous with a few friends for lunch on a Saturday. The wives would arrive from their morning shopping rather earlier than we working men.
We got to know and love Norfolk on this our first posting there. We loved its wide skies and the countryside which was so different from any other known to us at that time. Although our petrol ration was only five gallons per month (at a cost of 12½p per gallon), by pooling this with our friends we were able to take the children to the seaside at Cromer, Sheringham and Great Yarmouth. There we were once again able to walk on the shore and to play in the sand. Anti-invasion obstacles, mines and barbed wire had by then been removed from almost all the beaches.
Many Sundays of that long, warm summer were spent on the Broads. The mess had bought three dinghies and a small motor cruiser. On duller autumn Sundays we drove to Cromer where at the Queens Hotel we played mixed doubles on their indoor courts. Before the war the Annual Cromer Tournament held there was one of the foremost events in the sporting calendar. Following wartime occupancy by the army, the hotel had been refurbished and the tennis courts opened to the public. In 1947 there were very few such courts. I became a regular member of the Fighter Command tennis and squash teams. I used to travel to matches with my tennis partner, a young officer from nearby Coltishall, Christopher Blount, the son of an AVM killed in 1940. Chris, later as a squadron leader, became the Queen’s equerry.
I was keen to encourage an interest in sport and as was customary in the pre-war RAF, declared Wednesday afternoon to be a sports afternoon. I played in the station rugger team. At thirty-two with an eight-year gap since last playing, I must admit that I did not really enjoy it, but did it to encourage others. We all worked together towards re-launching those pleasant social events which had been part and parcel of life on RAF stations in the thirties.
We had a summer ball, the like of which had not been seen for years. A young officer, later to become a well-known theatre impresario, was put in charge. He was so enthusiastic that, disregarding his demob date, he elected to serve an extra month in order to complete the job. He and his team, principally of young men awaiting their return to civilian life, exceeded all expectations. They were determined to leave the service trailing clouds of glory.
The mess was transformed – Parisian brothels, Bavarian wine cellars, Spanish bodegas, American honky-tonks. The British contribution was an oyster bar organised by another young man recently demobbed and back with the family firm in Whitstable. Although oysters were not rationed, they were still in short supply but not that night.
We reintroduced an annual station cocktail party, to which we invited ‘official’guests from the local community and friendly local civilians. We also had a station sports day with a special section for the children.
The RAF was beginning to realise that looking after the families in this post-war era was not only a necessity but that it was to our advantage to have men supported by contented families. Accordingly, Het started a club for the airmen’s wives. This was a new venture and probably the first of its kind. As time went by ‘Wives’ Clubs’ grew in number, diversity and size and eventually flourished on every station.
Today, the Wives Clubs run thrift shops, toddler groups, libraries, car pools and such like, and have even been officially recognised by the Ministry of Defence. A committee with members elected from station Wives’ Clubs has been able to influence decisions by putting forward the women’s point of view.
Het’s club, though, was strictly for entertainment, but definitely not for hers. Crown & Anchor and Housey-Housey (now known as Bingo) were long-time popular service games that worked well but were difficult to organise. And her attempts to raise the standard by giving lessons on smocking after three-year-old Elisabeth’s smocked dresses were much admired were to no avail. Privately she used to describe the whole thing as a ‘dead loss’ and thought of closing the club but reluctantly succumbed to the wives’ entreaties to continue with it. They assured her of its value as it meant a night out for them whilst their husbands were compelled to stay in and look after the children. Apparently this was the only night that the men did not go out to their various messes, or so she was told! They showed their appreciation by giving her a farewell party at which she was presented with a new style electric clock inscribed:
Mrs Rosier
From
Married Families
RAF Horsham St Faith
1947
That summer, we had two squadron visits. The County of Surrey Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force came from their station at Kenley for their summer camp; and a squadron of the recently re-formed French air force came for a week’s exchange duty. The auxiliaries, with their usual generosity, laid on a party to thank us. But the French, for whom we thought it polite to arrange a number of social activities on the station, spurned our efforts. Before 9.00 p.m. on the first evening every Frenchman had left our welcoming party announcing that he was off to bed. They were later seen in Norwich! We therefore decided to cancel the rather tame social plans that we had made for them and the next evening arranged a visit to the Samson and Hercules dance hall, known as The Sodom and Gomorrah. The only snag was that it was out of bounds to RAF personnel. This obviously delighted those selected to accompany them.
The next morning the French CO asked for an interview with me and with no preamble announced that his officers were going to London by train and would be back on Friday evening. He then produced a scrap of paper on which were the names of three RAF officers whom they thought would be the best to accompany them as their guides to London. I recognised the handwriting and deduced from it the object of the exercise and agreed with the names. But to call their bluff I added the name of a pilot whose notorious exploits I conjectured made him even better qualified. I had thought of naming the padre but upon reflection, I thought it unlikely that Westminster Abbey was part of the tour. On their return I did no delving as to what they had all been up to but by means of the grapevine we gathered that a good time was had by all.
At the end of October I was told that the station was to be upgraded. Although the three squadrons commanded by squadron leaders had done exceptionally well, it was decided that their jobs warranted the rank of wing commander. This meant that automatically the job of station commander would be upgraded to group captain. I was offered the post as an acting unpaid group captain. This I refused. I had no objection at all to acting the part, after all, I had been an acting group captain for three years during the war, and thought I was pretty good at it. But I did object strongly to the unpaid part of the deal. I have always thought that a man considered capable of doing a job should be paid the going rate.
I was again offered a posting to the United States, which this time I accepted as I would not have to go alone. It had been decided that all overseas tours of two years or longer would be accompanied. This condition would be met by my attending the five-month course at The Armed Forces Staff College at Norfolk, Virginia, followed by two years in an exchange posting with the USAF.
Although regretting that we had only two months left in Norfolk, we were excited to be going to the States. The next weeks were spent ensuring that the station would be handed over in as highly an efficient state as was possible. However, I had one unexpected setback. Almost the last visitors to my office were my friends the police.
After congratulating me on the Christmas spirit so evident throughout the station, they told me that they suspected that the beautiful and much-admired trees adorning the station in abundance were stolen. I did know that the ‘window’which decorated the said trees (and which gently swayed and tinkled in the December breeze) had been ‘borrowed’for operational purposes. But I did not know the trees were stolen. (‘Window’was the name given to the strips of aluminium foil that had been dropped during the war to confuse enemy radar.)
In no time we ascertained that this accusation was true. A few airmen, who assured us that with no other thought than for the common good, had borrowed RAF transport and completely exhausted themselves chopping down and loading the trees. They were loyal to the flight sergeant whose orders they had carried out with such alacrity and enthusiasm. This revealed to me what a happy co-operative spirit there was on the station! So much for my fond belief that I had won the battle against crime.
In 1947, as many families were together at Christmas for the first time for many years, there was a general determination to make it ‘the best Christmas ever’. Not wanting to miss these festivities, which were organised with the most meticulous detail, we did not leave the station until 1st January 1948. Rather weak after the New Year’s Eve Ball we left by car for a few days leave in Wrexham.
That day we got only as far as Nottingham where we stayed with an old Desert Air Force friend Hugh O’Neil and his wife Billie. She was the widow of one of my pilots in 229 Squadron, Flight Lieutenant du Vivier, who in March 1941 had failed to return from a patrol over the Irish Sea. Het had had the awful task of giving her the sad news –a job undertaken with a heavy heart and with the knowledge that their roles could easily have been reversed. Our wives helped us a lot in dealing with such onerous duties which arose from time to time. Whilst I was away overseas Het and Billie had remained good friends and kept in touch. She stayed with us at Horsham in May 1947 whilst on demob leave from the WRNS. There she met Squadron Leader Hugh O’Neil. Six months later we attended their wedding in London.
We drove to Wrexham the next day. I was now fully convinced that the air force life was for me. I had had no hesitation in refusing the offer of my great friend Denys Gillam that I should join him in Halifax running the family carpet business, Homfreys. Het wavered a bit when we visited them when she was told how difficult it had been for the chemist to get the right pink for dyeing the 800 yards of carpet in their house. This was at a time when we had only one rug in our brown lino-covered bedroom and at a time when the general public could only obtain what was called ‘utility carpet’with a permit that was difficult to procure. However, she readily agreed with me when I told her it would never work. I simply could not have Denys as my boss. We remained very great friends, visiting each other from time to time and place to place. He was at our Golden Wedding party in 1989. In 1947 he joined the Yorkshire squadron of the reconstituted Auxiliary Air Force at Finningley as a flight lieutenant. Many distinguished wartime flyers willingly dropped two or three ranks in order to continue flying.