my father volunteered for RAF service in 1940 and flew 103 missions with bomber command, a lot of them (towards the end) on daylight raids, he was twice in the sea, after parachuting exit of stricken planes, (holder of golden caterpillar) the last was 2/12/42 after the raid on the Philips radar factory in Eindhoven (NL) he ditched in the North sea (in DECEMBER!) he survived by treading water and was picked up by MTB, he returned to service 3 days later and flew many more finishing as flt/lt. At the other end of the road where he lived his years from age 13 to 83 and the house where I was brought up was another serviceman of similar age, his name was Fergus Anchorn. After the war my father learned that FA had been in hospital in Japan, folowing combat injuries and was the only survivor of a massacre that was dealt the patients, all of them including FA were stabbed with bayonet rifles whilst still in their beds, almost the whole ward died, I dont know how many, but a lot, GA was the single survivor, by playing dead and eventually fell into the hands of the yanks, even though he had lost pints of blood, he lived to tell the tale, on this one single act my father refused to buy anything Japanese for the remainder of his life, he didnt critisise me for doing that tho' and he had another golden rule as an ex Bomber pilot he refusewd to EVER fly over Germany again, ("the last time I went there I was killing people") and so whenever he was flying off somewhere that there might be a risk, he asked to see the flight plan, three times he would not fly. Mum was not happy those days!
CLEM
