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I joined the RAF in 1929 and at the beginning of the war, joined the new ‘Movements’ branch overseeing logistics and supply. My main role involved equipping aircraft with tools and stores and during the war years, I went on to see service in Eritrea, Cairo, Malta and the Middle East.

In early 1940, I was stationed at London Docks. I can recall the arrival of exhausted troops evacuated from Dunkirk. There were three teams of us receiving them and we needed to find out where they lived, give them their railway warrants, ration cards and pay. We worked around the clock.

Later that year I remember the progression of the Blitz. Over 9 months bombers dropped high explosives, parachute mines and incendiaries, reducing much of the city to rubble. Airforce HQ was located near Holborn Tube Station and I can remember many nights when I joined scores of families sleeping on the underground platforms during the air raids. You had to step over people and the smell was terrific. Some families were virtually living down there.

During one air raid when we’d been forced down to the cellars, a bomb destroyed a large tower next to Headquarters and part of it smashed into the cellars. It destroyed the Director’s table where we’d been playing table tennis minutes before.

In the summer of 1943, I can remember the massing of troops at Malta for ‘Operation Husky’. There were hundreds of little supply ships full of army and airforce troops and bombs waiting for the allotted time. It was an incredible sight.

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