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Sergeant George E Foulger 1288158 joined the Royal Air Force on 10th September 1940 and served as a Leading Aircraftsman. He worked at RAF Shorebury on Airspeed Oxfords. From what I can remember, he specialized in airframes. He told me you had to earth the wings before doping them as otherwise there would be a large build up of static electricity, which could cause spark and a fire.

He often had to do sentry duties and thought it ridiculous that even though he carried a rifle on his shoulder, he was not allowed to have any ammunition in it. The ammunition was kept in his pocket. He often joked to me that if ever he challenged someone and they weren鈥檛 friendly, he would have to say to them, 鈥淗old on a minute, I鈥檝e just got to load my gun.鈥�

I remember very clearly he talked about Harvard trainers, single engine training aeroplanes. He didn't like them because they were noisey and described them as "brash American things."

RAF Shorebury was for training crews to fly twin-engine aircraft. This was often so crews could convert from single engine to twin engine flying. There used to be night flights where the aircraft would have to fly a triangular circuit to get used to flying and navigating in the dark. However, sometimes a German bomber would sneak into the circuit unnoticed and fly around with all the rest of the aircraft. At the end of an exercise, on one occasion at least, this German fellow switched on his navigation lights, just like all the others, lowered his undercarriage and came in for his approach to land. But just before he did, he dropped his bombs onto the airfield and pulled away into the night sky. A petrol bowser was blown up in a raid such as this.

After VE Day, George was convinced he would be sent to the war against Japan. But after the two atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war ended. George was demobbed on 13th November 1945. He was awarded the Defence Medal and the War Medal 1939/45.

On the home front, George鈥檚 wife Kathleen Foulger was working in a shop and they had a dog, which would always lie in the doorway. One day the dog got up and wouldn鈥檛 go near the door and moments later a German bomb exploded nearby and blew the windows out.

George married Kathleen G Coombes at Bexleyheath, Kent in April 1939, but like so many, he had to move away from home to serve during the war. They had two sons Gordon, who is my father, born 1942 and David, born 1946.

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