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Towards the end of the war we did one final massive bombing exercise. We were stationed at Forli in Italy in 1944. I was the pilot of an A20 Boston light bomber with the ‘Night Intruders’, and the army we were attached to had been held up all winter by entrenched German forces. Two squadrons, our 55th and the 19th, were told to take off with our bomb loads, fly for a certain time, turn to a certain heading, then fly for another certain length of time and then just drop our bombs, without ever seeing the enemy. It was all just calculated beforehand. We did this for two nights, and luckily the calculations were right, and we dropped our bombs on the German positions rather than our own lines! The Germans pulled out of the area after that and our own forces pushed forward, and there was no stopping them then.

The war for me finished on the 7th of April, 1945. I was sitting in the plane at lunchtime, preparing for another night operation when one of the ground crew came over to us and said that the Flight Commander wanted to see us in his tent. We went in and there were a few other crews there, and he told us that as far as we were concerned the war was over. It was one of the best things I’ve ever heard.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton from Westree Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of Captain Ron Healey with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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