大象传媒

WHERE WERE YOU ON V.E. DAY, HARRY FLYNN?

That is the question! Well, the short answer is 鈥淏EVERLEY!鈥� 鈥� and if there is any better place to be at any time will somebody please let me in on their little secret?

It was in fact a wonder that I chanced to be in my home-town 鈥� my adorable and wonderful Beverley - on V.E.Day (Tuesday, 8th May, 1945). I might still have been thousands of miles away in the Middle East - to which I had been assigned early in 1941. But, having now returned to the UK I was enjoying a few days leave at home with my parents when World War II in Europe came to an end (it continued for a further three months or so in the Far East).

When World War II began in September, 1939 I was 18 years old. I joined the Royal Air Force and served in it for six and a half years until returning to civilian life in the Spring of 1946 鈥� by which time I was 25.

Approximately half of my R.A.F. service was spent on various airfields in the U.K. and the other half abroad in Middle East countries such as Egypt, Palestine, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. After enlisting at the beginning of the War I served on airfields in Kent and Surrey before going abroad. For a time I worked in the Armoury Section of No.3 (Hurricane) Squadron, servicing and maintaining the eight Browning guns carried by Hurricane aircraft (four guns on each wing, each gun firing 200 rounds of ammunition). Because of its more glamorous name and sleek elegance it was the Spitfire aircraft which many believe won the Battle of Britain for us in 1940. But in actual fact it was the Hurricane, with its superior manoeuvrability which played a more effective and decisive role. Hurricanes destroyed far more enemy aircraft than did the Spitfires during that critical Battle.

In the early months of the War a large number of Polish pilots who escaped from Poland when it was invaded by Germany and Russia in 1939 made their way through the Balkans and Mediterranean to continue the fight against the Nazis from this country. They formed several Polish fighter and bomber squadrons operating from British airfields Many other Poles served as individual fighter or bomber pilots in R.A.F. Squadrons. Several of them joined our Squadron (No.3, R.A.F.), and soon I had many friends among them. I was keen to learn the Polish language and had no trouble in getting 鈥渢utors鈥� and lessons from amongst these brave pilots, little realising at the time that I would get a posting as Interpreter with a Polish Unit later on.

In April, 1941 I sailed from Liverpool in a troopship on a two-months鈥� journey to the Middle East - with an unfriendly send-off from enemy bomber aircraft. Two weeks later we had a problem in mid-Atlantic when we were in a night-time collision with another troopship which left our bow with a nasty hole below water-mark. We got emergency repairs at the West African port of Sierra Leone and later transferred to a more watertight ship in Cape Town.

Abroad I served for a year in Egypt, including Western Desert locations before moving to Iraq and, later, to Teheran, the capital of Iran where I was assigned to a unit called D-Force. Our role was that of an Advance Party to confront the Germans in the possible event of their invading Iran from Stalingrad (Russia). However, as the Germans retreated from Stalingrad, having failed to capture it, the need for D-Force no longer existed and eventually I returned to the U.K. for the remainder of my war-time service.

Now at age 84 as I sit at my computer writing these memories I reflect upon a very happy, satisfying life enriched by the love, comfort and devotion of my dear family, relatives and friends 鈥� in fact, all with whom I came into contact. My dear, loving wife, Marian, a pearl beyond any price, died twenty years ago last Christmas-tide. R.I.P. Although the sorrow neither diminishes nor disappears there is great solace in the recollection of our shared happy times and above all of her legacy of loving kindness to everybody. She illuminated their lives like the brilliance of a meteor blazing its trail of scintillating light and beauty across the night sky.

I consider myself privileged to have been blessed with a wonderfully happy life and to be among the fortunate ones who survived their war-time service. Many of our local young men and young women did not. May we always keep their great sacrifices uppermost in our hearts and minds and more especially on V.E. Day and Remembrance Day. May their souls rest in the peace of our Loving Creator, our Heavenly Father. May we remember always that we need God 鈥� and that we need one another!

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