大象传媒

During WW2, my father's Beaufighter squadron was in a convoy heading for the Far East. When the convoy drew level with Malta, an urgent message was received requesting pilots to replace those injured or lost defending Malta. The pilots were flown off the ship. My father's ship continued to sail with the rest of the convoy to South Africa and there it hove to, awaiting replacement pilots. The rest of the convoy sailed on to Singapore. The convoy reached Singapore just as it fell into Japanese hands. The rest of the men in the convoy became prisoners of war - most worked on the infamous railway and did not return.

My father always considered himself to have been very lucky. His ship eventually returned to North Africa and his war was spent (4 and a half years) travelling backwards and forwards along the North African coast in the desert with no home leave.. a minor discomfort compared with the fate of those who sailed on.

His worst time in the desert occurred when a crippled aeroplane returned to base and hit a line of planes waiting to take off, laden with fuel and munitions. They exploded sending shrapnel in all directions.

As the airmen lived in canvas tents, the results were devastating. His tent was cut to ribbons but again he survived because, being a tall man (6'high), he had dug down into the sand so that he could move around in the tent with out constantly having to stoop. As the Beaufighters exploded, he flung himself under the canvas bed and was protected by the dug out. Afterwards he said that it was a foolish thing to have done because the bed offered no protection and he was very lucky it did not receive a direct hit from above.

His war ended when he was sent to a home posting in Orkney (he and my mother lived in Yorkshire at the time) but I think his was an Edinburgh squadron, so a Scottish posting was a 'home'posting.

He went 'home' in November in full desert kit and it took a while to get uniforms to cope with the winter weather ...

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