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Four days after the invasion our Dakotas made their first landings on French soil, taking vital supplies, ammunition, petrol, tyres, food, medical supplies and personnel. Once emptied the Dakotas were then fitted with stretcher racks and we brought back our first casualties, one of which was a German prisoner of war with no boots. He had pretended to be dead whilst a Frenchman stole his boots because he claimed he had seen the Canadian paras lopping off heads with their meat cleavers. The casualties were cared for by a lone WAAF nursing orderly, who had no badges to show their trade and received 3p a day extra flying pay. They were the only WAAFS to fly operationally and were given parachutes. However, once casualties were loaded, so many on stretchers, so many walking wounded, they were forbidden to use their parachutes as their casualties did not have chutes. As our Dakotas were engaged on war duties they were not permitted to display a Red Cross so they were fair game for German fighters. Altogether these nursing orderlies on our Dakotas brought back over 100,000 casualties, many of whom would not have survived but for the rapid surgery they received in Blighty. It was not unusual for a soldier to be wounded in France and on the operating tables at Down Ampney in under three hours. This is a record that we are justly proud of but has now been forgotten in the mists of time.

For the next few months we were busy taking urgent supplies to the forward airfields, to back up our advancing armies. Then a crisis arose because PLUTO (the pipeline under the ocean) developed a fault and our armour was running out of petrol. So at the beginning of September all of our five Squadrons of 46 Group Transport Command carried jerry cans of petrol twice a day to Evere and Maelsbrook airfields near Brussels. How do you fancy flying a plane load of petrol and aviation fuel on an unarmed aircraft flying very slowly at 150 mph twice a day for a week? You may need stress counselling at the end of the week!

In the meantime life proceeded at Down Ampney and living conditions improved enormously. We had a superb gymnasium built and our Sports Officer was Flt Lt Len Harvey who used to be British Heavyweight Champion, who refereed all our boxing matches for which I had been "volunteered" into becoming the Station welterweight. We had a concert party organised by our Entertainments Officer, a Flt Lt Jimmy "the Professor" Edwards who became very famous on radio as Mr Glum and TV with Eric Sykes. Jim had a favourite RAF officer's cap which he had had since taking his commission, the peak of which had frayed and a piece of black rubber hung down over his forehead but he wouldn't change it. We also had RAFDA players the Drama Section who used to put plays on to entertain our group. Then occasionally we had visits from ENSA, the Forces Entertainments, which we quickly named "Every Night Something Awful" after their initials.

Another great source of entertainment was Billy, our Squadron dog. Billy was a black and white smooth haired terrier who was picked up as a puppy on an abandoned airfield in France, put into the blouse of one of our mechanics and flown back in the Harrows the Squadron were using then, to Doncaster. Billy became a great character and he would walk up Ellers Road where our guardroom was in Doncaster to the bus stop where he would be picked up by the bus crews who got to know Billy, and taken into Doncaster. My first introduction to Billy was at Down Ampney where Phil Niren who looked after Billy, said "Watch this" as Billy came in decidedly off white and settled by the stove in the middle of the billet. Phil picked up the fire bucket, rattled the handle and said "Bath, Billy". I have never seen such a complete change in a dog as he arose tottering, whining in pain and his legs were like rubber as he staggered slowly up the billet until he got near the open window. Then with an athletic bound he was out of the window and gone for the rest of the day! He would never walk to our dispersal which was nearly two miles from our billet. He was an expert cross bar rider and anyone going to the flights only had to say "Come on, Billy" and with a bound he was on the crossbar - paws on the handle bar. Occasionally the big police Alsatians would come down to our dispersal but as soon as they got to "B" Flight Billy was off and barred their paths effectively with growls and bristling hair until they left the site. I would mention at this stage that after fetching stones for four years, Billy had no teeth, they were all worn away. His right ear was torn and a big scar over his nose. When the NAAFI wagon came to our dispersal, there was the usual charge to get into the queue, Billy had to be first and if you tried to pass him he would snap at you with his gums. Very often when we went into the dispersal hut to drink our tea and wads, Billy would be sat on the floor with a piece of cake between his ears, absolutely motionless, until someone would say "Right, Billy" when his head would snap up and the cake caught and consumed. Billy would often go flying and went on one trip to B56 at Brussels. When the Dakota returned, Foster who was supposed to take care of Billy gave the devastating news that Billy had gone AWOL (absent without official leave) from the Brussels airfield. He was missing for about five days when he came trotting down to the apron from where our Dakotas left, pristine white with a large bow of pink ribbon. To this day we do not know where he spent those five days but he did have a smug look of a long time afterwards.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Alan Hartley and has been added to the site with his permission. Alan Hartley fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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