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After the Italian armistice was signed, the 55th ‘Night Intruders’ squadron I was a pilot with were posted near the North Dolomites of Italy. We became newspaper delivery boys of the air! Our missions were simply to fly over the 8000 foot mountains, dive down the other side, fly over our forces in Austria at low level and push bundles and bundles of newspapers out of the rear doors. We couldn’t land because the airfield there had been bombed, so we’d just get as low as possible and drop the bundles. We were used to this kind of daring, low level flying, having undertaken many night time, low level bombing runs of German positions before they surrendered or retreated from the Italian area. Needless to say the bundles often broke open and scattered newspapers all over the place! The day before my birthday we also took part in a mock bombing run as part of a show in Trieste. Winston Churchill himself was in the audience, watching us re-enacting the manoeuvres we’d completed for real so many times before, the night before my twenty-second birthday. Another memory I’m proud to have.

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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