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In 1939 I was 23 and was established in my career as a carpenter having gained my City and Guilds qualifications, but when war was declared that year my life changed along with so many others when I found myself training to be a fighter pilot. A new life of discipline lay ahead.

It all started at Uxbridge where I did my initial training to become an A.C.2 I then joined the RAF at Meir, Stoke-on- Trent in 1940 and took my first solo flight in a Magester. Shortly after that flight I was given one weeks leave which I spent in Pimlico, London where my mother lived. I caught flu and was too late to continue with my original group and was sent to Liverpool where, amidst great secrecy, joined a group destined to be sent to Canada for further training because facilities in England were so over stretched that some training had to take place overseas.

In March 1941 we boarded the S.S.Georgic and weighed anchor to be joined by two cruisers and a destroyer. We had heard of the Battle of the Atlantic and of U-boats hunting in packs and saw wrecked ships strewn along the banks of the Mersey as we headed out towards the Atlantic with an escort of Hurricanes overhead. There were eventually 21 vessels in the convoy with 13 escorts…so we were clearly classified as important!

Having never travelled abroad it was an unbelievable adventure to stand on deck each day and look across the stretch of water which encompassed our convoy and its escort vessels. They looked so efficient. H.M.S. Revenge eventually joined us and it stayed with us for the rest of the journey --- this great battle cruiser within hailing distance. Her sister ships were H.M.S. Ramilles, Renown and Repulse were four of the Navy’s ‘ heavies’ and we had one all to ourselves.

To me, the battle cruiser typified all that our country stood for and here we were at war fighting for our survival. I wished that my father could have been standing beside me, such was his patriotism.

It took a week to cross the Atlantic without any casualties and an escort of three Stranraer seaplanes and a Canadian destroyer met us. We docked in Nova Scotia, then on by train to Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan – ‘Prairie Country’ and finally reached No. 32 S.F.T.S. (Services Flying Training School) where we trained on Harvards. We qualified as Sergeants and were given our R.C.A.F. wings, which we wore with much pride. We were now anxious to get back to England to ‘ get on with the job’.

After two months of training we left Halifax and sailed on an armed merchant cruiser in a large convoy, travelling slowly as some of the ships had been damaged, making us sitting targets. Eventually we skipped the convoy to go to Iceland where we waited impatiently for three weeks at Allafoss before being taken by two Irish steamers to reach Gouloch on the West Coast of England. We had survived the journey. Finally we took the train to Bournemouth arriving to the sound of air raid sirens and a town in blackout --- so different from the country we had left where all was light and no rationing of any kind. But we were home.

I was sent to 56 O.T.U. (Operational Training Unit) at Sutton Bridge to continue my training on Hurricanes.

Four of us were sent to join No. 257 Burma Squadron at Cottersall near Norwich to learn to fly as a squadron. During the first week our Sq./ Leader was killed by enemy action.
We became operational in August 1941. During my stay here we switched to Typhoons having briefly flown Spitfires.

On a more personal note I was able to visit my mother who had now gone to live with her sisters in a tiny village in Norfolk called Holme – next – the – Sea where my brother Roy and I had stayed as boys. It pleased my mother that I dipped my wings as I flow over the village. Unfortunately during the war my mother became ill here and died.

There followed many changes of Aerodrome all over England and I recorded my experiences in my memoirs of 135 pages, it seems only practical to, record an excerpt here.

I finally became a Ft/Lt and my flights are recorded in my logbook, which I read from time to time. Being a fighter pilot brought conflict but companionship -------the like of which I shall never forget------making lasting friends was not easy------so many never came back-----the average life of a fighter pilot was 6-8 weeks so I was one of the lucky ones. Perhaps that is why I have since been considered something of a ‘ loner ‘. One tried to avoid the experience of loss. There are many good memories—the bad ones I try to forget, but I never can.

Finally after many operational flights, which caused me to be sent off sick, I was sent to Cranwell as an Instructor and it is here that I flew Tiger Moths.

In1945 I was discharged from the RAF at Uxbridge------------it was here that it had all began, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

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In 1998 I received a letter addressed to Ft/Lt Hill…for over 50 years I had never been addressed like this.

I had been tracked down and invited to a reunion at Hope Cove, Bolt Head near Salcombe, which is where I was stationed in 1943. We didn’t know it at the time, but Bolt Head was a forward airfield to give maximum flying time over the Channel and into France. It also had the technologically advanced Radar System, which played a vital part in combating the Luftwaffe and the planning of the D-Day Landings. It is now apparent that our role was to defend this important base. The reunion in 1998 was to recognise the importance of this Airfield and a plaque now commemorates the significance of those days.

I am a member of The AirCrew Association and in 2002 we were asked if we could make a contribution to the’ Museum of Aviation History in Canada’ which was being build in Moose Jaw. Because I had been stationed there I sent along my ‘ memoirs’. I was so pleased that my contribution was the first to be accepted and for his I received a certificate and two medallions. These medallions, which embody an emblem of the moose, were the first to be struck. They mean so much to me.

Finally I would like to pay tribute to my brother Roy who joined the RAF at about the same time as i did. In retrospect it must have been hard for my mother to loose both of her children to the RAF so suddenly…what a story she could have told.
Strangely the same instructor taught both my brother and me but at different times and in different places.
My brother’s war took him to South Africa as the pilot of Sunderland flyingboats. His wife, Vera, was left behind to care for a young baby son. That son, Brian, is now of course a grown man and because I lack the expertise to use modern technology, he has kindly offered to put this on the ‘Web’.

My name is John Hill and I will end as we always start at our Air Crew meetings, ‘TO ABSENT FRIENDS’

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