大象传媒

I am listening to the remembrance service festival in November 2003 and I know what I will write about. It was long ago in those war years. I was a WAAF and stationed at Woolfox Lodge near Rutland and my position was shorthand typist for the unit 1665 HCU and our aircraft were Lancasters, we were training crews to fly them. Our band of instructors were flyers who had already done a tour of ops.

One morning my office door opened and Flt Lt Skinner DFC walked in, he was the wireless operator instructor. He sat down and said: 鈥� Paddy would you write a letter for me if I do a draft鈥�, of course the answer was yes. He handed me a sheet of paper addressed to a family in Australia. It was to tell them why their son would not be going home. You see he was Flt Sgt Middleton, the Captain of Skinners crew. They had been to Turin in Italy in a Stirling on a raid and were hit by anti aircraft fire, most of them were injured but the Captain somehow coaxed the damaged plane to the English coast when he told the crew to bale out and he turned 鈥淗鈥� for Harry out to sea to avoid crashing on the houses below them. His body and two of the crews was later washed ashore and lies buried in a little churchyard with a white cross and a stone wall that breaks the wind as it sweeps in from the sea. Flt Sgt Middleton was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously as one of the greatest Captains whom any aircrew has had the honour to fly with.

It was a letter that I was so proud to type and send to that grieving family in Australia I shall never forget.

The postscript regrettably is that about a year later at the time of Arnhem I was sitting working in the office when a notice came through from HQ. Regret that Wing Commander Harrison and Flt Lt Skinner killed in action at Arnhem carrying petrol supplies in Stirling Mk IV, plane exploded, no survivors.

They went because the squadron was short of experienced crewmen, so we sadly said goodbye to a brave pilot and wireless operator.

Going back to the WAAF site that evening, across the runway instead of round the perimeter track I suddenly realised that a thunderous roar was approaching, it was a 鈥淟anc鈥� on take off. I dropped my bike and lay flat, scared stiff, and that gorgeous great black shape rose a few feet off the ground before me and took off into the starry sky. I dusted myself off and went on my way back to our hut. Another day was over.

LACW Ivy Pritchard
Service Number 463403

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