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This is Nicholas Bryan of southmoor community school sunderland entering Les Allisons story onto the website and they fully undestand the website terms and conditions of use.

Most of my flying was done at night (99 percent of it was done at night). I operated from an airfield called Foggia in Italy. I did many flights such as flying to Yugoslavia, Graz in Austria, and Salzburg on the border of Germany, Brescia and Verona in the north of Italy. Italy was divided into the German side in the north and us in the south. Right next to Ravenna is were the line of division was.

Up to and for some months after the Europe War ended on 8th May 1945 (I was posted back to the UK in August 1945) I served as a navigator on 70 Squadron (Liberators) based at Foggia in Southern half of Italy, Allied Forces occupied Italy South of the Senio River Whilst German forces occupied North of Senio River. Our bombing targets ranged from areas in Northern Italy to areas in the Balkans and to reach those targets involved flying in Northern and North Western directions over the Adriatic Sea before returning in the opposite direction. We always returned to the same coastal point North of Foggia at which stage the W OP would take over from the Navigator and guide the pilot by radio over a straight low lying route to base. On one side of his route was (and is) an out area of land with high ground at the central point end with which we were normally not concerned.

There was one occasion, however, on returning from a trip to Pragersko in the Balkans when we received a message as we approached land to the effect that we could not carry out normal procedure of hand over to radio beam because of fog. We were instructed to reduce height while over the sea and then to re-route round the jutting out piece of land eastwards then southwards with a view to approaching base from a safer low lying entry point in the east. The track, for safety reasons, was to be over the sea until eventual decent through the fog.

It was while we were carrying out this exercise, under my directions of course, that crewmembers spotted lights through the fog and below the aircraft. As we were supposed to be out at sea, had I miss calculated? Was this for example some mountain village and were we destined to crash? I had to stick to my guns regardless but otherwise could give no answer. So we continued to fly on my direction.

At the appropriate time - nothing untoward having occurred - I instructed the pilot to turn in a westerly direction and to start descending through the fog on the approach to lower land and our base. What joy there was when the atmosphere cleared and our base lay ahead!

The lights? Just a hospital ship out at sea about which we had not been warned!

I thought oh we鈥檝e had it hear, when we were on the plane, without telling the crew of course because it would be frantic. I had to keep it to my self. I couldn鈥檛 even tell the captain about what was up or else I would be causing panic all over. But I new I was on the right track and we landed fine in the end.

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