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Mrs J.Savory told this story to Bedworth Library Staff…

Albert Edward White was my first husband; he was born in 1920 in Bedworth.
He joined the RAF as a volunteer before the war, as he had been a
weekend flyer at Ansty aerodrome in the RAFVR. At the start of the war he was called up straight away, he had the choice of being either a fighter or a bomber pilot; he chose bomber command. At the start of the was he was sent to Cambridge where he was billeted at Immanuel College.,
He got his ‘wings’ in August 1940, and then transferred to the 75th New Zealand Squadron at Feltwell near Ely. Ironically on 14th November 1940 he was on operations over Berlin whilst Coventry was being bombed.
On one occasion his plane was hit and it knocked the toilet and so all the residue had to be collected (by hand). Ugh!

One time I went to Feltwell, Albert didn’t meet me off the train, but sent one of his aircraftmen. I was staying at a cottage (nearby) and they took me to the airfield to watch them leave for the raid, I didn’t know whether he would come back.

One evening I was at home (in Bedworth) I had a phone call from my husband, who was in Somerset. He said ‘I’m ringing you in case the Air Ministry contact you. We had to land on Exmoor, and a farmer had rounded us up, thinking we were Germans’. He told me that they were all OK except
Pilot Officer Jelly, who had died when his parachute got caught on the end of
the plane.

If Albert could get a training flight to Bramcote, he used to fly over Bedworth
(en route) and waggle the wings of the plane, everyone in Bedworth knew
this… He was an instructor at Bramcote when the Polish squadron was there, during 1941.

Albert died in 1947.

The story of the 75th Squadron is in the book ‘Forever strong — the story of the 75th Squadron RNZAF’ by Norman Franks.

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