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My father was Ernest (Chalky) White and he joined the RAF in March 1939 as an Aero Carpenter. After basic training at RAF Dishforth he was posted to RAF Tangmere where he remained until September 1940. My mother, Betty Green, was born in London and her father relocated the family home to Chichester in 1938 when he realised that war was inevitable.

From her back garden, Bet and her family watched the RAF and the German Fighter planes scrap high in the skies over Sussex during that memorable summer of 1940. The rat-tat of the machine guns was clearly audible. Bet once accompanied her mother by bus to a hospital appointment near Tangmere. The bus arrived at the hospital at the same time as the Luftwaffe and the bus driver evacuated his passengers for them to cower behind a wall as bombing began. Amid the explosions and turmoil a sister emerged from the hospital and urged them to run for cover to the building. The sister implored them to hurry; but the pace of Bet’s mother was rather pedestrian due to her age. One day Chalky went to Brighton for a one day leave pass and he returned to a devastated Tangmere as on that very day the base was hit by a particularly heavy bombing raid. During one air raid a paperboy and his bicycle were in the vicinity but never seen again; the assumption was that he was blown to bits.

One day in early September 1940 Betty went on a double blind date arranged by a girlfriend. One of the two guys was Chalky White and he and Bet hit it off immediately. The other two were less enamoured in what became their first and last date. Bet and Chalks made a date to meet a few days later and said goodnight in Chichester town as Chalky had a long walk back to Tangmere. However, Bet turned up for the date but Chalks didn’t and so she thought ‘that’s an end to that’.

Several days later; for some reason Bet decided to walk home — rather than take the bus as usual - from where she worked as a hairdresser in Chichester. As she passed the TocH club; out stepped Chalks with another airman. Bet recognised him but walked on without speaking. He chased after her and apologised for breaking the date. He told her that there had been a raid on Tangmere the evening of their date and all leave had been cancelled — not knowing the address he had been unable to contact her. And then he said ‘I have been posted and I am leaving Tangmere tomorrow for Blackpool — would you mind if I write to you’. Bet said ‘Yes’ and gave her address thinking that it probably would not happen. But Chalks did write and travelled to visit her in Chichester whenever he obtained leave.

Chalks popped the question by letter and they were married in July 1941. They did not actually live together as man and wife until December 1946 and Bet spent the war years at the family home in Chichester. In September 1942 I was born and my brother Alan arrived in June 1944. Bet travelled to a maternity home at Hindhead in Surrey for Alan’s birth. Pre-war the hospital had been the home of the Woolworth Heiress (Barbara Hutton I believe). Anyway, in June 1944 Bet lay awake at night listening to the sound of the V1 pilotless bombs flying overhead. One night shortly after she arrived home with Alan there was an air raid and her father told her to leave her bed and shelter under the iron table that resided in the front room. She told him ‘for three weeks I lay awake at night listening to the sound of the V bombs passing overhead; so I am certainly not going down now’. Just then there was the sound of an enormous explosion fairly close by. Bet was out of bed like a rocket scooping up Alan in a trice and the whole family shot down the stairs to the shelter. Bet’s lasting memory of the moment is that of her parent’s legs sticking out from under the shelter as they wriggled desperately in their attempts to get under it.

In late 1941 Chalky was posted to Singapore; but his Commanding Officer said ‘You are too useful here and I cannot let you go’. So another airman was sent in his place. Years later, Chalks and Bet viewed the book of remembrance in London and the name of his substitute was recorded in the pages.

In June 1942 Chalky attended a course at RAF Locking where he remustered as Carpenter, Boat Builder. He remained at Locking as an Instructor before serving at RAF Alness and RAF Calshot. At Calshot he was promoted to Technical Sergeant and also attended an AID course at RAF Filton where he qualified as an Inspector on RAF marine craft. From July 1944 to Dec 1946 Chalky served at various RAF bases in India including: Colombo (Ceylon or Sri Lanka as it is known today), Karachi (in Pakistan today) and Bombay.

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