大象传媒

Brian had already made up his mind what he wanted to do when he joined the RAF in January 1943. His father, the RFC equivalent of a flight engineer in the Great War, had approved his choice of the trade of flight mechanic, and Brian鈥檚 service in the Air Training Corps paved the way. Many would-be mechanics never made it to the course at Cosford because, by this time, the army was using its increasingly offensive capacity to raid the untrained ranks of the RAF for soldiers. Happily for Brian, the RAF set more store by its fledgling ATC cadets and he achieved his purpose. After qualifying he worked on a variety of aircraft at different stations, the most important of which were the Lancasters of 115 Squadron at Wychford in East Anglia. Few came back from sorties as immaculate as the state in which he signed them over. The end of the war saw him en route through the Suez canal to Lahore, where he joined a maintenance unit servicing Spitfires and Hurricanes. Then it was home again for Class B release in November 1946

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