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I joined in April 1940 with the Royal Air Force and I flew with 90 Squadron Sing High. I trained at St Athens and then was stationed at Tidenham in Suffolk operating Lancaster bombers. I did 32 bombing raids over Germany. I finished doing that just before the Dresden Raids, I finished in December and the Dresden raids were in February. I was the 2nd pilot, doing all that needed doing.

I nearly got shot down while bombing Germany about four times. A bomb from one of our own planes took off our rear rudder off our plane but we managed to limp home. Another time we got hit by flack and we lost oil and we had to struggle back on one engine.
Another time we lost all our hydraulic fuel, we were over Hamburg at the time and we had to get back to our base at Mildenhall, Suffolk. I never had to bomb Berlin. During my tour I flew with six different crews, my main crew was with 5 Canadians and 1 man from Sheffield. The pilot lost his nerve and had to pack it in. it was hard getting used to different crews but we just had to get on with it.

After that I was posted to Canada, to ferry Lancasters from Montreal to Prestwick. After my stint there I came back and was stationed at Rivenhall in Essex. The war had finished by then and we were flying the mail and morning papers to our troops on the continent.

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