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This story is submitted by Helen Hughes of the People's War team in Wales on behalf of Eddie Gurmin, and is added to the site with his permission.

I was 18 years old and was working in a gents outfitters shop in Tredegar when the war started. As soon as war was declared I volunteered for the air force on the 15th November 1939 I left Newport and went up by train to a place called Padgate up near Warrington where I did seven weeks foot and rifle drill square bashing there. And I’d volunteered to become a wireless operator and in January 1940 I left Padgate and went down to a camp called Yatesbury in Wiltshire which was a big wireless school. I was there for six months on the wireless course. And while you were on the wireless course they came round asking for volunteers to become air gunners. So I volunteered to become an air gunner and after I’d finished my wireless course I went to Stormy Down Porthcawl, that’s where the air gunners trained. I was there for a month at the air gunners school…when that finished I went up to a place called Kinloss in Scotland…operational training unit. I was there for three months and when I left Kinloss I went down to an aerodrome called Dishforth near York …it was a grass drome where they had Whitleys…number 51 sqn and 78 sqn Whitleys and I started flying from Dishforth. January 1941 a crowd of us were picked out from amongst those there and were sent up to Ringway in Manchester where they were practicing dropping parachutists, British parachutists. We practiced dropping these parachutists and then we flew them out to Malta…it was a 12 hour trip to get out to Malta — we took eight Whitleys out there and we took 36 parachutists …we got to Malta and the following night we left Malta, flew over Italy and dropped 35 parachutists at a place called Tregino…there was an aquaduct there and these parachutists blew the aquaduct up — quite succesful it was actually….Then we flew back to Malta but our plane was damaged by bombs and we had to get it repaired by hand, so I was in Malta for three weeks. I came back home, back to Dishforth.

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