大象传媒

This story is submitted by Norman Davies, a navigator with 117 Squadron in Burma...and is submitted to the site with his permission. At the end of the war Squadron 117 was disbanded and Norman DAvies was posted to 215 Sqdn in Singapore

We went down to Singapore as a crew and we were now based in Singapore and it was more or less passenger flying. We used to fly to Saigon and all those lovely places....so it got a bit boring. The war was over, you felt you wanted to get home....and you were flying these VIPs around South East Asia. Then on 4th February 1946 I was taken off flying duties and was posted to HQ 232 Group in Singapore onto the personnel staff 鈥� and that was even more boring. Then on 1st May I got myself a posting as the navigation briefing officer to Bangkok where my war ended really. There was a fellow officer also going to Bangkok, and we felt, in our wisdom that we didn't want to fly because we'd have to leave some of our kit in Singapore 鈥� things we'd bought during our time there. So we decided to see if we could get a tramp steamer going up the Gulf of Siam to Bangkok. So we went down to the docks in Singapore and we found a ship that was sailing in a couple of days...so we asked the captain if he could take two passengers....he could. So we embarked on this little steamer and had five glorious days sailing up the East coast of Malaya through the Gulf of Siam and into Bangkok. We got into Bangkok in the early evening of a Saturday. We couldn't dock that night we had to lay off outside. And that night the King of Siam was assassinated...which we didn't know that night but when we docked the next day the balloon had gone up, the word was out that the King had been shot in his palace the previous night, and of course absolute pandemonium had broken out. There was a sort of military coup. So the whole country was in mourning for well, weeks and everything virtually closed down in Siam. The King was succeeded by his younger brother. There were only two boys and the younger brother ascended the throne. But obviously his life was also greatly in danger because if they'd got rid of one they had to get rid of the other. So it was arranged that he would be flown out to Switzerland...and in fact he spent the next twenty odd years in Switzerland. But to get him out we had to be very careful that we got him out safely....the British was the responsible authority. A plane came out from the UK ...specifically to fly him out from Bangkok to Switzerland. It was a York plane, a very big converted bomber with a VIP crew on board, and we knew they were coming...and prior to their arrival we were asked by the CO 鈥� the met man and I 鈥� to prepare a flight plan to fly him safely out of Bangkok because the monsoon was quite at its height at the time. Well we prepared our flight plan, we submitted it to the authorities and a few days later we were called in by the CO who said 鈥淚'm afraid your flight plan boys is no good because the royal astrologer has decreed something quite different鈥� and instead of flying south west as we had wanted out of Bangkok the King had to fly due North....and instead of taking off very early in the morning, he had to fly out at precisely 12 noon....which in fact he did, and a very emotional day it was for the people in Siam. The plane took off safely and he arrived safely in Switzerland.

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