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I was called up for service at the end of 1940 soon after my 20th Birthday. I went to join the RAF at Padgate, Warrington from my home in Preston, Lancashire. I had 2 brothers in the army, one in the navy, one in the RAF and one in a reserved occupation. I was first sent on a short commando type training course at Browns Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. This was my first taste of living in bell tents, something I was going to become very familiar with over the coming years. I had been told at Padgate that I was going to be a flight mechanic so I was next sent to Hednesford, Stafford on an engineering course. The course lasted about 6 months. Before I joined the RAF I had played saxophone and clarinet in a local dance band so I joined the RAF band. This gave me extra weekend leave passes which I used to hitch hike home to Preston to see my girlfriend, later to be my wife. Late one Sunday night returning back to camp through woods I thought the Germans had landed! It turned out to be a large group of Polish airmen who had arrived over the weekend, chattering away in foreign tongue. My only other memory of the camp was ‘kitbag hill’, the long climb up to the camp from the railway and the unbearable state of the toilets.

My first active posting was to Feltwell in Norfolk with 75NZ squadron which flew Wellington bombers. I was a flight mechanic and stayed there for a while before going on a fitters course to Cosford near Wolverhampton on an engine fitters course. Whilst I was here was married in Preston and brought my new wife down to Cosford for our honeymoon.

I returned to Feltwell as an engine fitter 2E. The Wellingtons had been replaced with Mosquitoes, The flight crews supplemented with Australians and we started a nomadic life as the squadron advanced in support of D Day preparations. We moved to Gravesend and then on to Thorney Island near Hastings. We lived in bell tents and would do so until the end of the war. We were now part of 140 wing British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). One mission I remember was to Amiens in Northern France to help rescue some of our pilots who had been shot down and captured. They were being held in a chateau by Gestapo. Information and assistance from the French resistance arranged for the captives to attend mass in the catholic chapel at one corner of the building whilst the squadron precision bombed the Germans in the opposite wing.