大象传媒

White buildings, olive groves, rough limestone roads; so this was to be our Italy.
It was March 1944. We had trained as Pathfinders with 8 Group Pathfinders in UK where we were selected to become part of 614 Pathfinder Squadron based in southern Italy.
I and my crew had flown our Halifax into the Foggia area and discovered our squadron to be part of the famous 205 Group of the RAF. Thunderous gunfire from 8th Army forces to the north of us, could be heard rolling incessantly across the countryside.
September 1941 had seen me become a member of the RAAF in Perth Western Australia. Pilot training at Pearce, Cunderdin and Geraldton airbases was followed by ship travel to UK. We were forty West Australian pilots who had left behind an Australia frantically throwing her resources into defence against the onslaught of a relentless Japanese attack from the north.
Our journey to the UK gave us a terrifying ordeal in the Carribean and it showed us firsthand what this war was about. Later our ship joined a convoy which was then attacked by submarines in the North Atlantic. We arrived in an England that was on her knees because of the submarine stranglehold on her shipping.
Being given an RAF Oxford aircraft to pilot around England brought me in touch with vastly different flying conditions compared to Australia. I became lost in difficult weather conditions once. A landing where I shouldn't have been enlightened me as to where I should have been. My airbase at Grove near Wantage was just ten miles or so away. How embarrassing that was. I was given the "Order of the Irremovable Finger" and my adventure was suitably laughed at until a fellow pilot tried to take off with his tail plane still locked.
Another event impressed me with the stoic nature of British people. I was flying low along a particular length of the Thames. It was sprintime and a holiday for British workers. The sight of the Thames lined with people dressed in gay colours and out to make the most of the WWII holiday did my heart good.