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Officer (Acting Flt. Lt.) Bill Anderson flew with 16 Squadron from 1943 until the
war was over. He trained in Georgia, USA, before becoming attached
to 16 Squadron at Benson, flying missions over France and Germany.
Bill flew many different types of aircraft beginning with a PT17 Stearman
in the USA; others include Tiger Moths, Typhoons, Tempest, Harvards,
Lysanders, Hurricanes and Oxfords.
Air Marshall Sir
Alfred (Freddy) Ball, KCB DSO DFC attended RAF College, Cranwell in 1939
and joined 13 Squadron in France in March 1940 on Lysanders (Army
Co-operation). He joined No. 1 PRU Benson early in 1941 on Spitfires.
He commanded 4 PRU (later 682 Squadron) as Squadron Leader in October
1942 and flew out to North Africa for Operation Torch, the Allied
landings, flying Spitfires. He was posted to the UK as CF1, 8PR,
OTU Dyce, Aberdeen in September 1943 and took over 542 Squadron
Benson in March 1944 (PR Spitfire Mk XIs and XIXs). In September
he was promoted to Wing Commander and given command of No. 540 Squadron
flying Mosquito 16s and 32s. The Squadron moved to France early
in 1945 to support the Allied armies. In December, Freddy was posted
to Egypt to take command of No. 680 PR Squadron (later to become
13 Squadron), flying Mosquitoes and Spitfires. He was posted to
Staff AHQ East Africa in 1946 and retired from the RAF in April
1979.
Flying Officer Arthur
H. Brace joined the RAF in 1941.
After pre-elementary training he went to Canada for flying training,
in Neepawa and Moosejaw, gaining his wings in October 1942. Arthur
then went on to General Reconnaissance School on Prince Edward Island.
On return to the UK he completed an Operational Training course
at Dyce, Scotland, and was posted to Benson in September 1943, where,
whilst awaiting posting to a PR Squadron, he joined No. 309 FT &
ADU which was concerned with supplying the latest marks of PR Spitfires
to our overseas squadrons; during this time Arthur ferried aircraft
to Italy & India. He joined No. 542 PR Squadron in August 44
and remained with it until August 1945. He then spent a short time
at Celle, Germany where injuries incurred in a road accident in
March 1946 put paid to any further flying. He left the RAF in August
1946.
Wing Commander James
Gordon Cole DFC joined the RAF in 1938 and had his initial training at Reading,
Uxbridge and Montrose. He then went to France with No. 13 Squadron,
returning in May 1940. After a spell with 231 Squadron in Northern
Ireland he then went by destroyer (HMAS Nestor) to Egypt to join
2 PRU until early 1944. He was then posted as Liaison Officer with
PR Group, USAAF at Chalgrove, and subsequently flew P-38s (Lightning)
on sorties over the D-Day beaches. La Rochelle, amongst others.
Wing Commander Edward
(Tim) Fairhurst DFC received
a pre-war commission in the TA and volunteered to switch to the
RAF in May 1940, and trained for Lysanders. In October 1941 he was
posted to D Flight No. 1 PRU (Spitfires), which later became No.
541 Squadron. In September 1942 he flew to Russia as OC PRU detachment
and operated there with red star markings in place of RAF roundels.
He was promoted to Squadron Leader, converted to Mosquitoes and
posted across the airfields as OC A Flight 544 Squadron. In September
1944 he was posted back to 541 Squadron (Spitfires) as CO and remained
there until the end of the war.
Squadron Leader Frank
(Jerry) Fray DFC volunteered
to join the RAF in 1940 and commenced his flying training in the
summer of 1941 at Hullavington, Wiltshire. Following training on
Benson, Oxfordshire in 1942. His first operation was to Den Helder
in July 1942. On 15th May 1943 (his 36th Op.) he flew to take photographs
of the dams from 30,000 feet. He returned to the Mohne, Eder and
Sorpe dams on 17th May to photograph the damage inflicted by 617
Squadron.
P/O Peter
Harding joined the University of
London Air Squadron in 1937, Flying Tutors, Harts and Hinds. He
received a VR commission in June 1939 and was prohibited from joining
up. In his reserved occupation as metallurgical student at the Royal
School of Mines he failed his exam in 1940 and then wrote to the
Air Ministry saying 'failed exam - call me up'. By return post he
was told 'get medical, get uniform'. He was put through his training
period and passed out in Lysander in 227 Squadron. He was converted
to Spitfires by Wing Commander Tuttle and then to 3 PRU Oakington
and later to Benson. During his 23rd op his engine stopped over
Wilhelmhaven and he had to bail out. He was a POW from August 1941
to May 1945. After his discharge VJ+1, he returned to his studies.
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Flight Lieutenant Julian
Lowe DFC joined the RAF in 1941 having escaped from a reserved occupation,
and, after I.T., he was sent to Southern Rhodesia to learn to fly
on Tiger Moths and Harvards. From there he went to 74 OTU in Palestine
flying Hurricanes. He was posted to 2 PRU (later 680 Squadron) in
Cairo and completed 86 ops. over North Africa, Greece and the Aegian.
He was awarded the DFC in March 1944 and returned to the UK to join
542 Squadron at Benson in October 1944, where he did a further 30
ops over Germany before the war in Europe ended. After a short period
in the RAFVR, he joined No. 6 Air Experience Flight and flew Chipmunks
for 26 years logging some 2,000 hours on that aircraft.
Flight Lieutenant Gwyn
Parry DFC was
called up from Oxford University Air Squadron in August 1941 and
was commissioned after completion of training in Canada in June
1942. After a navigation course at Squires Gate and PR, OTU he joined
140 Squadron based at Hartfordbridge and later Northolt. The operations
he undertook on Spitfires were mostly at high level (up to 34,000
feet) over France and the Low Countries, but also some in Mosquitoes
at 12,000 feet over French pre-invasion beaches.
Flight Lieutenant Ray
Raby joined the RAFVR in 1940. His
flying training began in the USA, where he was retained as an instructor
with both USAF and RAF wings. He qualified on his return for an
Air Navigators Certificate. He was posted to 519 Squadron, Wick,
on Spitfires prior to joining 542 Squadron, Benson PRU unit with
Jerry Fray as Flight Commander. In 1943, he was posted to Benson
and survived 58 operational sorties until he was demobbed on 1946.
In 1947 he joined 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron, Raux AF, Honiley
on Vampire and Meteor jet aircraft as flight commander until disbandment
in 1957. His total hours flown is 3,265.
Squadron Leader T.
N. Rosser OBE DFC volunteered
for pilot training early in 1940. After training in England he was
commissioned and flew with Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons in England
and Bengal from August 1941 until December 1942, when he joined
No. 3 PRU (later redesignated 681 Squadron) in Calcutta for photographic
reconnaissance operations in Japanese-occupied Burma, Thailand,
and the Andaman Islands. (At that time the squadron was equipped
with converted Hurricanes and North American B25's, and three PR
Spitfires, the only Spitfires of any kind in India. A year or so
later it had a full complement of Spitfire Mk X1's and 684 Squadron,
equipped with Mosquitoes, had been formed.) After his operational
tour ended in July 1944, he commanded the PR training Flight in
74 OTU in Palestine until VE Day when the OTU was disbanded. He
later formed and led a temporary squadron of Spitfire fighter/bombers
based in Egypt for internal security duties in the Middle East.
He was demobilized in late 1946 after administrative appointments
in Air HQ Egypt, and at Cranwell.
Flight Lieutenant Jimmy
Taylor joined the RAF in 1941, received
his pilot training in the USA under the Arnold Scheme and instructed
American cadets on the Vultee BT-13a from 1942 to '43. He took the
PRU OTU course at Dyce and joined 16 Squadron, part of 34 PR Wing
in 2nd Tactical Air Force, at Northolt in August 1944, flying blue
Spitfire X1s and pink Spitfire IXs. He moved with the Squadron to
A12 airstrip in Normandy, then to the airfield at Amiens - Glisy
and at the end of September, to Melsbroek airfield outside Brussels.
On 19 November, he suffered engine failure over Germany, baled out
and landed in a field in Holland. After evading capture for five
days he reached the Rhine, but was spotted by an alert German Officer
and spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft 1 on the Baltic. He
returned to instructing, on Harvards, until he was demobilized in
1946. Thereafter, he followed a career in education. In 1989, he
took up gliding and found it more challenging than flying with an
engine. In 1990, he learned from a Dutch archivist that four Dutchmen
had been executed as a result of his landing in their village. This
was a great shock and he returns to Holland each year to lay a wreath
on their Memorial.
Flight Lieutenant W.
G. A. White volunteered for the
RAF in January 1940, aged 19. He trained as a Wop/Ag and from October
of that year, flew on 86 operational flights in Lockheed Hudsons
of 206 and 279 Squadrons of Coastal Command, totaling 923 operational
flying hours. On one occasion, in November 1941, after successfully
bombing and sinking one of three German mine sweepers off Ushant
at low level, the port engine caught fire from the intensive return
barrage from all three ships. "With the pilot, Sgt. John Whitfield
DFM, of 206, we somehow managed to make it back to Predannock in
Cornwall, smoking all the way!" Commissioned in may 1942, and
after an official suggestion, as a result of his operation experience,
he volunteered to fly Spitfires without guns. Qualifying as a PR
pilot, he joined 682 Photographic Recognizance Squadron in May 1945
at San Severo, Italy, where he took part in high level photography
up until VE Day in Mark XIs. In August 1945 he became Staff Photographic
Officer for Desert Air Force until his discharge in 1946.
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