We occasionally were favoured by visits from senior officers from 4 Group Headquarters in York, down to see the boys off on a raid and to wish them luck. One welcome visitor was always our Group Air Commodore, ‘Gus’ Walker. ‘Gus’ had achieved some fame in civvy street through being an international scrum half for England. Earlier in the War he had badly damaged one arm when pulling an aircrew member out of a blazing bomber on the ground. I was first introduced to ‘Gus’ just after I had come back from my four days of leave in Oxford to see my new second son. It was many weeks later before I saw the Air Commodore again. He walked across the tarmac when he spotted me. ‘Hello, Kilpatrick,’ he said. ‘How’s the new baby?’ I thought that was pretty good, that he should remember one name among the hundreds he must be hearing over the weeks, and should remember the baby’s arrival too. Some people simply have this thing, that they can remember without having to jot it down and look it up just before it might be useful! But this was genuine. Many years later I met ‘Gus’ Walker again. He was now a retired Air Vice Marshal. The occasion was a rather special day at the RAF Station, Finningley. Her Majesty the Queen was visiting the Station and an air display had been arranged to which, among other important guests, the national Chairman of the British Red Cross Society had been invited. This was Sir Evylyn Shuckburgh, and he had been unable to accept the invitation. From 1975 to 1982 I was President of the South Yorkshire Branch of the BRCS and as the national Chairman was unable to attend the Finningley party I was asked to step in and take his place and to represent the Society. So Margaret and I duly appeared with our invitations, to be received as important guests, lunched in the VIP marquee, and given places for the flying display in the wooden grandstand not many yards from where the Queen was more comfortably seated. This was the notorious occasion on which Fred Mulley, our Sheffield Labour MP, then Minister of Defence, nodded off to sleep in the presence of Her Majesty just a seat or two away! We were in the row behind them and just a few yards away, so were able to enjoy it all. But to get back to ‘Gus’ Walker. To my surprise he spotted me and came across the grass on which Margaret and I were standing. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You’re the Sheffield steelmaker, aren’t you?’ He had originally asked me about my civvy job when he first met me in1944. This was Friday, July 29th 1977!


And back now to Full Sutton. 77 Squadron was called on for a raid on the afternoon of March 15th on an oil refinery at Bottrop, right in the heart of the Ruhr. It looked like an easy one – the Allied front on the ground had been advancing rapidly eastwards under the commands of Montgomery and the American General Patton. For us, it meant a flight of only twelve minutes or so each way over defended enemy territory – a veritable piece of cake for an experienced crew like ours. It would be my twenty-third sortie, and the twenty-


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