My late father, Howard Scott, was 19 years old when he joined the RAF in 1941. He was brought up in Bentley, Doncaster, attended Doncaster Grammar School for boys and was a Deputy Headmaster at the local primary school (which he had attended as a boy) for over 20 years. Originally training in a Gypsy Moth, he flew more than 20 different kinds of aircraft during his career; however, as a pilot in 99 Squadron, he flew Wellington Bombers and Dakota transport and reconnaissance planes in DC3 Unit. He was a modest and retiring man, reluctant to talk of his wartime service, and we have pieced together his story from half told reminiscences and the accounts that his comrades have given us. We think that he felt guilty that he survived the conflict when so many perished during the war and he refused to accept his medals on discharge. My mother sent away for them and having had them framed, she hung them up on the wall, without telling him. Later he took them down and buried them in the back garden where they probably remain today. He flew out of various airfields in Lincolnshire and both Finningley and Lindholme, near Doncaster. At first, he was involved in bombing raids over Germany, flying over occupied Holland enroute. On one fateful occasion as his squadron returned, they were attacked and decimated. My father saw other pilots bailing out and being shot in the skies, killed before they landed. His plane was damaged; only flying one engine, he decided not to bail out and to try to get his crew safely home. As the pilot, he was the only member of the crew to be issued with a parachute and a service revolver. On return to East Anglia (at this time he was based at Moreton-in -the Marsh), the plane crash landed and burst into flames. Badly injured with a broken back, only my dad and the navigator his best friend, Paddy Benson, survived. Following recuperation, Paddy Benson and my father were posted to ACSEA and stationed in Chaklala Rawalpindi, India for the remainder of the war. He was once mistaken for a contemporary ...