They Spread Their Wings (38 page)

Landing at Nivelles airfield, south of Brussels, we were met by RAF trucks and plied with cigarettes and sandwiches before being driven to Brussels for the night. Next day, I and many others were interrogated and even paid and that afternoon I boarded an RAF Dakota which flew to RAF Ford in dear old England. Stepping down from that aeroplane on to the tarmac, we must have looked a pretty sorry sight. A row of huge marquees was set up on the airfield to process us and it was straight into de-lousing, a thorough wash, and my tattered uniform and other rags of clothing were taken away and burned. In another marquee I was issued with a new uniform and other new items of clothing and in yet another tent one of an army of WAAFs sewed on my rank badges – at which point I learned I had been promoted to the exalted rank of Warrant Officer. I was then issued with a rail warrant to RAF Cosford.

Arthur Edgley’s POW record card, which he ‘liberated’ from Stalag Luft IVB in 1945. (Arthur Edgley)

On my way through London lots of people flocked to the train and I was asked if I wanted any telephone messages sending to relatives. There was not much time to spare so I asked one of these ladies if she would phone my family and tell them I was back in England and I gave her some money to make the call. I wondered if this was all just a ‘con’ but it turned out to be absolutely genuine – my mother received a phone call that same day to say I was safe, well and back in England.

Arriving at Cosford, I was issued with more equipment, yet more back pay, a rail warrant and – the best bit of all – nine whole weeks’ leave. I left Cosford at 4pm and arrived at long last at my fiancée’s home in Sutton Bridge on Sunday 19 May 1945. What a home-coming that was! It was not long before I ‘popped the question’ and having asked her father’s permission, Joan and I married on 15 June 1945 in Sutton Bridge. I returned to RAF Cosford at the end of my leave and was posted to RAF Wittering but I had lots more leave thereafter – I was at home more than with the RAF – and was finally ‘de-mobbed’ in March 1946.

After the war Arthur returned to farming and, under a government scheme, was able to take up a smallholding consisting of 40 acres of arable land and a house where he has been content to remain ever since.

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Other publications:

Air Link
, Magazine of Lincolnshire Aviation Society

Flight
(magazine) digital archive

Lincolnshire Free Press
and
Spalding Guardian

The London Gazette

The Times
digital archive

A selection of records in The National Archives has been consulted:

RAF Form 540s for the following: AIR 26 Wings; AIR 27 Squadrons; AIR 50 Squadron Combat Reports

AIR 76 First World War Personnel Records

Extracts from IS9 post-war debrief interview documents dated 29/8/1945

Crown copyright material appears by permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.

Internet sources consulted:

www.tactical-airpower.tripod.com
– No 2 TAF and the Normandy Campaign by Paul Johnson

www.tangmerepilots.co.uk
– on the Normandy Campaign

www.pprune.org
– for facilitating contact with Peter Brett

www.luftwaffe.cz
– for information on aces of the Luftwaffe

www.cwgc.org
– for information about airmen casualties

home.clara.net.clinchy/neeball.htm
(
www.belgiumww2.info
) – for information from
Escape and Evasion in Wartime Belgium
(© John Clinch, 2004)

Dying to Fly: The Human Cost of Military Flying, East Midlands
(2010)

Balloons, Bleriots and Barnstormers: 200 Years of Flying for Fun
(2009)

Cover illustrations. Front, clockwise from top left
: Flying Officer Jack Cheney, pilot with No 25 Squadron, Church Fenton, 1943 (J. Cheney Collection); Howard Clark tries out a Bf 109 for size, Tunisia, 1943 (Clark Collection); No 6 Squadron Hurricane IIDs, Tunisia, 6 April 1943 (Via Martyn Chorlton).

First published in 2013

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