Night Fighter Navigator

Having completed his training he was posted to 219 Squadron flying the night-fighter version of the Beaufighter from Tangmere in 1941\. As a navigator, he became part of a two-man team that would endure throughout his first operational tour. In those infant day of radar interception he honed his skills in the night skies above southern England and the English Channel but without a firm kill. On 12 February 1942, he and his pilot were instructed to pick up a brand new aircraft and deliver it to North Africa, flying via Gibraltar, a hazardous flight at extreme range. In March the crew were posted to 1435 Flight of 89 Squadron with the task of defending the besieged island of Malta. The four Beaufighters of the flight flew into an horrific scenario of almost constant bombing raids by the Luftwaffe and Italian Air Force. Because of these raids the damage to aircraft on the ground was devastating and the Flight was often reduced