Dei Goes To War

The Society was delighted to welcome four friends from its partner organisation in Aachen to its April meeting. The visitors were on a five-day trip to Halifax and were staying with members of the Society.
The Speaker at the meeting was Alan Pugh who gave an interesting account of his father’s life after he moved to Leeds from rural Wales at the start of World War 2.
His father had kept a copious diary which gave a vivid factual account as well as his personal observations of his service in the RAF. After training he became a Halifax Bomber pilot based at Pocklington in East Yorkshire. More than 55,000 members of Bomber Command were killed during the war. Alan’s father was injured when his aircraft was damaged in a raid over Berlin and he was forced to ditch into the North Sea but several of his colleagues on the mission perished. He recovered and was able to return to non-operational duties. He continued his love of flying after the war when he learned to fly gliders.

Geoff Barnes, Publicity Officer

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