Leo Hatcher shares his memories as a young Royal Air Force (RAF) conscript in 1947 aged eighteen. With an older brother already in the RAF as an engine fitter, Leo was inspired to do the same. He instead became an airframe technician, or ‘rigger’, on the Sunderland flying boats (also known as the Short Sunderland). Stationed at Finkenwerder near Hamburg, Germany, supporting the Allied Forces’ post-war operations in June 1948, he recalls witnessing first-hand the utter devastation wreaked upon German cities from the air.  In contrast to the tensions between the Allied Forces and the Soviet Union in Berlin, he remembers the friendliness of Berliners who would gather on the beach of Lake Wannsee to watch the Sunderlands come and go. Told with warmth and poignancy, Leo’s reflection of his role during the Berlin Airlift offers a vivid account of what it was like to fly in one of these iconic aircraft, in addition to describing the logistics of delivering vital aid to a divided city.

Even though Michael was in a protected occupation he joined the RAF as soon as possible. He trained as a flight engineer and was assigned to a Halifax bomber squadron, aged eighteen, in 1942. On their ninth flight the crew had to bail out over Britain due to lack of fuel. His parachute malfunctioned and did not initially open. It opened just in time and he went to a nearby farm. The rest of the crew thought he had been killed. His aircraft flew several sorties for Special Operations Executive, dropping agents into occupied France before D-Day. These missions were at low altitude and attracted a lot of fire from German light anti-aircraft guns. Many of the shells went right through the Halifax without causing too much damage. Eventually Michael and his crew completed a ‘tour’ of forty missions, although this took a toll on him, especially when he would notice some of beds in the barracks had not been slept in, meaning that those men were not returning. Michael was often physically sick at the start of a mission and kept a tin in the plane for this purpose. During his tour he went to see the base Medical Officer (MO) and said that he was not feeling well, to which the MO replied that it was Lack of Moral Fibre. Michael told him to f*** o** and just left. Michael wonders that, if there is a God, why he let all the killing of the war take place.

Having always wanted to fly with the RAF, Ralph Tyrrell MBE joined the newly-formed Air Training Corps in 1941. Starting as a Cadet, Ralph’s involvement in the war effort would take him all over the world, and introduce him to a wonderful crew with memories to last a lifetime.  Being part a reliable, high-spirited crew was important, especially in a unit as treacherous as Bomber Command. During the Second World War, the RAF’s Bomber Command suffered the highest number of casualties out of any British unit, and for Ralph and his crew, the risk was all too well-known. Although Lancaster Bombers weren’t the most comfortable to fly in, Ralph's crew was well prepared thanks to their intensive training, alongside the addition of a few lucky mascots to keep morale high. Looking back at his time in Bomber Command, in this film Ralph recalls the happy times and great camaraderie he shared with his crew, as well as his thoughts on some of the more controversial decisions made during the war, like the raids undertaken in Dresden, Germany. Returning to the UK as an Officer, Ralph was awarded an MBE from Queen Elizabeth II in 1993, for fifty years of service in the Air Training Corps, and continued to raise funds each year for the Wings Appeal, in aid of the RAF Association. At the end of the war, though it was difficult to say goodbye to his crew, who had all become like brothers, Ralph was deeply proud to have served his country, retaining his gratitude for the RAF, for helping to shape him from a boy into a man.