Date Posted:25/04/12 11:00:35 Author:Tom Thomas Subject: Re: Canberra crash, Akrotiri In reply to:
Les Bywaters
's message, "Canberra crash, Akrotiri" on 28/07/05 11:48:15
I was also on the burial party for Kim, I remember it well
It's quite amazing to find so many differing stories and kind words about my dad, especially the poem composed by Malcolm. I most likely met Malcolm at some time because I used to go out with my dad when ever he was flying his model aircraft (I think he called it Smoghog). I have a couple of photos with some of his friends, one of which is everyone loading a minibus heading away for a weekend in Germany somewhere. I think the excuse was to get as much beer drinking done instead of the flying.
For all those who are not too sure about the date of the crash it was 15th Dec 1970, as a family we left Germany before Christmas that year and moved in with my grandparents until we could get housed in the UK somewhere. We ended up in Ashtead, Surrey and my mum still lives there now. I went to a boarding school run by the RAF Benevolent Fund in Greenwich London, it was a castle which was the only good thing about it realy. I eventually followed in my dads footsteps and joined the Air Force in 1985 retiring in 2007. I met a few people during my service career who knew dad or were associated in some way. The most bizarre was a RAF Fireman who was an instructor on my GST Training. He had joined the RAF in 1970 and his first posting was to Akrotiri and his first incident was the crash. He only realised who I was because I had written a pen letter along with the rest of my course so that he had an idea of who he was teaching. He did say that even if the fire trucks had been waiting where the aircraft came to rest, they could not have done anything and the outcome would not have changed. He could have said nothing but I appreciated his honesty.
I do at times feel cheated and reading some of the postings on this forum didn't realise that things could have been different and some other chat would have been killed instead of dad. But as my mum has always said 'when your numbers up your numbers up'.
If anyone want to get in touch please do.
