Douglas' account of his return to England
Title
Douglas' account of his return to England
Description
Victor Douglas’s diary runs from January to end March 1943. He is credited with 46 missions with the same Halifax aircrew: J.C. Davidson (Navigator) J.D. Rogers (Wireless Operator) G.H. Nicholson (Flight Engineer) E. Thorn(Mid Upper Gunner) L. Burden (Tail Gunner). Notes how they all always showed loyalty and cooperation.
1 January 1943: new year in the Middle east with thoughts of success the Russians driving the Germans back, Axis forces retreating to Tunisia, the Australians and Americans advancing on Papua. In Cairo, they moved to a personal transit camp, had a blissful bath and great time in Cairo visiting the native bazaar, house of perfumes etc. He watched many recent films, including "Dangerous Moonlight".
Had his log book returned on 15th January with an excellent assessment as a Halifax Pilot. January 16th to 23rd spent mostly at leisure, sightseeing, meeting friends, going to the cinema. One notable film was "Mrs Minniver" The story of a wartime middle class family.
On the 23rd January he learned that he was to be posted and would be leaving on the 24th Wadi Halfa (Sudan on shores of Lake Nubia near the border with Egypt) where we refuelled and carried on landing in Khartoum. The journey to continue the following day. On Monday 25th January boarded a Pan American Airlines DC4 landing in Accra, left for Lagos on 27th on board a DC3. For most of the time in Lagos he was very poorly with sickness and diarrhoea. On 6th February he was given notice to board the troop transport Cap Padaran sailing 7th February. Saturday 13 Feb transferred to the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd ship "Indrapocra" [M.S. Indrapoera].
Docked in Liverpool on 26th February then to West Kirby receiving centre by train. 27th Feb left by train for Northallerton arriving at home very unexpectedly. Went to London on 3rd March and spent the next few days seeing friends and relations, visited RCAF headquarter and Canadian red cross headquarter.
On 11th March 1943 posted to RAF Marston Moor, a heavy bomber conversion unit training air crew on Halifax bombers as a flying instructor, meeting F/Lt Conally DFC and P/O Dennis plus 3 more DFC recipients.
On 14 March posted to RAF Rufforth with Hank Iveson.
The last two pages are cash accounts.
1 January 1943: new year in the Middle east with thoughts of success the Russians driving the Germans back, Axis forces retreating to Tunisia, the Australians and Americans advancing on Papua. In Cairo, they moved to a personal transit camp, had a blissful bath and great time in Cairo visiting the native bazaar, house of perfumes etc. He watched many recent films, including "Dangerous Moonlight".
Had his log book returned on 15th January with an excellent assessment as a Halifax Pilot. January 16th to 23rd spent mostly at leisure, sightseeing, meeting friends, going to the cinema. One notable film was "Mrs Minniver" The story of a wartime middle class family.
On the 23rd January he learned that he was to be posted and would be leaving on the 24th Wadi Halfa (Sudan on shores of Lake Nubia near the border with Egypt) where we refuelled and carried on landing in Khartoum. The journey to continue the following day. On Monday 25th January boarded a Pan American Airlines DC4 landing in Accra, left for Lagos on 27th on board a DC3. For most of the time in Lagos he was very poorly with sickness and diarrhoea. On 6th February he was given notice to board the troop transport Cap Padaran sailing 7th February. Saturday 13 Feb transferred to the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd ship "Indrapocra" [M.S. Indrapoera].
Docked in Liverpool on 26th February then to West Kirby receiving centre by train. 27th Feb left by train for Northallerton arriving at home very unexpectedly. Went to London on 3rd March and spent the next few days seeing friends and relations, visited RCAF headquarter and Canadian red cross headquarter.
On 11th March 1943 posted to RAF Marston Moor, a heavy bomber conversion unit training air crew on Halifax bombers as a flying instructor, meeting F/Lt Conally DFC and P/O Dennis plus 3 more DFC recipients.
On 14 March posted to RAF Rufforth with Hank Iveson.
The last two pages are cash accounts.
Creator
Date
1943-01
1943-02
1943-03
Spatial Coverage
Language
Format
One diary
Conforms To
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
YKnoxVD63842v1
Collection
Citation
Victor Douglas Knox, “Douglas' account of his return to England,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed September 15, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/54986.