At the outbreak of war, Dougie joined Bomber Command as an air gunner, taking part in bombing missions on all the major German cities. One of six thousand West Indians who enlisted in the Royal Air Force, four hundred and fifty of whom were permitted to serve as aircrew.
A dominator of difficulties interested only in everything, a man of insatiable curiosity that led him to qualify and practice in the fields of electrical, chemical, and mechanical engineering.
He calculated that the bombings killed an estimated 600,000 German civilians. The result of an industrial scale war machine that flew 364,514 operational sorties, dropping 1,030,500 tons of bombs, losing 8,325 aircraft, and killing 55,573 aircrews.
“As we flew back, we could see the fires burning higher and higher from miles away. It was so hot at the epicentre of the firestorms that people combusted, road surfaces melted sticking to their skin like hot glue. Those who took shelter in cellars, on feeling our shock waves of destruction, were convinced the eschatologists were right all along as they cooked like chickens in an oven.”
On a dangerous night-time raid over Dresden, Dougie’s aircraft was blitzed from head to tail, leaving a piece of shrapnel lodged behind his right eye close to his brain. An inoperable injury that made him appear as if he were continually weeping.
In later years, Dougie suffered several strokes that he referred to as ‘episodes.’ Despite these and numerous other ailments, he continued in good spirits to pursue a wide range of interests in subjects as varied as philosophy, neurology, art history, campanology, lapidary, and the cultivation of vegetables.
He also set up a repair and recycle business from a workshop that he single-handedly constructed in his garden.
Audibly busy from 6 am to 6 pm, intent on his labour repairing bicycles and deploying to significant effect, a band saw and lathe that he had designed and made. He turned his hand to most things, from bunk beds to rolling pins. Distributing to those in need, a range of products manufactured from unwanted bits and pieces.
Dougie’s routine continued after tea and a nap, returning to his workshop to sit behind a desk that resembled a flight deck. Where, using a radio transmitter he had also designed and built, he traversed continents.
Crossing once again the night skies using call signs of Battle, Blenheim, Hampden, Wellesley, Wellington, Whitley, Manchester, Stirling, Halifax, Lancaster, Mosquito and Lincoln, sharing knowledge with strangers whose grandparents he had bombed.
Dougie carried two photographs in his wallet.
Toward the end, I asked if he regretted the killing. Taking a rest on an exquisite walking stick engraved with marvellously detailed carvings of the bombers he had flown, he wiped a tear from his ‘good eye,’ “I don’t regret bombing the Nazis, they were bastards, but I do regret the deaths of the innocents.”
“In war, even the victors are losers.”
Church bells announce the closure of a remarkable life, pealing melodious waves stir chains made by his own gifted hands.
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