AN RAF Regiment honour-guard accompanied York Second World War veteran Douglas Petty on his final journey yesterday.
St Lawrence’s Church was packed with mourners, on what would have been the RAF veteran’s 100th birthday.
They heard emotional tributes paid to a man who flew 31 wartime missions as flight engineer on a Halifax bomber crew from RAF Leeming.
York Normandy veteran Ken Cooke then gave an emotional rendering of the Veteran’s Poem, before the Last Post played – as it had played in this very church just a month ago for the funeral of Mr Petty’s friend and fellow Normandy veteran Sid Metcalfe.
Originally from County Durham, Douglas Petty - who died on December 31, aged 99 - was a 20-year-old apprentice mechanic working on Rolls Royce cars at a Darlington garage when he volunteered to join the RAF. His twin brother Alan joined the Army.
After training, the young Douglas was assigned as a flight engineer with a Canadian crew flying Halifax bombers from RAF Leeming.
Between 1944 and 1945, he flew 31 missions. Most were bombing raids over Nazi-controlled areas - including a daring daylight raid over Normandy on June 10, 1944, in support of the D-Day invasion.
He and his crew also flew nine dangerous operations laying mines in the Norwegian and Baltic fjords – flying in low, at about 600 feet, where they were tempting targets for German fighter planes.
Paying tribute to Mr Petty, Nick Beilby of the York Normandy Veterans Association recalled meeting him five years ago, and inviting him to become a member of the Normandy veterans group because of that bombing raid in support of the D-Day invasion.
There was laughter when Nick described introducing him to other members of the group, and one of them saying: ‘You bombed us more than the Germans!”
Retired RAF wing commander Jeff Metcalfe recounted some of the wartime exploits of Mr Petty and his crew.
There was the bombing run to lay mines in the Scandinavian fjords in which their Halifax bomber was forced to fly lower and lower because a German nightfighter was trying to attack from beneath: and the time Douglas left his flight engineer’s seat to find ammunition for one of the guns – and returned to find a still-warm piece of shrapnel embedded in his seat.
But there was fun and camaraderie in the lives of the young fliers, too, amidst the danger, Wing Cmmdr Metcalfe said.
Once Douglas managed to persuade his pilot to make a diversion on a training flight so the aircraft could ‘buzz’ his mum’s house – his mum and sister could be seen waving tea-towels down below.
Vicar of St Lawrence’s father Adam Romanis said that all his life, Mr Petty had put the fact that he survived 31 missions down to luck.
“But he didn’t just say luck!” Fr Romanis said. “He said ‘luck and a good crew’.”
There are many things in life that you have no control over, Fr Romanis said – but there are some things you can control.
“The way Doug lived his life was: ‘Attend to the things that you can do – with a good crew around you.”
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