Happy 99th Birthday Flt.Lt. William Walker!

Happy Birthday Flt. Lt. William Walker, 616 Squadron, the oldest Battle of Britain veteran who enters his 100th year today! (24th August). Met him at Duxford on 30th July this year, was as sharpe as anything. Here’s to many more years.

Words of William Walker: We were scrambled to patrol Dover – Dungeness, and we were patrolling when we met a whole squadron of Messerschmitts which appeared, and all three of us were shot down. Teddy Snorbin was shot down, very badly burnt but he survived, although he was killed later. Sergeant Ridley, my great friend, was killed, and I got a bullet in my leg and my plane was shot to pieces. And I realised that I would have to bail out, so I opened the hood and pulled back the cover and tried to jump, but I’d still got my helmet on which was plugged into the radio which pulled me back, so I took my helmet off and fell out and I was still at 20,000 feet.*

I wasn’t going to take any chances so I pulled the ripcord straightaway, and the extraordinary thing was that as I came down, whilst the air had been filled with aircraft, on the whole of my journey down in my parachute I never saw another aircraft. But I could see below dense cloud so I had no idea where I was, and it wasn’t until I got through the clouds that I realised I was over the sea, so I blew up my Mae West and eventually landed in the sea and I could see some distance away a shipwreck sticking out of the water. I didn’t realise then, because I didn’t, I didn’t know that part of the world at all, but it was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands.*

And eventually I managed to swim and reached it and sat on it, but it was at a rather acute angle and I kept slipping off, and eventually after about half an hour or so a fishing boat arrived and took me off and gave me a large cup of half hot tea and whisky, which I drank, and they wrapped me in a blanket. My leg was hurting a bit, a bit painful, and then when we got to a mile off the shore an RAF launch had come out and I was transferred to that.*But when I was on the RAF launch they had a loo and the hot tea and whisky had worked on my cold tummy to some extent and I retired to the loo and I couldn’t leave it. The airman kept knocking on the door and saying, ‘Are you alright?’ and I was just in agony.

Anyway, eventually I was able to leave and was lifted up the steps of Ramsgate Harbour and a crowd had collected and they all cheered, and a dear old lady came forward with a packet of cigarettes which she handed to me as I was lifted into the ambulance and was taken to Ramsgate Hospital.*And they had been terribly badly bombed and had no kitchens, and all they could provide me whilst I was there, ‘cause I had to spend a night there, was a cup of tea and some bread and butter, and I was put to bed under a whole lot of electric light bulbs and it was some 12 hours before I was able to feel anything at all. I was suffering from hypothermia.*And, anyway, I spent the night there and I admired the people there. They were running the hospital and people in Ramsgate were in, and they had been so badly bombed and were still carrying on with their normal duties.