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DOYLE, James Raymond

Stats:

rank: Sgt
status: survived
airforce: RAF    (no: 1564157 )
born: United Kingdom

added by: Kevin Charles
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Bio / Text:

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James DOYLE joined 92 Squadron on 22nd September 1944.

From Can Encyclopedia link on left:

My name is James Raymond Doyle – I'm a Scot. I was blitzed while sitting at home in Clydebank by the German Air Force and I volunteered after that. Actually, I volunteered for the Army first and they turned me down, and I volunteered for the Navy and they turned me down as well because I was in a reserved occupation. So the Air Force would only take me as a navigator or pilot. So I was a year in reserves, and then I was called up in 1942, and I had a grading course in the UK. Then I got ill with tonsillitis, and the group of people I was going to Canada with all left and I was left behind, so they shipped me out to South Africa. So I did my initial training in South Africa in 1943, and I did that on Tiger Moths. Then there was a secondary course which I did on Harvards, again in South Africa. It was there that I qualified as a fighter pilot in March '44. I was shipped up to North Africa and given some pre-training there on Spitfires, and after that pre-training shipped over to Italy, where I joined the 92 East India Squadron, 244 Wing of the Desert Air Force.

I started war operations in August '44. My last operation was my eighty-fourth sortie, and my last flight was in 1945 in Italy. There was one sortie in particular that we were doing at a Gestapo headquarters. There were only two of us there and my leader went down to bomb and strafe this chalet. I followed him down and as he got down to the base, he says to me, "Watch the flak! Break port," which I did, but what he meant to say was "break starboard," so I went into the most frightful barrage of twenty-two millimeter cannon shells I'd ever seen. I weaved about as best I could, and to finish up I was too tired so I just took my hands and feet off the rudder and the stick and just said, "Well, hit me if you can." I flew over hardly touched. It was a frightening experience.

Squadrons:

Squadrons add
AirforceSqdrnDate
RAF 92 1945-01-01
RAF 92 Squadron 1944-09-22

Aircraft:

Aircraftadd
SerialNoteDate
JF589 1945-01-01
JF696 1945-01-10
MT562 1945-01-22
JF342 1945-01-23
JF692 1945-02-04
JF712 1945-02-13
MT773 1945-02-22
MT768 1945-03-03
JF278 1945-03-07
JG317 1945-03-10
MT668 1945-03-12
JG124 1945-03-14
JG250 1945-03-16
JF398 1945-03-23
MT667 1945-03-29
JF392 1945-03-31
JF333 1945-04-02
JF584 1945-04-02
JF515 1945-04-09
JF880 1945-04-09
MT648 1945-04-14
JG242 1945-04-16
JG197 1945-04-17
MT936 1945-04-19

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