“Lance Wade had also flown with the Finns before joining the RAF and had 6 Russian planes to his credit.”
My father knew Lance Wade very well. After training they headed out together in Operation Scarlet, right up until their last mission together in north Africa.
Your photo of the group of men shows Dad front and centre with his legs crossed. He was as handsome as Lance if not more so. Their photos always remind me of Clark Gable and Van Johnson.
When Dad was shot down in north Africa, he and Lance were on a mission together. Lance tried to save my father, in a very risky attempt under severe fire power. Lance’s bravery in trying to rescue my father showed what a great man Lance Wade was.
Dad started the war with many other friends such as “Stuffy” Sutton who had an airfield named after him in North Carolina when he was killed, and so many other well known heroes. Dad lost many friends, and spent many years as a POW. It took him 15 years before he could write his book. I’m thinking of reprinting it, because it’s very well written and has a lot of valuable information. Dad also appears in the series of war footage shot in the desert, so we always have those treasures, as well as the amazing photos he has from that era. He is well, still goes for walks every day, and just turned 91 two days ago.
Dad wrote in his 1961 book that a friend, Kay Stammers, had lost an aircraft near Agedabia because of a piece of shrapnel in the engine, but Lance landed and picked Kay up before the Germans could get out there. Kay sat on Lance’s lap and worked the stick and the throttle, while Lance worked the rudder. Dad documents their time in England and North Africa, and his own years in Italy and Germany as a POW.
My father’s Hurricane was shot down when Derek Gould sent Dad, Lance Wade, John Cloete and Kay Stammers on a strafe to beat up anything they could find in the way of enemy convoys or equipment. If they found anything at all more than twenty miles away it would be German for sure. Little did they know they were moments from getting Rommel, as Dad later witnessed after he was shot down and taken behind German lines.
Lance and he took off, and climbed to five hundred feet before heading to the front. Dad had sensed something the night before and all that morning. Dad’s story that day tells of how Lance was a great pilot, a great man.. and a great friend to my father. Lance put his own life severely in danger in an attempt to land in the desert and save my wounded father, after Dad’s Hurricane had been shot down and crash landed. The last time they saw each other, he and Lance waved at each other as Lance flew back to camp. Dad wrote of that:
“I’m certain Lance was truly sorry he couldn’t pick me up and save me from what we always considered would be certain death.”
Dad writes of many of their north Africa missions in detail, as well as the other fellows’ missions, numbers and successes. He had quite a war.