My father, Fred Pawsey, who has died aged 96, was one of the few pilots who flew both Hurricanes and Spitfires in combat in the second world war, and one of the first UK servicemen to be selected for training as a pilot in the US.
Born in Alpheton, Suffolk, Fred was the eldest of five children of Alfred, a farm worker, and his wife, Emily (nee Cook).
He attended Alpheton primary school and in 1930 passed a scholarship to attend Sudbury grammar school. He could not afford to go to university so instead entered the RAF’s No 1 School of Technical Training at Halton, Cheshire, in 1936.
After three years of training he was posted to 56 Squadron at North Weald, Essex, and in May 1940 joined 238 Squadron and later 109 Squadron. These postings took him to RAF stations in Hampshire, West Sussex and Cornwall.
In 1941 he was promoted to sergeant and was one of the first to be selected for training as a pilot in the US under the Arnold Scheme, where he was awarded USAF Silver Wings. He was commissioned in Canada and returned to the US to do six months as an advanced instructor at Napier Field flying school, Alabama.
After returning to the UK, Fred married Gladys (nee Sida), a secretary, in Barking, Essex, in 1943, and was then posted to 253 Squadron in the Mediterranean, flying Hurricanes from Tunisia and Spitfires from Naples and Palermo in convoy and bomber escort sorties, attacking strategic targets. The following year Fred, by now a flight lieutenant as well as acting squadron leader, was sent on a secret mission to liaise with the partisans in Yugoslavia.
In 1944 Fred was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Official war records state that he had “distinguished himself as a fearless leader and a skilful and resourceful pilot”.
After Fred was demobbed in 1946, he returned with his family (I was born in 1945) to Alpheton to work for his father, who now had his own fruit farm, before training as a teacher and moving to Essex.
He started his 30-year career at Hedingham secondary school in 1949, and his daughter, Janet, was born the next year. He eventually became headteacher in 1972 before retiring in 1980.
Fred took part in many activities in the communities of Sible Hedingham and Cavendish, in Suffolk, where he lived to following retirement, taking the roles of parish council chairman, magistrate, local historian and chairman of primary school governors. He was also secretary of Hedingham parochial church council, and lay-chairman of the deanery synod. He gave many talks to associations in Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex and was the author of three books.
Gladys died in 2003. Fred is survived by Janet and me.
