Fund helps airman return to training fields after 66 years

IN 1944, Angus Galloway barely had time to feel fear as he ejected from his Lancaster bomber above occupied France.

The 22-year-old's plane had just been hit by two bombs from another Lancaster, and was about to crash.

He survived, only to be captured by German troops and marched 150 miles in freezing conditions between PoW camps as Russian planes tried to bomb the marching prisoners.

Now, 66 years on, Mr Galloway, of Slateford, is to sit in a Lancaster again for the first time since his hurried exit. With help from the BIG Lottery Fund's Heroes Return scheme, he is to travel to the airfields in Canada where he trained.

The scheme offers funding to help veterans revisit places they served in wartime, and rather than travel to the places where he was held captive, Mr Galloway, now 87, chose to revisit Canada with wife Lileh, 81 and son Keith, who has arranged for him to sit in the Lancaster at the Canadian Warplane Museum in Ontario. Mr Galloway was flying with 625 Squadron on 3 August, 1944 when, on a daylight raid on a bomb store near Paris, their formation closed too tightly.

He recalled: "I started my bombing run instructions to the pilot and pressed the bomb release button. No sooner had I said 'Bombs gone' when the mid-upper gunner cried: 'There's a Lancaster above us with his bomb load still intact.'

"Just as the pilot was informing us that there were planes on either side of us and that he could not deviate, the gunner shouted 'Here they come.' We were lucky in that although we were hit by two bombs, one hitting the starboard wing-tip, the other the engine, we could still fly."

However, the damaged engine then caught fire and the captain ordered his crew to eject. On landing, they were captured and taken to Cologne for interrogation. Mr Galloway was transferred to Stalag Luft 7 in modern-day Poland and, in early 1945, was one of the prisoners taken from there on the 150-mile forced march to Sagan that would become known as "The Long March".

Looking back on his experiences, he said: "We hadn't time to feel fear, the bombs came down right away. But we got out and that's the main thing.

"I think age and time has dimmed my memory, or maybe my memory didn't want to remember. Of the march there's very little that I can remember."

Mr Galloway, who went on to work in Edinburgh's construction industry after the war, was given the option to return to Europe or to visit Canada by Heroes Return.

He said: "When I thought about the continent, the prison camp may not be there and I don't know exactly where I came down, so it might have been a wild goose chase, and so we opted for Canada."

He said he was excited but apprehensive: "To sit in the Lancaster will be nostalgic – it might bring back memories, things that I've not thought about before. At first I thought 'Oh great', but now it's coming near I wonder what will happen."