LYNDA JONES was born on one of the greatest days in history – VE Day.
Her mother Heather went into labour just as Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that the war in Europe was over.
Arthur Edwards / The SunLynda Jones, who was born on VE Day, wearing her father Flying Officer John Warne’s uniform[/caption]
Arthur Edwards / The SunJohn was a bomber pilot in the RAF during World War II[/caption]
Arthur Edwards / The SunLynda’s mother Heather had served as a driver in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force[/caption]
And Lynda, who will be 80 on Thursday, came into the world on May 8, 1945, as jubilant crowds partied into the night all over Britain.
Her father, Flying Officer John Warne, a bomber pilot in the RAF, had been posted to an airbase at Evere just outside Brussels at the time.
At her home near Wolverhampton, Lynda says: “May 8 is important, not so much because it’s my birthday, but it is a date the whole world must never forget.
“Dad was so proud of the fact that I was born on the last day of the war and that we did what we set out to do — beat Hitler.
“Mum always said I was overdue, and she told me, ‘If you’d been born on time, I could have been out in the streets dancing with the rest of them’.
“She said Churchill was on the balcony when her waters broke.”
Lynda was one of two babies born on VE Day at Helme Chase hospital in Kendal, Cumbria.
She says: “The mayor came to visit both babies and presented us with a 15-shilling certificate.
“I’m told I cried all the way through it.”
Mum Heather was serving as a driver in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force at Preston, Lancs, when she met John, the son of a Northumberland miner.
He only joined the RAF because there was a waiting list to sign up for the Army.
John was sent to train to fly in the US and Canada before returning to the UK.
The couple married in December 1943. Heather was 22 when she gave birth 17 months later.
When John, 23, heard the news, he managed to get a call through to the hospital.
The delighted new dad spoke to a nurse, who told him, “I’ve got your daughter in my arms”.
Lynda says: “And then I apparently started crying.
“The story my father always told was that straight away, he and his navigator got into a Mitchell bomber.
“They took the plane on an unauthorised flight from Belgium back to Norfolk and I presume he made his way to Kendal by train to see me.”
John’s RAF logbook for May 8, 1945, records how he flew a Mitchell Mk II, FW241, from Evere airfield to Fersfield airbase in Norfolk. He returned to duty on May 12.
After the end of the war, John carried on flying bombers on missions over the North Sea, where he dropped unused munitions into the water, and delivered planes that were to be scrapped.
‘ALONE IN AN ALIEN SKY’
It was a far cry from the desperate missions he had flown over France as Allied forces pushed the Nazis out.
On July 30, 1944, John was in a formation of Mitchells that set out to destroy a fuel dump in the Loire valley.
His flight logbook says simply: “Very acc (accurate) heavy flak. Badly shot up.”
In fact, the plane was riddled with more than 100 holes from anti-aircraft fire.
John revealed the full story in a letter he wrote in 1991.
RAF Intelligence had claimed there were no German guns on the route.
But John wrote: “They were there and caught me with their first salvo.
“The plane lurched and started to roll to the left. Certain controls had been damaged and put out of action.
“I found by extending my right leg on the rudder pedal and hauling with a greater part of my arm strength on the central column I could maintain something like a straight and level altitude.
“So, crabbing along, I made my way slowly back to the formation and held my position until my bombs had gone.
“The radio had been shot away, so by using hand signals, I let the formation know I was making my way home.
“In a while, the formation disappeared from sight and I was alone in an alien sky — or so I thought.”
Arthur Edwards / The SunLynda was one of two babies born on VE Day at Helme Chase hospital in Kendal, Cumbria[/caption]
Lynda’s parents John and HeatherArthur Edwards / The Sun
Later, he would discover two Spitfires were on his wing to protect his stricken plane from further enemy attacks.
The tyre of the bomber’s portside wheel had been shot off and the plane landed in a shower of sparks as the steel rim hit the concrete runway.
John expected the plane to burst into flames, but it did not.
He said: “It sat there like a bird with a broken wing and full of holes.
“On later inspection, the gunners counted over 100.”
Lynda reveals: “The commanding officer said, ‘I want to see Warne in my office’.
“Dad expected him to say, ‘Well done, that was a brilliant landing’.
“No. All he said was, ‘Get yourself in the briefing room, you’re off in the air again this afternoon’.
“I think Dad was a bit miffed that he wasn’t praised.”
John finally left the RAF in October 1946 and even kept the receipt for the £16, 10 shillings and nine pence he spent on his demob suit.
He spent the rest of his working life at the Ministry of Agriculture and died in August 2009, age 87.
Lynda, who proudly posed for photos in her dad’s RAF uniform, will spend her 80th with her daughter Lorna, and they will join the Royal Family at Westminster Abbey for the national service of thanksgiving celebrating VE Day.
That evening, she will be at the Royal Albert Hall for VE Day 80: The Party, where she will recount her story to ex-soldier and The Traitors winner Harry Clark in front of an audience.
She says: “I was brought up with Dad telling me to make sure we never forget those who didn’t make it and be grateful for those who did manage to get back.
“There’s not many veterans left now and we owe it to them to remember what they did.
“If it wasn’t for them, we would not have beaten the Germans and wouldn’t be in the fortunate position we’re in now.”
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