This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of desert island discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

A PDU began life as an RAF pilot, but you have an army background in the family, haven't you?

Well, a little bit, but not entirely army. Army and Navy and even administration, I think my father was more of an administrator.

Maybe he had my idea a little bit, or I had his, that he started in the army, but then he went over to the administration in the Far East, in India and in Burma.

But your right is a background of naval and military, and I was a little bit offbeat, I must say, in deciding to become a pilot.

You went to the RAF College in Cranwell, where did you serve?

After Cranwell, I went to a fighter squadron, at Tangmeer. Tangmeer was a wonderful place. It was really one was spoiled there.

It was in the days you know, Roy when flying was the RAF, somebody called it the best flying club in the world.

And I couldn't agree more, and Tangmeer airfield was a meadow, you know, and in the summer when the grass was long, one could hear the swish of one's wheels, as one came into land.

The flock of sheep grazed peacefully in the one corner, and occasionally got in the way when we were landing.

Yes. But you went out to the Far East as well?

Then I went to the Far East, there was a little trouble with Mussolini, and there was a great reinforcement movement.

And I'd been longing to get out of England and go away and adventure somewhere else, and I was sent to the Far East to Singapore.

And then when Warbroke arch were in Britain, what type of aircraft were you flying then?

At the beginning of the war in Warbroke arch, we were flying hurricane.

And on the Battle of Britain you'll chalked out person at the destruction of 11 enemy planes, including the first German bomber to be crash landed in Britain.

That's right, it was a purely accidental, I mean, anybody could have done it. It was quite an accident that this guy happened to meet me.

And we met off the Yorkshire coast quite near Whitby.

Yes. And you would have wanted to find a sort of gongs for gallantry.

You were shot down yourself a couple of times.

Yes, I was shot down myself twice, and I managed to find the man who shot me down the first time.

You were able to see him afterwards.

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