Staff Sergeant T.H.John RAMC

Staff Sergeant Thomas Haydn John was serving in The Royal Army Medical Corps. He was born in 1923, April 8th, at Bounty Farmhouse, Llanddewi Velfrey Pembs. He grew up working on the farm with his father and he always dreamt of being an engineer. After passing his Welsh Central Board (the equivalent of today's GCSEs) he wanted to become a pharmacist. Half way into his college work, he was called up because of the Second World War.

He was sent to the Highlands to train with the Black Watch Regiment. Again, halfway into his training the Government found out he had qualifications to be a doctor and so he was transferred to the RAMC. Once he had completed his training, he was posted to Africa where he spent six years in the North until 1946. He was put under siege in Freetown Mission Station, Seirra Leone, captured and imprisoned by the Afrika Korps (but then escaped by dressing as a German with four others and walked out of the prison1) and was in the clearing up mission after the battle of El Alamein October 1942 and then returned to Sierra Leone to look after the local population. He returned in 1946 to Llanddewi Velfrey in Pembrokeshire to finish from where he had left off before the war and passed his exams in Cardiff College.

Flying Officer P.W.Berry - RAF

Peter Warren Berry was born on the 15th July 1920. Before the war, he was a long distance lorry driver going to Scotland and Sussex. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as an Aircraft Hand on 21st. September 1940. He was then posted all around the British Isles including Bristol and Pembroke Dock. He married Mona Lanham on 5th. September 1942 in Goodwick. He was then appointed a Commission as Pilot Officer on the 29th April 1944 and then fully appointed Flying Officer on 29th October.

He flew with Canadian and Australian crews and flew to Lagos in West Africa (Freetown) and then had to destroy the planes to stop the enemy capturing them. When he was on leave, he went home to see his new born son in February 1945. He then returned to his base in Rosshire, Scotland to his Sunderland.

On the night of the 14 March 1945 his plane was the only one out patrolling for U-boats. Their last radioed position was 75 miles South East of Sumburgh Head. When they were expected to come in for re-fuelling in the early hours of the 14th. March the plane never arrived. An extensive search was carried out but neither the plane nor any crew were ever found. That exercise was the first and last of his flights with his new squadron , No 157.
His son was only three weeks old when P.W.Berry was killed in action.