https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/j...-100-qm5zndg7d
John Cruickshank: Second World War’s last surviving Victoria Cross hero reaches 100
The last surviving recipient of a Victoria Cross from the Second World War does not want a fuss made for his 100th birthday today.
A private man from Aberdeen, John Cruickshank has never liked attention. When he landed in the Shetlands in 1944, bleeding heavily from 72 wounds sustained in sinking a U-boat, his first reaction was to ask after his crew.
Mr Cruickshank is only two years younger than the Royal Air Force, which he joined in 1941 after two years in the Royal Artillery. He was sent to 210 Squadron to pilot Catalina flying boats in 1943 and on July 17, 1944, led a ten-man crew on the sortie for which he would be awarded the highest honour, one of 182 recipients of the VC during the war.
Sent to protect the British fleet in the Norwegian Sea, the Catalina tried to bomb a U-boat but the depth charges failed to release. On its second run, the plane was heavily strafed, losing its navigator. Flight Lieutenant Cruickshank was peppered so heavily that he was later said to resemble a human colander with two wounds to his lungs, ten in his legs and 60 others. Despite this, he sank the U-boat at the second attempt before setting the Catalina for its base at Sullom Voe. Refusing morphine, arguing that it would cloud his judgment, he drifted in and out of consciousness for five hours as his co-pilot, Flight Sergeant Jack Garnett, flew. He then retook control to land the plane on the sea.
Flight Lieutenant Cruickshank had lost so much blood he needed a transfusion in the aircraft and never flew in command again. His VC citation says that “by pressing home the second attack in his gravely wounded condition and continuing his exertions on the return journey with his strength failing, he seriously prejudiced his chance of survival”. It praises his “determination, fortitude and devotion to duty”.
In 2018 Mr Cruickshank attended an RAF centenary event at the Royal Northern and University Club in Aberdeen. Jimmy Hutchison, the club chairman, said: “He is such a modest man, who does not like a fuss to be made.” Five years earlier he had been taken up in a Catalina at the Leuchars Airshow in Fife. Asked to reflect on his bravery, he said: “It was just normal. We were trained to do the job and that was it.”