Thorney Island
Thorney appeared in the press in the late fifties due to a bizarre and tragic occurrence; a young airmen, apparently frustrated in his attempts at gaining a flying commission, tookoff in a Varsity and headed across the channel. He ran out of fuel and crashed in Belgium, I believe.
One of the squadron`s pilots took off in a Varsity to chase him down. This pilot,I heard later, contracted polio and died.
In fact the polio epidemic claimed several young people at the time and at least two of our fellow students at Chichester High School were stricken.
This was prior to the successful intrduction of the Salk vacine.
The village mentioned in an earlier post was actually called West Thorney and is seriously ancient, having an entry in the Domesday Book. The church was also very old-Saxon, I think, with an ancient Yew tree and a
cemetery with weathered headstones bearing the skull and crossbones.
We figured they were the last resting place of pirates but they were most likely local Freemasons.
I am pretty sure that, prior to the S55`s of 22 Sqdn., there were Shackletons and I vaguely remember seeing a large twin, tricycle undercarriage, painted black, American producedaircraft.
A great place to grow up-too bad it closed. The C.O. at the time was
Group Captain Boxer and he had a delightfull daughter called Pippa.