Riveting story, Regle.
Not long after your
lucky escape Bill Blessing was made a Sqdn Ldr,
awarded the DSO & DFC, married
his WAAF girlfriend*, and was shot down & killed over Caen by a German nightfighter on 7 July 1944.
(*Pamela Birch. My mum by a later marriage. Sadly she died 48 hrs ago, which is how, thanks to Google, I saw your post while researching her eulogy)