So moving these memories..
My Dad, for reasons that remain unknown, volunteered for the FAA in 1940 and was trained as pilot at Luton..I don't know which course he was on. During the invasion scare his training was interupted and he was sent down to Portsmouth to defend the port and was sadly blown up suffering a major head injury which hospitalised him for 6 months and eventually led to his medical discharge.
One day when I was perhaps 15 I saw a photo of a 20 or so young men in a drawer in my Dad's desk; on the back of which were written in line a series of names and underneath each name a date. Intrigued, I asked my Dad about it and he told me that this was the course photo with the name of each of the course members. The dates, he said with tears pouring down his face, were the dates of their deaths. They were all killed and he was the only survivor. The Irony is that being blown up in the Portsmouth blitz saved his life......and led to mine. He never talked about it again to me even when I asked him. I think his survivors guilt dominated the rest of his life.