THE PARKHOUSE MEMOIRS – Part 1
Trained at RAF Cranwell in 1939, off to war in a Fairey Battle in 1940, shot down on his second sortie by German fighters and put into POW camp for five years, released to become one of the RAF’s youngest squadron leaders, taking command of 201 Squadron at RAF Pembroke Dock, then the world's biggest flying-boat base.
This is the story of Sqn Ldr Rupert Parkhouse, who flew Short Sunderland flying-boats on the Berlin Airlift, later becoming a military attaché in Washington DC and in Libya. Now 95 years old, he lives in a Bournemouth nursing home with his wife Rosemary, whom he married 70 years ago. In June 1995 he recorded his memoirs for the Imperial War Museum and these have been transcribed in November 2016.
Rupert Parkhouse served his country as did millions of others, and like so many brave men his wartime experiences would haunt him until they faded away into the mists of his memory. His son Richard, who has provided much information and the photographs for this account, told me his father regarded his flying career as a failure, but now that the memories have slipped away he has never been happier.
This is how a 19-year-old with only 218 flying hours in his log book went to war in an obsolete aircraft, was trapped in his cockpit after German fighters set it ablaze, and survived to spend perhaps the best days of his youth in a POW camp, constantly reproaching himself that he should have done more. His honest and brutally self-critical account is one of the most moving stories I have read.
Rupert Charles Langridge Parkhouse was born in Dulwich in 1921, the son of a trainee accountant who had joined Kitchener's Army in 1914 and served with the South Staffordshire Regiment on the front line in 1916.
Rupert recalled that when his father heard that there was an extra five shillings (25p) per day in flying pay, he joined the Royal Flying Corps and learned to fly at Netheravon. In 1917 he joined 5 Squadron, equipped with RE8 two-seat reconnaissance aircraft, and flew 30 sorties up to spring of the following year. After being shot up three times he transferred back to the infantry again, leaving the Service in 1920 and qualifying as an accountant in 1926.
Rupert said that from his father's experiences he formed an ambition to be a pilot. "A school friend's family took me to an RAF display in 1930, and I was greatly impressed. Seeing the pilots in their white overalls go out and climb into their cockpits gave me a romantic feeling, I suppose. And when I went to the Hendon display and saw two officers showing their rather glamorous girl friends along the line of beautiful silver biplanes, helping them up on the wing to see into the cockpit, I thought perhaps this was one way of getting your girl”.
Rupert entered the Army classes at Dulwich College with the aim of doing the RAF Cranwell entrance exams and in March 1939 he went before a board of 14 civil servants and RAF officers. “It was rather intimidating, and I stammered badly, but I passed 17th out of 20 candidates. The neighbours were very surprised and one even sent her daughter round to our house to ask if it was true.”
But true it was, and 18-year-old Rupert entered the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell on April 29, 1939. Just over a year later he would struggle to escape from his blazing Fairey Battle above the fields of northern France. From here on, Rupert will tell his story in his own words, recorded in 1995.
Last edited by Geriaviator; 30th Nov 2016 at 12:48.