Flt Lt John Dunbar DFC RIP
Taken from three tapes Five into four won't go
Earlier I mentioned Dave Proctor, one of life's characters. At the end of the war along with three others, I was sent to Rangoon where we were going to fly L5's off aircraft carriers on the invasion of Singapore to aid the forward troops. Two days after I left, apparently Dave's demob came through though the message had not got to him. Dave did one more trip and two days later I received a message to say that he was in a field hospital at Meiktila. The story is he was coming back and no one knows why, he crashed into the jungle. Luckily he was seen by some army bods who managed to get through to him and get him, unconscious, out of the wreckage. They put him in a jeep and drove him fifty miles through the jungle tracks not knowing that his back was broken.
I can remember going down to the flying field at Mingladonand asking “What is the fastest aircraft that you have lying around?” They pointed to a Spitfire but I said I couldn't fly one and was then pointed to a Harvard. It was a good 200 miles. I got up there and of course knew Meiktila well.
Having found the field hospital I went to the Chief Medical Officer and said I was F/O Proctor's ex CO and said “Tell me, how is he?” “ Oh, he's ok. There is a really nasty head wound but he will recover. We are waiting for a Dakota to fly him out to India where he can get some decent treatment.” I asked if I could see him and was told yes but that he was a bit delirious.
I went in and Dave was just lying on a strip. His first words were “ My aching back” and I said
“You xxxx bxxxxxd – the moment I leave you , you go and write off a plane again.” Again he said “My aching back” and I said “Thank Christ you haven't lost your sense of humour”. “ I mean it Ginger. My back is broken but they won't believe me” I was wondering if I should say something and decided to do so. I went back to Medical Officer and said “ Look, he's telling me his back is broken.” This chap almost brushed me off. I said “Look, if Dave Proctor tells me his back is broken it is broken! I want something done about it.” To cut a long story short, his back was broken in two places. They flew him back to England and he was three years in the Loughborough rehab centre. You remember he had pleaded with me to be taken to Burma as his brother was missing there. All of the time we were there he would disappear at night. You never saw the Burmese, it was jungle. He would go into the villages and try to get a lead on his brother, but he never did. He married his brothers widow. They did divorce but he educated both his brothers sons and put them through university before emigrating to New Zealand. A truly remarkable man.