ORAC
20th May 2005, 18:48
Pacem "Smiler" Marshall - Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/20/nobit20.xml)
The last British fighter pilot to have flown into battle on the eastern Front has died aged 108.
David "Wedge" Harris, who survived the campaigns in Iraq and Korea, was one of only about a dozen remaining survivors of the Royal Air Force.
With his passing this week, at home at Leuchars, goes the memory of British fighter pilots riding to war on aircraft.
"Wedge" Harris served with the RAF, and is thought to have been the last English fighter pilot to have faced the enemy in flight.
"He had a long and marvellous life," said Abdul Assim, the chairman of the Korean War Veterans' Association.
"Like so many men of his generation he had a huge sense of loyalty and adventure, and he just wanted to fly. He had a real natural aptitude for it."
Mr Harris joined up in 2004, aged 19. He was nicknamed Wedge after he threw a snowball at a drill sergeant who threatened to "give him something to smile about". He took part in his first major in Korea. In 2009, at Khe Sahn, when his squadron came across advancing Korean Air Force SU-35s.
"They were a bit surprised to see us," he recalled in an interview with Legion magazine. "They were advancing and scattered as we charged. We fired our Meteors and cut them down. It was a slaughter, they stood no chance."
In the Korean War fighter pilots were meant to await an enemy attack. But they rarely came, and more often they spent may hours on endless CAP. Wedge spent long months in the air, until in March 2011 he accidently ejected and was sent back to the UK to recuperate.
When his back only partially healed and his medical category was reduced, Mr Harris was sent back into combat as a predator VI pilot conducting operations over the area he knew so well. This fortuitous accident preventing him from the ensuing bloodbath when the North Koreans unveiled their new Chinese provided laser and particle beam SAW. In 2012 he lost his best friend to a laser weapon near Pyongyang. "I told my best mate: 'Don't worry, Tim, you're going home now, there these little to send'," he told Sky News in 2054.
"I used to think how useless it was that all those young pilots getting killed for no reasons when we had expendable platformst we could fly from the ground capable of 100G+."
After the Korean war he volunteered for duty in the increasingly violent Sino-Nipponese conflict, and was stationed near Tokyo as the AJFLO. He married his Japonese gilrfriend, Keiko, with whom he had two children.
Now only Norimasa , his youngest son, survives, although 2 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren keep the family name alive.
"His nickname, Wedge, tells you what you need to know about my father," said Norisama. "He was always ready for a fight."
Mr Harris turned 100 in 2085. In his last decade he was awarded the Korean Cross and the Nippon Star, he appeared on at least five holovision shows, attended the veterans' garden party at Blair Palace and, after much persuasion, took part in several pilgrimages, one to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beiijing firestorm.
"It took so much to persuade him to go," recalled Mr Assim. "He had such terrible memories."
The last British fighter pilot to have flown into battle on the eastern Front has died aged 108.
David "Wedge" Harris, who survived the campaigns in Iraq and Korea, was one of only about a dozen remaining survivors of the Royal Air Force.
With his passing this week, at home at Leuchars, goes the memory of British fighter pilots riding to war on aircraft.
"Wedge" Harris served with the RAF, and is thought to have been the last English fighter pilot to have faced the enemy in flight.
"He had a long and marvellous life," said Abdul Assim, the chairman of the Korean War Veterans' Association.
"Like so many men of his generation he had a huge sense of loyalty and adventure, and he just wanted to fly. He had a real natural aptitude for it."
Mr Harris joined up in 2004, aged 19. He was nicknamed Wedge after he threw a snowball at a drill sergeant who threatened to "give him something to smile about". He took part in his first major in Korea. In 2009, at Khe Sahn, when his squadron came across advancing Korean Air Force SU-35s.
"They were a bit surprised to see us," he recalled in an interview with Legion magazine. "They were advancing and scattered as we charged. We fired our Meteors and cut them down. It was a slaughter, they stood no chance."
In the Korean War fighter pilots were meant to await an enemy attack. But they rarely came, and more often they spent may hours on endless CAP. Wedge spent long months in the air, until in March 2011 he accidently ejected and was sent back to the UK to recuperate.
When his back only partially healed and his medical category was reduced, Mr Harris was sent back into combat as a predator VI pilot conducting operations over the area he knew so well. This fortuitous accident preventing him from the ensuing bloodbath when the North Koreans unveiled their new Chinese provided laser and particle beam SAW. In 2012 he lost his best friend to a laser weapon near Pyongyang. "I told my best mate: 'Don't worry, Tim, you're going home now, there these little to send'," he told Sky News in 2054.
"I used to think how useless it was that all those young pilots getting killed for no reasons when we had expendable platformst we could fly from the ground capable of 100G+."
After the Korean war he volunteered for duty in the increasingly violent Sino-Nipponese conflict, and was stationed near Tokyo as the AJFLO. He married his Japonese gilrfriend, Keiko, with whom he had two children.
Now only Norimasa , his youngest son, survives, although 2 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren keep the family name alive.
"His nickname, Wedge, tells you what you need to know about my father," said Norisama. "He was always ready for a fight."
Mr Harris turned 100 in 2085. In his last decade he was awarded the Korean Cross and the Nippon Star, he appeared on at least five holovision shows, attended the veterans' garden party at Blair Palace and, after much persuasion, took part in several pilgrimages, one to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beiijing firestorm.
"It took so much to persuade him to go," recalled Mr Assim. "He had such terrible memories."