PRESS RELEASE DATE 5 July 2014
Where They Served – at the Royal International Air Tattoo
A fundraising project from a Singer and a Pilot’s daughter
In the Costwold Club enclosure at this year’s Royal International Air Tattoo will be a vintage car with a story to tell: a 1935 Singer Le Mans Sports car which is almost identical to one that night-fighter pilot Flt Lt Bryan Wild owned and loved during the war. Sadly, he had to sell the car when he was demobbed, but now 70 years later, his daughter, Elizabeth Halls, has bought a virtually identical model with which she will visit the 60 UK mainland airfields at which he landed during the war, fundraising for the RAF Benevolent Fund and bringing alive the history of the RAF through its airfields and those who served during those times.
Elizabeth has edited and collated her father’s memoirs, ‘Flying Blind: the Story of a Night-Fighter Pilot’, which are to be published in August 2014. She says, ‘One of the most moving things was that during my research for the book, I made contact with many families of my father’s old RAF comrades, some of whom survived the war and some who died. For those families, hearing about their loved ones and seeing for the first time wartime photographs of them was a poignant experience, and a reminder to me that there is real personal meaning in remembrance for younger generations like myself.’
Elizabeth is extremely grateful to the organisers of the Royal International Air Tattoo for their invitation to bring her car along. ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ (or ‘Chattie’ for short) as the car is now known – after her father’s favourite wartime song and its number plate, CHU 944 – will be on display for all three days of the show, 11th – 13th July 2014, and she would love people to come and say hello, especially if they have a wartime connection.
Royal International Air Tatto http://www.airtattoo.com
Where They Served 