Portraits of a hero
Pilot who battled the Luftwaffe and chronicled his war in pictures dies at 98... one of the last of the Few
SPORTING a handlebar moustache and with a pipe clenched between his teeth, Wing Commander Roger Morewood was the quintessential RAF pilot.
The dashing Scot was one of the heroes who defended this country against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain in 1940, during the darkest days of the Second World War.
Yesterday, it emerged Wing Cdr Morewood has died at 98 – one of the last of the Few.
Apart from his heroism, he also left a remarkable pictorial record of the war.
Wing Cdr Morewood was an enthusiastic photographer who had attended Edinburgh College of Art before joining the RAF, aged 19, on the advice of his uncle.
As well as clocking up 5,000 flying hours in 32 different types of aircraft, he took many incredible photographs of planes – often while flying combat missions.
Wing Cdr Morewood’s family now treasure the photographs. His daughter Rowena Buck, 62, said: ‘ He was the archetypal RAF pilot. Blue eyes, blond hair which was too long, a handlebar moustache and his collar always up.
‘He felt that he did a lot of bread and butter work that was less colourful to describe, but he put so much time into flying he clocked up more than 5,000 hours in the air.
‘He took a lot of photographs during the war, most of which we have in an album and will be going through with the family next week.’
Wing Cdr Morewood joined the RAF in 1935, training in a Tiger Moth biplane before being posted to the elite 56 Squadron in 1937, which at the time flew open-cockpit Gauntlet fighters.
He then moved on to the Gloster Gladiator, the RAF’s l ast biplane fighter.
By the outbreak of the Second World War, he was already an experienced pilot and later flew the new Hurricane fighter, which he believed was superior to the more famous Spitfire.
Wing Cdr Morewood, of Rockcliffe, Kirkcudbrightshire, then transferred to 248 Squadron as flight commander and flew Bristol Blenheims – the infamous ‘Flying Coffins’ – during the Battle of Britain.
He later recalled those heady days as one of the Few: ‘ We had a few panic station alerts when we were scrambled. We would be leaping into our aircraft with flying suits over our pyjamas as we tried to get into the air in a minute and a half.’
He also undertook hazardous long-range fighter sweeps over Holland and the French coast, before being promoted to wing commander in 1944 and posted to Castel Benito, near Tripoli, in Libya.
He was deployed to Naples as station commander in 1945, where he saw out the war before leaving the RAF in 1947.
But he returned to the service in 1951 and retired in 1957. Following his retirement, he and wife Rosemary ran a boarding kennel in Aberdeen. She died in 2003.
Mrs Buck said: ‘He did come across skirmishes in the sky. On one occasion he did limp home and his Blenheim was described
as looking like a cheese grater from the amount of bullets in it. He came down unscathed, however, and the ground crew patched the plane up again.’
She also described her father’s experiences flying Bristol Blenheims, which were outmatched i n speed and armour by the Luftwaffe’s more modern fighters.
She said: ‘They were bombers dressed up as fighters, as they had put on some extra guns. But they weren’t fast, so you could not give good chase to enemy planes. And if they chased you, you couldn’t out- run them, so they nicknamed it the Flying Coffin.
‘A lot of men flew less hours and never made it, so it’s miraculous he survived.’
Wing Cdr Morewood’s funeral will take place at Colvend Parish Church at 11am on December 19.