Many people were shot down, over 100,000 of our boys didn’t come back and of those, almost 60 per cent died the night they were shot down
Ernie left the RAF in 1962 to join Airwork Services at Scone Aerodrome as a civilian flight instructor.
While the instructor in a twin-engine Cessna 310, he crashed on June 24, 1964 shortly after take off from Scone.
Two trainee pupils from Iraq were on-board – Kamil Aljarrah and Rayadh alFreeig. The plane skimmed over the airfield boundary fence and ploughed into a field containing bulls.
Ernie was admitted to Bridge of Earn Hospital with severe burns to his face and hand.
A little while later he and his wife moved to Nairobi, Kenya and then to Soroti, Uganda, where Ernie worked for East African Airways.
During this time, he started having significant troubles with his vision and had to give up flying.
On returning to Perth, he
WWII pilot Ernie turns 100 today. Inset left he is pictured with his late wife Irene on their 70th anniversary, along with their card from HM The Queen qualified as a social worker and worked mainly at HMP Perth.
Irene became registrar of the Aberdeen Angus Association.
Proud grandparents of Vanessa, Laura, Alistair and James, and greatgrandparents to Alexander and Henry, the platinum wedding anniversary couple moved into Kincarrathie House residential care home, at Bridgend in Perth, in 2016.
Irene sadly passed away there on August 18, 2019.
While she was still with him, Irene got to see Ernie go up in the cockpit of a plane again. Despite being registered as blind due to his deteriorating eyesight, a week after moving into the care home, Ernie was treated to a flight from Scone Aerodrome by Donal Foley, a former student he had trained in the 1960s.
When he was 97,
Ernie had an incredible experience when he went back to the spot in Holland where he was shot down in his Lancaster.
With his family, he travelled there for a memorial service to unveil a special monument to those who lost their lives.
The organisation Project Propeller, for airmen who survived the war, flew Ernie across to Holland and back.
While at the site, he encountered a woman he had met during his time in Holland, who was only a little girl at the time. He also stayed in the same farmhouse where he was kept hidden back in 1944.
Adding to his DFC medal, Ernie was given membership as a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur on his 99th birthday.
Ernie said at the time: “I was a pathfinder for 35
Squadron. Pathfinders don’t exist anymore, they were specialised crew that went out in advance of the bomber command by about ten minutes to make the targets.
“We lost a great number of people – I am probably the last of the pathfinders.
“Many people were shot down, over 100,000 of our boys didn’t come back and of those almost 60 per cent died the night they were shot down.
“On that last trip the Luftwaffe Nightfighers called on us on our way back home and we were shot down.
“I lost control of the aircraft and it went up in flames. Being shot down is horrible, and I called on the crew to use their parachutes.
“Three of us, I later found out, had survived. I hit the ground and starting walking – it was about 300 yards from the aircraft. That’s where I met Necha – she was about 18 or 19 going off to milk the cows and she saw I was in a state of distress and she pointed to the corn, and I went in and hid.
“She went off and came back for me later, and her family took me into their home.”
Ernie said when he returned to Holland that although he was honoured to be carrying out the unveiling of the memorial and to be invited to the ceremony, it would also be an emotional experience for him to go back to the crash site: “It will renew a lot of old wounds, which will hurt.
“It will be a very special moment and I feel very humbled to be able to go back. It will be emotional.
“The people in Holland helped me and risked their lives for me, so it will also be an honour to go back and see them.”
Ernie relished being at the controls again when he flew at Scone Airport in 2016. Left is Ernie in his heyday, flying a Lancaster Bomber.
Pic courtesy of David Holmes