Suzy Henderson

I'm very sad to share the news that RAF veteran and member of the infamous Guinea Pig Club, Jack Perry passed away on August 7th, aged 92. He was an amazing man, a friend to so many, a husband, father and grandfather. His outlook on life, given his own horrific injuries sustained during WW2, was simply incredible. He was helped so much by the plastic surgeon, Sir Archibald McIndoe and the men in the Guinea Pig Club whom he referred to as a 'band of brothers'. In return, Jack has given so much back, helping others similar to himself, suffering with life-changing injuries as a result of burns. Just as he was shown the pathway back to the living, he too has always tried to help others follow that path. Jack left school at the young age of fourteen and joined the Air Training Corps at sixteen. At eighteen he volunteered as air crew but was chosen for pilot training initially, before training as a flight engineer. Jack was then seconded to 6 Bomber Group and flew with a C...

In June and early July 1940, the Luftwaffe regrouped in readiness for Operation Sealion - the invasion of Britain. Their aim was to destroy the Royal Air Force. The Battle of Britain began on the 10th July. As the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill announced, "What General Weygrand called the Battle of France is over, the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.  Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, a nd perhaps more protracted, by the...