Donald Chandler

1919 – 2010

Royal Air Force –  Corporal/Meteorological Observer

1943-1944 – Assigned to:

• Royal Canadian Air Force
• 439 Squadron
• 2nd Tactical Air Force
• 143 Wing, Group 83

NORMANDY SERVICE:

Landed on Juno Beach with Canadian Air Force on 25 & 26 June 1944.

1944-45 He went to Germany (Gutersloh)

Visited American bases in Brussels, Gutersloh, and Garmisch.

He had a short spell at Celle, near Bergen where he recalls remembering “The awful smell at two miles distant” and “There were never any birds.”

In 1945, he was stationed at Cambrai in France.

He never forgot the starving children in Holland who rummaged through the RAF food bins with their bare hands. Although the airmen were forbidden to give the children food, they deliberately left extra food outside the bins.

April 1946 – He was demobbed.