207958 Flt.Sgt. Henry Bartlett DFM Distinguished Flying MedalRoyal Air Force 40 Squadron from:Ramsbottom, Lancashire My father, Harry Bartlett, was born in Ramsbottom, Lancashire. After a bit of the usual teenage angst, he joined the Scots Guards before the War. Sporting a bearskin he guarded Windsor Castle. With the outbreak of hostilities, they were given despatch rider duties in the London area on an assortment of requisitioned motor-cycles. They were given much slower WD issue bikes when their mortality rate rose higher than front-line troops.
In due course the Guards were sent to Norway for the short-lived campaign of April 1940. Dad spent a little while looking at neutral Sweden a short distance away, and wondered how easy it would be to make a map-reading error and spend the rest of the war in neutrality. Instead he volunteered for pilot training, and learnt to fly in Florida and Georgia.
Returning to England, he subsequently flew a Wellington to North Africa with 40 squadron RAF, and spent a while bombing Sicily. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal - he says it was because it was his turn to get one rather than for anything particularly impressive. The aircraft was shot down, and Dad swam ashore, to spend the rest of the war in Stalag IVB in Germany. He rarely spoke of his time in the prison camp, but years later could be heard talking to himself in German at times.
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