The Airmen's Stories - Sgt. C G Griffith

Cedric Gwyn Griffith, from Hereford, was born on 15th May 1916 and attended Hereford Cathedral School.

He joined the RAFVR in mid-August 1939 as an Airman u/t Pilot. Called up on 1st September 1939, he completed his flying training and arrived at 5 OTU Aston Down on 23rd September 1940.

After converting to Hurricanes he joined 32 Squadron at Acklington on 3rd October. He flew six operational sorties before the end of the month and is not mentioned again in the ORB after 25th October.

Griffith was posted to 73 Squadron on 5th November 1940, at which time it was preparing to depart to the Middle East. On 9th November the squadron moved from Debden to Birkenhead, where it embarked on the carrier HMS Furious on the 13th.

Griffith was commissioned in June 1943. He was promoted to Flight Lieutenant on 29th June 1945.

His service after 1940 is currently undocumented though an entry in the London Gazette records that with effect from 7th March 1944 his name should read Cedric Gwynne Griffith.

Postwar he worked in a family business, Tupsley Court Farmers, in Hereford. But his main passion was golf, he won many competitions and was on a shortlist for the Walker Cup.

Griffith captained Herefordshire Golf Club in 1950.

He died in February 2002 in Hereford.

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An obituary in a local newspaper reported that he had to make a forced landing in the Western Desert in February 1943. A sand storm forced him to stay with the aircraft for four days and nights.

Many aircraft went out in search of me but didn't locate my machine. The weather was very bad, dust or sandstorms and a high and bitterly cold north wind.

When the storm abated he decided to strike out across the desert to find a road or a river. The journey took him another three days before he arrived at a village beside the Nile where he enjoyed the hospitality of a Sheik.

As luck would have it, I was able to send a message by camel postman to a post office 35 miles away. The district commissioner came and drove me 120 miles back to my base.

Griffith later qualified as a captain of Dakota and York aircraft and flew the government minister Anthony Eden to Moscow and Yalta.

While in Yalta he spent an evening at a Bolshoi ballet and was startled to see Stalin in the adjoining box.