"Mr Gowing was in the thick of WWII campaigns to stop the advance of both German and Japanese forces, being awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). He was trained as a wireless operator/gunner and navigator, in heavy bombers. His crew in 159 Squadron was shot down in Burma behind enemy lines, a fate for those captured, or sympathetic Burmese, which generally resulted, if captured, in summary beheadings. His surviving crew members, though all injured, made a daring escape and were back in the air within months, trying to expel the Japanese from Rangoon and to free brutalised Allied prisoners."