RAF veteran turns 100 and remembers his Kittyhawk, captivity and 34 years of service
An RAF Kittyhawk pilot who was shot down, captured and forced to walk hundreds of miles has revealed what he wanted to do next - carry on flying.
Derrick Grubb, who has just celebrated his 100th birthday, was a squadron leader who joined the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and went on to serve a total of 34 years.
After signing up in July 1942 at the age of 18, Sqn Ldr Grubb found himself navigating the skies in the Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk with No. 112 Squadron.
A year later he was shot down over Italy, after which he became a prisoner of war.
As the war was nearing its end, and after a year of captivity, he was forced to march hundreds of miles westwards as the German army retreated.
When Sqn Ldr Grubb eventually made it home, his answer to what he wanted to do now was "fly".
"So I signed up for four years and, during those four years, they asked me if I wanted to be commissioned and I served all in all for 34 years," he said.
"It was all so enjoyable I wrote about my life in the Air Force."
He said he wrote the account to educate his grandchildren about the war through his personal experiences.
Explaining why it was still important to commemorate the war, he said: "It's a sad time, but it's something to be remembered and I am sure we will always remember it because it's a damn good job it was finished.
"At the time, as a young man of 18 when I joined up, everything was so new, I hadn't been out of the country before, going to South Africa, on a train for two days going up to Rhodesia - Zimbabwe now - trained as a pilot there, then went up to the Middle East and Italy, and then I got shot down.
"It was an adventure for an 18-year-old boy at the time and that's how you looked upon it.
"And the same with the PoW camp and the long march, but it is when you get to this age and you think about it, it was all terrible, it shouldn't have been there, it had to be done.
"I was happy I was there. If I had the chance again, I would go only because it affected us so much and if they had overrun us like they did the other countries and treated us like the others... it should never be done again."
Sgn Ldr Grubb was born on 12 April 1924 in Havant, Hampshire, and his milestone birthday was celebrated with a party by the Veterans Group, which meets at the Rowans Hospice's Living Well Centre in nearby Waterlooville.
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