Men of the Battle of Britain by Kenneth G Wynn

Author:Kenneth G Wynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 2020-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

Peter Cecil HUMPHREYS

85272 PO Pilot British 32 Squadron

Humphreys was born in Marylebone, London on February 26 1916. His parents were both actors. Credits for Cecil Humphreys (1883-1947) included Judge Linton in the 1939 film Wuthering Heights. His mother, Gladys Mason (1884-1954) starred in the film The Queen Mother (1916) as the Princess of Saxonia. Aged about six their son, accompanied by a governess, spent a year in Australia, where they were touring. P C Humphreys attended Arnold House School, St John’s Wood, London and Canford School, Dorset. He joined his parents’ profession and worked with various repertory companies. He was appearing in Bath when war broke out.

Humphreys joined the RAFVR about April 1939, as an Airman u/t Pilot (745610). Called up on September 1, he completed his elementary training at 18 EFTS, Fair Oaks and his intermediate and advanced training at 5 FTS, Sealand.

He was commissioned at the end of the course and arrived at 5 OTU, Aston Down on September 26 1940. After converting to Hurricanes, he joined 32 Squadron at Acklington on October 18.

Humphreys was posted to 73 Squadron at Castle Camps on November 5 1940 and went with it to the Middle East.

At some point he made a forced-landing in the desert suffering a bad gash to his face. He was found by Bedouin, sympathetic to the Allies, who made and applied a poultice to the wound. They took him to an RAF base where the MO, apparently conscious of his acting career, left the poultice in place and the wound healed without a scar.

After recovery Humphreys was tasked to fly Noel Coward on a tour of North Africa, Palestine and Iraq from July to October 1943. They became friends and Coward later recalled “...In the afternoon I was flown to Baghdad in an archaic machine that looked as though it had never quite recovered from triumphantly flying the channel in 1910. My pilot was a fine-looking young man who turned out to be Cecil Humphreys’ son. There is certainly a good deal of Wardour Street blood coursing through these desert sands.”

(Updated: June 2018)

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