RAF veteran remembers airport bombing raid

A TOT of rum was reward enough for radar navigator James Murphy, after he helped knock out a major Luftwaffe base during the Second World War.

Mr Murphy, aged 90, was part of the crew of a Mosquito, a light and fast bomber made predominantly of wood, asked to take on a huge German airport.

The RAF veteran, of Mow Cop, said: "We were told there was a big station at Amsterdam which the Germans had.

"If you think of this huge station, they were telling one little Mosquito to put it out of action.

"Of course there are various means of doing it. You had four 500lb bombs. Our last trip over, we saw the runway below and let these four 500lb bombs go.

"We knew that an explosion on the runways was seen by other aircraft, but that was the only way you would get confirmation we had done the right thing. When we came back, I think we'd been out 15 hours, and we had a tot of rum."

After the war, Mr Murphy married Phyllis and became a chemist, before he became a teacher. He was headteacher of Clough Hall Secondary School – now Clough Hall Technology School at Kidsgrove – for 26 years. He has two children, Ann and David, and eight grandchildren.