Douglas Gordon Davie
Douglas Gordon Davie was born on 21st September 1916 at The School House, Airlie in Forfarshire, about 20 miles north of Dundee.
Douglas's mother, Janet Gow Lyon, and his elder sister Betty were staying with Janet's parents at the time. The family lived in south London.
On the record of Douglas's birth available from the website Scotland's People, his father (James) gave his occupation as 'bank clerk'. However, in what we would now call the New Year's Honours List in 1920 a James Gordon Davie was awarded an MBE. I would have thought that the name was a coincidence but for the following from the Kirriemuir Free Press and Angus Advertiser:
Records confirm that James's father was indeed John, a farmer, and that he died in 1914. In 1911, James was still in Kirriemuir but very soon after that he moved to London - by the time he married Janet in 1912 in Dundee, he gave his address as 21 Barrington Road, Herne Hill in south London. In 1914 Betty was born in "Lambeth" but that could cover a wide area including Herne Hill. In 1916 Douglas was born in Airlie but the announcement in the Montrose Standard and Angus and Mearns Register of 29 September 1916 shows his parents lived in West Norwood (close to Herne Hill):
So it seems James, Douglas's father, had been working in London for several years before the war started. He then went to work for the Ministry of Food.
To briefly divert, during the First World War the German submarine attacks on convoys caused concern about food shortages (especially as a potential cause of a workers' uprising analogous to the one that swept away the ruling class in Russia). In 1917 the Food Controller had the task of "preventing the risk of immediate starvation and loss of morale". The Ministry of Food had a budget of £900 million to buy up foodstuffs and set the maximum price. There was a Cheese (Requisition) Order and a Bacon, Ham and Lard (Maximum Prices) Order. On Wednesdays, restaurants and hotels were forbidden from serving meat on their menu (Tuesdays in London). This was the environment within which the Butter and Cheese Imports Committee did their work. The Butter and Cheese Imports Committee met 84 times in the two years it was in existence.
So James, Douglas's father, was chief cashier with responsibilities for ensuring the money was all accounted for.
In the 1921 Census the family live in London at 122 Christchurch Road, Norwood, but on Census Day James was on SS Perth in Limehouse, Stepney, either departing or arriving from an overseas voyage. As his occupation on the Census return he had initially given the answer "bank clerk" but it is then struck out to read "Cashier, Board of Trade Food Department". This makes me wonder if "bank clerk" was a slightly bland 'cover' for the confidential nature of his work in food supplies.
At some point in the early 1920s, James returned to Scotland and moved his family to a house he named Airlie Brae, 12 Campbell Drive in Bearsden. We don't know why he picked Glasgow, or Bearsden - maybe London with a young family was too much? But we do know that in 1924, James joined Bearsden Bowling Club (where he was to be president twice and become a life member in 1949).
We can track some of young Douglas's Bearsden childhood. He was good at school (see Senior I at the bottom of the cutting, 29 June 1928):
I cannot find anything about his time in the Royal Artillery. Note that he seems to have transferred to the RAF on 28th July 1941.
On 23rd October 1942 he was appointed a Pilot Officer, according to the London Gazette:
By 7th December 1943 he was in modern-day Sri Lanka at RAF Sigiriya.
Google Earth view of the airfield looking north east in 2024. I imagine that 81 years earlier more of the surrounding area might have been uncultivated ('jungle').
Douglas was a member of 160 Squadron, flying huge Liberator V aircraft (see photo at the start of this post) on long-distance patrols over the Pacific. In this context 18 hour round trips would eb normal. The planes could carry depth charges in case a Japanese submarine was spotted or mines to lay in commonly used sea-lanes.
I am indebted to the RAF Commands website, to Ross McNeill and to forum members who contributed to my post on WW2 Talk for what follows; the interpretation is mine, of course.
Taking off at 05.20, Douglas was the pilot with an all-Canadian crew. However, after two minutes and reaching 600 feet, the plane began to bank but then dived to the ground. All the crew were killed.
The Liberator was known to be difficult to fly for new pilots but Douglas had 412 hours flying solo and 163 hours on this type of aircraft. Another possibility is that weather conditions in Sri Lanka could have contributed in some way, but the early morning take-off would have meant conditions were cool.
As the squadron record stated, Douglas was buried in Kandy War Cemetery, which is one of the most beautiful I have yet seen:
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