My feelings of guilt at being a war survivor

I HAVE read with great interest the letter from James Pikes (Yorkshire Post, October 3) with reference to the article by Lucy Oates (Yorkshire Post, September 24).

These two items return very poignant memories for me. In August 1939, I was called up for service in the RAF, together with my closest friend Douglas Matthias Eggleston of Wakefield.

Originally at Dishforth, we quite soon discovered the joys of evening dances at the “Betty’s dive in York”. We met two girls, one Alicia Maude Sigsworth of Central Farm, Raskelf, with her friend Claire Dutton.

We became such friends; Claire wrote to me for the remaining war years, while Alice in August 1942 became Mrs Eggleston at Raskelf church.

Sadly, Alice, who helped in her brother-in-law’s jeweller’s shop in Spurriergate, York, became a widow in 1944 when Doug was lost without trace in a Lancaster bomber over Europe.

Doug, with myself, were playing members of Sandal Rugby Club, who in addition lost Tom Marsden, Jack Fielden DFC, Tim White, HV (Buckle) Blakey and Mick Gledhill, all RAF.

In 1946, survivors subscribed to a plaque unveiled at St Helen’s Church in Sandal. To my humiliation, this occasion was attended by one widow with the mothers of each of the above mentioned.

My feelings of guilt being a survivor, not joining the above, remains to this day.

Doug Eggleston’s name is on the “lost without trace” memorial at Runnymede while it has been my privilege to visit Jack Fielden’s grave at the RAF Charlottenburg Military Cemetery in Berlin.