Page 7 - Harry Brittain

194 Squadrons Battle Honour’s

1942 - 1944: Transport Squadron, India

1944 - 1945: Air Support, paratrooper drop and supply drops, Burma

194 Squadron was part of No.177 Wing; Third Tactical Air Force; Eastern Air Command; HQ Air
Command South-East Asia
These are the airfields that 194 Squadron where based at during the Burma campaign.

October 1942-February 1943: Lahore
February-September 1943: Palam
September 1943-February 1944: Basal
February 1944: Comilla
February-September 1944: Agartala
September-November 1944: Imphal
November-December 1944: Basal
December 1944-March 1945: Imphal
March-May 1945: Maunybyin
May-August 1945: Ayyab Main
August 1945-February 1946: Mingaladon

This link takes the reader to a history of the Burma campaign

Burma campaign

Harrys service record shows prior to being shipped back to the UK he was attached to No.6264
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Servicing Echelon at RAF Wangjing on the Indian /Burma border from the 12 December 1945, he
being attached to the station servicing section or workshops. No records are available showing
which squadron Harry was attached to at this airfield. The next entry on his service record is HE
(Home Establishment), meaning he is going home for demobilization. Harry arriving back and
reporting to No.102 Personal Dispatch Centre (2PDC) at RAF Cardington, Bedfordshire on the
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26 February 1946. Cardington is where the Barnes Wallis R100 airships were built and today the
two airship hangars are Grade 1 listed buildings.

On being demobbed in February 1946 Harry, having been awarded the Burma Star,
The 1939 - 1945 Star, the War Medal and the King’s Badge, rode his motorbike up to Scotland
from Yorkshire to visit his friend Tommy’s family and hopefully to meet this younger sister;
Alice remembers hearing Harry’s knock on their front door and later said that she didn’t then
realize it was Fate knocking! Needless to say, they had both found the true loves of their lives
and though there was an eight-year difference in ages they were determined to wed and did so
when Alice was 19 years old in October 1948.

Harry brought his young wife to live first in Borrowby, North Yorkshire, in a two-up-two-down
cottage with an outside toilet and tin bath, and then into Bedale and finally Aiskew near
Northallerton. After the war he worked for the Ministry of Agriculture and put to use his mechanical
skills roving the county to repair and service farm tractors, combines etc. a job that he thoroughly
enjoyed. When this job ceased to be, he held down various employments until eventually retiring
from a timber merchant.