Page 32 • The HERALD • 9th March 2023 v READ THE HERALD ONLINE: www.herald-publishing.co.uk v Professional installers of Fascias, Guttering, Cladding, PVCu Windows & Doors Composite Doors • 10 year labour and product guarantees Repairs, cleaning and advice also available Tel: 023 8086 9715 or 07888 705455 enquiries@aztecfascias.com • Airport & Seaport Specialists • Highly Competitive Fares • Friendly, Reliable Service • Comfortable 6 Seater MPVs • Any Distance - Minimum Fare £10 Before booking your journey please call us for a free quotation 07770 967198 or 023 8194 8754 www.kazcarz.co.uk OBITUARY FOR FLIGHT LIEUTENANT FRANCIS SOUNESS DFC by Patricia Hedley-Goddard Skilled navigator who completed 148 supplymissions over the Malayan jungle and helped establish air forces in former British Colonies. Francis (Frank) Scott Souness was born in Galashiels in 1930, to Tom and Annie Souness, a railway signalman and a seamstress in a maternity hospital, who later served as Mayor and Mayoress of Carlisle. ey had expectations of Frank joining the Co-operative Bank a er leaving Carlisle Grammar School. Suspecting that they would not accept his preference for a ying career, he took their name in vain on the application form and entered the RAF as an aircra apprentice in September 1946, just a er turning 16 years of age. For three years he trained at Cranwell as a ‘Trenchard Brat’ ( a role ‘to make us Service minded - or Service bloody-minded - and able to take on anything’), followed by one year’s ‘improver training’, working on ‘real aircra at St. Athan in Wales. ere, Frank met his future wife Marion Patricia (Pat) Crown, an RAF telephonist, before he was posted to Kinloss, potentially as an air radio tter. A clash with his Sergeant Mechanic caused his reassignment to the ight line, servicing Lancaster bombers ‘at ungodly hours’. is led to enlistment as a Cadet Navigator inDecember 1950, at Cranwell’s Initial Training School. From there he was commissioned as Acting Pilot O cer ‘on probation’ on May 17th 1951, having married Pat just seven days earlier: as a junior o cer (though not as a cadet) he would have been refused permission to do so for another four years. A er graduating from No 5 years at No. 1 and brie y No. 2 Flying Training School, Syerston. He was in full study mode on this course, in May 1955, when summoned from the lecture room to the Station Commander’s o ce ‘immediately’. Expecting that his living o -base with his wife before the age of 25 - a er two years apart on deployment - had been noticed, Frank braced himself for a reprimand. Instead, he was congratulated on the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross for his ‘meticulous care and untiring energy’ and ‘calm e ciency, courage and high sense of duty’ during 148 operational sorties in Malaya ‘while locating dropping zones deep in the jungle’ o en in foul and dangerous weather. Altogether Frank had racked up more than 1,500 hours in Valetta transport aircra on his tour with 110 Squadron, including no fewer than 29 operational supply drops from Kuala Lumpur between September 11th and October 8th 1954. According to the o cial history of the RAF during the campaign, Operation Firedog: Air Support in the Malayan Emergency: ‘by the middle of 1954….. over 7,500 terrorists had been eliminated and only 3,500 still remained at large in the jungle. ese survivors, however, represented the ‘core’ of the Communist Terrorist (CT) organisation. Instead of CTs staying safe in the jungle, air supply operations enabled the army to penetrate it as deeply as it wished and remain there for up to three months, rather than the four days to which patrols would have otherwise been limited. Not only supply drops, but the insertion of special forces plus the broadcasting of surrender messages from a specially equipped Valetta (the ‘howler’) all had to be done at very low level. Inevitably, there were losses from extreme conditions over inhospitable territory, some of it uncharted. Yet, Frank relished the challenge, conducting 10 ‘howler’ missions in one eight-day period, each up to three hours in duration. His Service Record shows him invariably requesting ying duties when asked about his future preferences, and evading promotions which might largely rule them out. During this period, he became eligible, at last, for married quarters. His and Pat’s daughter, Fiona, was born in 1956: she worked in marketing and later became head of design at Conservative Central O ce. Operational Conversion Unit, Dishforth, clocking up more than 80 hours on the Valetta transport aircra , before joining 110 Squadron in the Far East. On his return from Malaya, by now a ying O cer, Frank passed his course at Shawbury in 1955 with grades A2 and A1 to qualify as a Sta Navigator/Instructor. He served for more than two Air Navigation School, Lindholme, in January 1952, already con rmed as Pilot O cer, he joined 242 Flight Lieutenant Francis Souness Continued on page 33
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