The extraordinary Wilson Curry DFC

But Mr Curry is far from the ordinary Roe Valley pedestrian. Having flown fifteen different types of aircraft, spent 5,300 hours in the air, carried out almost 200 supply drop missions in the Far East and fight the nuclear threat of the 1950's. Actually, former RAF Flight Lieutenant Curry is quite extraordinary. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Her Majesty the Queen in 1956, Mr Curry's accomplishments and courageous achievements to date are honourable. So honourable that the Borough born navigator and co-pilot has not only been personally recognised by the Queen, but more recently, the King of Malaysia. Literally flying in the face of the Korean communists of the 1950's, Mr Curry defended the Far East and his own comrades against the backlash of guerrilla operations to force the British from Malaysia with 48 Squadron. "I think it was when they started to build airports at the start of the Second World War when I realised flying was what I wanted to do in life," explained the RAF veteran: "The German U Boats were sinking all- the cargo ships, it's a miracle how Britain survived, because they depended on the Americans to get their supplies in. "Ballykelly, Limavady and Eglinton were designed to protect the convoys and attack the U boats, and that's why Londonderry became the major port. It was more chancey than the Battle of Britain strangely enough." "So at that time I could see all these planes and I was in the Air Training Core at the time. Then after the war everything quietened down, they weren't taking so many people. "Then they started in the Cold War again, the Russian threats and the Korean. That's when I cleared off and went to the recruitment office." Born into a family with a military background; a father who fought in the WW1 trenches and a mother who served as a WW1 nursing auxiliary, William John Wilson Curry, grew up to rise through the ranks the Aircrew Selection Centre at RAF Hornchurch and RAF College Cranwell. "I used to work in Tweedy Acheson and Company, it was time of the Korean War, the Cold War, and the military were looking to recruit pilots from Ulster. Wilson continued: "So I went along and didn't tell anyone and went up to Belfast to the RAF recruitment office. I walked passed it a couple of times before I went in. I spoke to a guy there and told him I wanted to join the Air Force. He said, 'Oh good, we have 30 trades here, you can do any of them'. I said told him no, I want to fly." "So he sized me up and told me to come back in the afternoon. So later the CO comes in and he interviews me. Then before I knew it I was going to Hornchurch to the RAF Recruitment Centre, where they test people. "I went across and stayed there for three or four days, going through interviews and doing aptitude tests. I wondered what I was doing there as there was some brilliant people with a great experience, private pilots and that thing." On the final day after being put through his paces, the honoured RAF man found himself in a waiting room with 50 other potential recruits awaiting to hear whether he would get a chance at a dream career. "They started calling people in, the first ones came out, picked their bags up, never said anything and away they went. They were obviously turned down. "When I went in the guy said, 'Curry, everything's perfect, there's only one snag - your heartbeats a bit high.' He said I was probably a bit jittery, I said 'yip, yip,your right.' " Faced with the prospect of losing out on a flying career, Wilson returned home to Limavady where he took a letter to his own doctor, who passed him medically. "On the way back to Hornchurch I actually kept testing my pulse and the closer I got to the base, the higher it went. I got in about 4pm and went to the Air Force Medical Department. I went in and after the doctor tested me again. He said 'Hi, I'm going to pass you'. As soon as he said that my pulse went down. It was just high tension." Wilson added: "The next morning I went to the board. Three officers stood up and one said: 'Welcome to the Air Force Curry, when can you start?'. I said anytime." That was in 1950, at the tender age of 19. At 21, after initial training at RAF College Cranwell, Mr Curry received his commission as a Pilot Officer and was posted for flight training to RCAF London, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba. "They inducted us into the Canadian way of doing things and then we onto Winnipeg," Wilson reminisced. "I would never live in Canada, it was great, but the winters were very, very cold. And I can't stand the cold. Here is bad enough but the temperatures there were awful. "After training we came back and we were inducted into the RAF way of doing things. We did a course, and then they posted me as a supernumerary to an air base in southern England, this was until I was ready to do the next course. "So I went to a Transport Command base where they trained paratroopers. And then I was told I was going to be dropping the paratroopers. I looked at them and said ok. "Then one day someone asked me what category I was. He asked what category did I get at the Transport Command training , I told him I hadn't been at the Transport Command training. He nearly fainted. If anything had've happened, they would've been court martialled!" After being called back to the Transport Command Conversion, the Pilot Officer was posted to the Far East, a posting that has left it's mark on the veteran to this day. "There was no weather forecasts in those days; we had to get the stuff in for the troops no matter what. And at times the weather there was very bad. I've flown in everything. You fly in cloud with torrential rain coming down, lightning, then there's thunder,which affects the compasses. The turbulence was severe. "You were flying low and the hills were going up to the heavens. Sometimes the cloud dropped, you didn't know your way out, you had to be very quick. All the jungle looks the same but after a while you knew what to look for." "Fortunately I survived but some didn't. As they say clouds, full of rocks. It was most interesting." During his tour in the Far East, Wilson's duties took him to Singapore, Borneo, the Phillippines, Hong Kong, Saigon, Bangkok , the Maldives and New Zealand to name but a few. On return to the UK he completed tours with 202 Met Squadron at RAF Aldergrove 542 Special Duties, Canberra Squadron , followed by 1323 flight in the South Pacific flying in support of the Nuclear test programme and onto Metropolitan Comms. Squadron, London. "Just before the South Pacific posting I remember being called to the Wing Commanders office. When I went in he said to me, 'What's all this Curry about your posting?' I told him I was going to the detachment squadron. "Then he said: 'No your not, your being posted to the South Pacific, out of Bomber Command, and everyone is wondering how this happened and they are trying to stop it, even the group commander and Bomber Command leader'. "But Air Ministry was the superior say so and they refused. The Wing Commander asked me how it happened. Well I told him the truth. I was standing in for the squadron leader one day, and a circular came round. I had the experience that they required so I scribbled my name on it and threw it in the out tray, knowing it would be stopped either at station, wing, group or command, but it got through the whole lot to air ministry, and they refused to bow down!" "And the Wing Commander said: 'I'll see you in the mess tonight, you've escaped'. And so it was, and that's when they were testing the nuclear bombs, the communists." Mr Curry, who now lives in Thackery Place in the town, remembers with fine detail the impact the nuclear threat had on the world during one of his last tours in the RAF. "The Russians were terrified, the Yanks were terrified, the people were terrified under the threat. Fortunately nothing happened, there wasn't a nuclear war. And I hope there will never be. But it is a terrible world we are living in today as you know. You have ruthless people. People that blow themselves up." Flight Lieutenant Curry's final tour was on the Comets of 216 Squadron, Transport Command as global navigator. His impressive career saw him fly Valetta, Hastings, Dakota and Comet aircraft clocking up 5,300 hours in the air. He's carried some of the world's most powerful people and received the highest RAF honour of military decoration. But his most memorable experience in the RAF?. "Without a doubt the tour in the Far East, the people were lovely and the food was lovely. I took an extension in the Far East and on my time on leave I asked permission could I spend it there." In 1956 Wilson was awarded the DFC from HM Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. In 1966 Flight Lieutenant Wilson Curry retired from the RAF and returned to his native homeland of Northern Ireland. More recently Wilson was awarded the Pingat Jasa Malasia (Malaysian Defence Medal) by the King and people of Malaysia in recognition of the contribution made by members of the security forces during 'The Emergency' and subsequent 'Confrontation' with Indonesia 1963 -1966. A modest man, Wilson, who moved back to Limavady in 2008 after living in Larne for 40 years, sums his RAF achievements in one simplistic sentence. "It is gratifying to know that we helped to defeand Malaysia and it's exotic peoples during the Cold War and the Communist Insurrection."