Surviving the Skies A Night Bomber Pilot in the Great War

Captain Stephen Wynn Vickers joined the Cheshire Regiment in August 1914, but after being badly wounded he remustered to the RFC (Royal Flying Corps). While other young pilots were killed or injured almost as soon as they got their wings, Captain Vickers survived numerous crash and forced landings. He joined 101 Squadron in 1917 and completed seventy-three sorties over enemy territory before being repatriated in May 1918 and awarded the newly inaugurated DFC, as well as the MC. With the war drawing to a close, he became a flying instructor at an RAF station in Lincolnshire, but he did not live long enough to receive either his medals or the distinction that he deserved.

Joe Bamford has always had an interest in the military and aviation. Both his grandfather and brother were awarded the Military Medal in the Great War and his uncle was killed in 1944. Bamford joined the RAF in 1968 as an assistant air-traffic controller, serving at Manston in Kent and Akrotiri in Cyprus. In 1992, Bamford set up the "Salford Lancaster Memorial Appeal" to raise a memorial to the crew of a Lancaster bomber that crashed and killed his grandmother. He was made an honorary member of the Manchester Bomber Command Association, who was heavily involved in the memorial that was dedicated on July 30, 1994, exactly 50 years after the crash. In 2006, Bamford was invited to make one of the final speeches and give a toast to all its members.