Funeral for WW2 RAF veteran, who died aged 104

The funeral of a World War Two RAF veteran, who died aged 104, is set to take place later.

Roy Minter Hall from Alsager, Cheshire, joined the Royal Air Force in 1941 at 19. He trained as a navigator, flying in Beaufighters and Mosquitos during the conflict, including operations in North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The Alsager branch of the Royal British Legion said Hall must have been one of the few remaining WW2 RAF aircrew veterans.

It added that it would be a fitting tribute for serving and former military personnel to attend the funeral.

Hall, who amassed more than 1,500 flying hours, was commissioned as an officer on D-Day and went on to achieve the rank of flight lieutenant.

Before the war he worked for the Post Office in Stoke-on-Trent, and afterwards for Customs & Excise.

The funeral is being held at Bradwell Crematorium, Newcastle-under-Lyme.

In later life, Hall detailed his early years and wartime experiences in handwritten memoirs.

In a video recorded by his family in 2014, he recalled how he came to volunteer for the RAF, and how being aircrew had sounded like "a jolly sort of thing to do".

Hall said he was told at interview that observers - or navigators - were the "brains of the outfit", while pilots "just drive the aeroplane".

"They said we think you should volunteer to be an observer, and I said 'yes indeed'," said Hall, who was 93 at the time.

The aircraft he learned his navigational trade in were slow enough to allow him not to get into trouble.

"In an Anson or an Oxford aircraft... if you were good at map reading, you never really got lost over Britain," he said.

"Britain, believe me, is a mass of fields one after the other, and it all looks the same if you're not familiar with the situation."

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