The Association has learned of the death of Lt(A) Donald Taylor DSC RNVR. He died in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham after an accident with his car. He was aged 93 and lived in Worcestershire.
Funeral details
The funeral will take place on Monday, 21st October at 15.00 at Worcester Crematorium.
Donations in Don’s memory will be shared between the R.N.L.I. and St. Dunstan’s.
Obituary
Don died in October following an unfortunate accident involving his own car. The funeral in Worcester was attended by ten former naval comrades, friends and families from the South Midlands area and by Len Wills, past Chairman of the Indefatigable Association.
Don’s father had served in the Royal Navy, retired as a Commissioned Gunner and then worked in Portsmouth Dockyard. Don was born in Portsmouth and grew up with the Navy all around him. So, after leaving school at eighteen it was natural that he would start employment in the Dockyard, as a clerical officer.
On the outbreak of war he volunteered for service as a seaman, joining up in October 1939. Trained at Skegness and Devonport he joined HMS Eagle in the Mediterranean Fleet in the spring of 1940. This was but a brief posting because, as a result of an AFO asking for volunteers for flying duties, Don applied and was accepted. He left Eagle in Alexandria in August 1940 but, such was the situation at the time, he did not arrive back in England, via the Cape and West Africa, until December. He joined HMS St. Vincent in January 1941 and started pilot training at 24 EFTS, Luton, in April on Tiger Moths. Advanced training was at Kingston, Ontario (31 FTS), on Battles and Harvards, following which he returned to the UK in December 1941. Commissioned as a Sub Lieutenant (A) RNVR he attended the ‘knife and fork’ course at Greenwich. He joined 759 NAS at Yeovilton in April 1942 for the Fighter course, followed by 761 for air gunnery training.
In August 1942 he joined 775 NAS, the Fleet Requirements Unit in Egypt. Shortly afterwards he was appointed to 889 (Fulmar) which was then giving fighter protection over the Canal Zone and the Egyptian coast. The squadron was disbanded in February 1943 and Don returned to the UK. After a month on unexplained duties at RAF Perranporth, he joined 748 NAS, No. 10 Naval OTU, at nearby St. Merryn in May 1943. A brief attachment to 768 at Machrihanish in June for deck landing training on HMS Argus in the Clyde was followed by appointment on 6 June to 899 (Seafire IIc), just in time to embark in HMS Indomitable for the voyage to the Mediterranean. This again was a brief appointment because he left 899 on 4 July and returned to Yeovilton where he was to join 1770 on formation on 10 September 1943.
1770 was the first Firefly squadron and for five months was under the command of Lieutenant Commander I.P. Godfrey RNVR. Don was joined by his observer Don Sharratt and they were to fly together for the next twenty-three months. In February 1944 the command of the squadron was taken over by Major ‘Cheese’ Cheesman RM who made the squadron very much his own for the rest of the war; they also were always to be associated with HMS Indefatigable and the actions in which she participated. First the squadron was engaged in the two attacks against the German battleship Tirpitz in the Norwegian fjords – Mascot in July 1944 and Goodwood in August.
In November Indefatigable sailed for the Indian Ocean. 1770 was still the only Firefly squadron in the front line when the Fleet, now known as the British Pacific Fleet, assembled around four Royal Navy fleet carriers, set sail from Trincomalee for the short but very successful series of attacks on oil refineries in Sumatra. 1770 Sqn. took an important part in these raids, after which Don was awarded the DSC. The Fleet then proceeded round the south of Australia to Sydney and air squadrons were disembarked to the newly-set-up Naval Air Stations at Nowra and Schofields to replenish aircraft and aircrew. In February the Fleet moved forward to Manus, Admiralty Islands, and then, as Task Force 57, the carriers were involved in the intensive operations Iceberg against Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Junto islands and on Formosa. 1770 was fully engaged in all these strikes.
Indefatigable was delayed in Sydney by subsequent mechanical trouble and so was late to re-join the Fleet off Japan in July for the final attacks against the mainland islands but once again Cheese’s men were in the thick of it. After the ships were finally withdrawn in August 1945, 1770 was disembarked to Maryborough, Queensland, another temporary Naval Air Station, where the CO and all the original aircrew left the squadron and were immediately sent home.
Don was demobilised at Christmas-time 1945. His medals were the Distinguished Service Cross; 1939/’45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Burma Star; Pacific Star as a Burma Clasp; War Service Medal; Defence Medal; Russian Commemorative Medal; Malta Commemorative Medal; Arctic Medal. He was awaiting news of the Russian medal at the time of his death.
Returning to civilian life, Don re-joined the Expense Accounts office in Portsmouth Dockyard. However, on 17 December 1946 he was appointed as an officer in the Excise branch of HM Customs and Excise in their Havant office, starting a career of some thirty-five years in HMCE. His final posting was to Droitwich in 1972 on the introduction of VAT, when the family moved to Powick, Worcestershire.
Don retained the greatest respect for and loyalty to his old CO and was one of the first to be summoned by Cheese to the first-ever FOTMM at Ombersley on 2 February 1977. He had been a regular attender ever since until March this year. He and his wife Sylvia, who pre-deceased him in 2000, brought up two sons Alan and Patrick, surrounded by the objects of his enthusiasms – model sailing-ships, many scratch-built with the most detailed rigging; ships and aircraft built from kits; cabinet-making; landscape painting in oils and water-colour and wood carving. Over the mantel-piece in his sitting-room hung one of Val Bennett’s watercolours of Fireflys of 1770 in action in the Pacific to remind him of that high point of his life. Don carved a 1770 Squadron crest which is now at Yeovilton. He was also a dedicated gardener – truly a man of many parts.
Don was a great friend to us all in the South Midlands FOTMM; he delighted in reminiscing about his experiences although he never boasted about them. He will be sorely missed.
From Records
Donald Taylor was born on 14 April 1920 and was educated in Portsmouth. He enrolled in the RNVR in April 1939 and was called up in October of that year. An Ordinary Seaman, he trained at Royal Arthur at Ingoldmells near Skegness. In January 1940 he joined HMS Eagle hunting enemy raiders in the Indian Ocean, then later in 1940 was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet for the Battle of Calabria. In 1941 he joined the FAA where he trained in Luton and Kingston, Canada.
After spending time with 759 Squadron at Yeovilton, in August 1942 he joined 889 Squadron flying Hurricanes in the Western Desert followed by a spell at RAF Perranporth flying Spitfires. September 1943 saw him join 1770 Squadron flying the Firefly under the command of Major V B G Cheesman DSO MBE DSC RM, taking part in Operation Tungsten against the Tirpitz in Norway and seeing action at Palembang and Okinawa flying from HMS Indefatigable in 1945.
After being demobbed in February 1946 he joined HM Customs & Excise until retirement in 1982. He lived in Worcestershire with his wife, Sylvia who died in 2000. He was a regular at the South Midlands FOTMM since its formation by ‘Cheese’ Cheesman in 1977.
In his own words:
“Whilst obviously under fire in the FAA, I never came face to face with the enemy. Ironically in the Customs & Excise on two occasions I came up against individuals threatening me with knives, but luckily I suffered no injury!”
From References
London Gazette 31 July 1945 – Operation ICEBERG – Air Strikes on the Sakishima Islands on 26 March 1945
T/Lt (A) Donald TAYLOR RNVR DSC Posted