John Edwin Savage (1917-1943)

 

Service No: 612613 Royal Air Force

 

John Edwin Savage was born on 12th November 1917, the first child of John Thomas Savage and Ida Ann Smith who had married on 28th May,1916. His father, John Thomas Savage, had taken part in WW1. He’d volunteered in October 1915 and been drafted to France the following April. He was in action on the Somme for some considerable time before being wounded at Givenchy in November 1916. He was invalided back to England and on his recovery transferred for duty in Ireland, where he served until he was discharged in December 1917 – just a month after the birth of his son, John Edwin.

 

John Edwin Savage

John Edwin Savage was nine years old when his father died. His mother married Frank Alfred Hall the following year and gave birth to another two sons, before Frank himself died in 1932. On 10th November 1934 Ida married John William Simmons and over the next few years gave birth to another daughter. By the time of the 1939 census, Ida’s blended family which included two step-daughters, was living at Woodlands Cottage, on the Newport Road, Castle Bromwich.

 

RAF Servicing Commandos

Like his father before him, John Edwin felt it important to serve his country and played his part in the action of WW2 as a member of the RAF.

It is understood that he enlisted in the RAF before the start of WWII and later joined the Servicing Command Unit.

A Servicing Commando Unit comprised between 150 and 170 other ranks with two or three Technical Officers, one appointed as Commanding Officer. It would normally be equipped with about 15 three-ton trucks, a jeep for the officers and two or more motorcycles.

Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten believed that there was a need for the Royal Air Force to have its own Commando unit to carry out technical functions and facilitate the air support of landing operations. They were commonly referred to as RAF Servicing Commandos. The RAF Commandos were recruited from the service personnel of RAF Squadrons. Notices were posted …

Volunteers wanted in all trades for units to be formed to service aircraft under hazardous conditions.

John Edwin Savage was one of the RAF servicemen who answered the call to train and join the Commandos.

 

Commando Training

All volunteers underwent military training supervised by Army Officers seconded for the purpose. Their training included driving and swimming, the former because they were a mobile unit and the latter because they would be involved in amphibious landings. After this they spent two weeks at Inveraray in Scotland where they trained to safely embark and disembark landing craft, including the use of scrambling nets, together with physically demanding assault exercises in the surrounding rugged, mountainous countryside.

During the following few months, the units frequently moved from airfield to airfield to gain experience of servicing a wide range of aircraft including Spitfires, Typhoons, Mustangs and Mosquitoes. Each Commando Unit had a mobile workshop, which was among the first vehicles to go ashore in assault landings, while fuel tankers and ancillary vehicles landed later in the day. The object was to establish a landing strip ready to receive aircraft flying in support of the ground forces.

Fifteen commando units were formed; each comprising about 150 men. Fifteen 3-ton trucks held each unit’s equipment and personnel when on the move. There was also 15 cwt vehicle and a jeep for the Commanding Officer and a motorcycle for the unit despatch rider.

 

Commando Unit 3225

John Edwin Savage was deployed to Special Commando Unit 3225, its primary task was to provide the technical skills to operate the emergency airfields, and to repair or cannibalise damaged aircraft.

Following months of training, aircraft servicing and refuelling in March 1943 SCU 3225 sailed to Egypt via Freetown and Durban in South Africa and Aden to Port Tewfik (now called Suez Port) Egypt. They were stationed at No21 PTC, Kasfareet and moved on to RAF Hadera, Palestine, where they worked throughout the summer. In September 1943 John Edwin was in command of a detachment that flew to Kos, Greece to do essential maintenance on a Dakota aircraft. This was during the Battle of Kos, where the island was finally lost to the German forces on 4^th October with many British and Italian’s taken prisoners of war. 

Returning to Palestine, in late October the Unit proceeded from RAF Ramat David to 180 MU 17 Kilo 17 Fayoum Road Egypt. On 22nd October Sgt John Edwin was killed whilst acting as despatch rider to the convoy of 12 vehicles. He was killed instantaneously. The accident occurred on the Mus-Mus Track near Musherifa village in the direction of Hadera.

An ambulance and medical officer were summoned and the body was transferred to No 32 General Hospital, Nazareth. The autopsy revealed a complicated skull fracture and a lacerated forehead.  

He is buried at the cemetery now known as Khayat Beach War Cemetery, Haifa, Israel. The original cross was inscribed:”A voice we loved is still’d, A place is vacant, At our hearth, Which never will be filled” has been replaced with the standard CWGC head stone. A memorial to the fallen of Servicing Commando Units was placed at the National Memorial Arboretum, Lichfield, and a tree is dedicated to Servicing Command Unit 3225. He is also remembered on the memorial plaque in St Mary and St Margaret’s Church and at the war memorial at The Green, Castle Bromwich.

 

 

This post is based on research by Alan Fewtrell and Terrie Knibb with help from John Edwin’s niece Ann Hartley

 

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