The RAF Association is commemorating the life of Flying Officer Charles Gallagher DFC, a Bomber Command veteran who died on Christmas Eve 2020.

Charles was born in Nottingham in 1924 and educated in Devon and at Cambridge University. He joined the Universiy Air Squadron then enlisted into the RAF in 1942.

After navigator/bomb aiming training in South Africa, he returned to the UK in early 1944 and spent three weeks acclimatisation to flying in European conditions at RAF Millom. He then moved to the Halifax operational training unit at RAF Stanton Harcourt.

Here Charles experienced “the most memorable day in my entire training”, crewing up. In a time-honoured tradition, up to 100 aircrew, of all disciplines, would be locked in a hangar and told not to come out until they had sorted themselves a crew.

Charles quickly got together with another navigator he had trained with, Jim Portwood, giving them a sound navigator/bomb aimer team, They then went in search of a pilot. This is where he meet his lifelong friend, Flight Lieutenant “Mac” Macfarlane. They then found the other four members of the crew, a wireless operator and three air gunners. The crew stayed together through the first 20 missions of the 29 they completed up to the end of the war, when a new rear gunner joined.

The crew was assigned to 76 Squadron at RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor.When asked how they got through the war, during which 5,205 fellow Bomber Command aircrew sacrificed their lives, Charles would answer, “Comradeship, the crew and, most of all, by having a sense of humour”.

Following the end of the war in Europe, 76 Squadron converted to Dakotas and Mac and Charles went together as a crew to the Far East, supplying allied forces and repatriating allied prisoners of war.

Both Charles and Mac died in 2020. They met, for the very last time, at the end of 2019 in the RAF Association’s Sussexdown Care Home in Storrington where Mac lived. There they shared memories of lives well spent and a few laughs about their extraordinary adventures.

Charles was awarded his Distinguished Flying Cross in November 1945.

Charles was married to Mary, in 1951, by his father, the Reverend William Gallagher. Mary was, as he always said, “the most beautiful girl I have ever seen”. She passed away in November 2019.

He is survived by his three daughters, Caroline, Rosanne and Kate. To them and their families we send our sincere condolences.