Hong Kong-Chinese RAF pilot in WW2
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There was probably very few Chinese from Hong Kong who served as pilots in the Royal Air Force during World War 2. The demise of this gentleman was apparently reported in the previous day’s edition of this newspaper which I do not have access to.
It may tell us more?
Hong Kong Telegraph, 24 January 1946
HONG KONG BOY’S END
Victim of Crash After Four Years War Service
FLT.-LIEUT. OSWALD CHAN
Flight-Lieutenant Oswald Chan, whose death in Germany was reported yesterday, had been flying for four years. His fate is a tragic example of the irony of fortune.
Oswald was a Hong Kong boy, only brother of Mr Kenneth Chan, Managing Director of Gande Price and Co. Ltd. Their father was a prominent and well respected merchant of Hong Kong, the late Mr Chan Kai-ming.
Twenty-seven years old, Oswald was at CambridgeUniversity when the war broke out. He was born in Hong Kong in 1918. He attended the DiocesanBoysSchool, left here in 1931 and enrolled at DulwichCollege. There he achieved fame as a fencer and represented the school at that sport. In 1936 he entered DowningCollege at Cambridge and was one of the best of the fencing team. He obtained his M.A. Degree in Engineering during the war.
In 1941 Oswald joined the R.A.F. and in April 1942 won his pilot’s wings and was commissioned. After graduating as a Flight Pilot, he was made a flying instructor and remained in this work until last December, when he underwent a course as a medium bomber pilot. He graduated last February and went to France in March. From March until the end of the European war he operated against the Germans actively. He was in 226 squadron of the 2nd Tactical Air Force, flying American Mitchells.
The squadron was disbanded in September and the C.O. on taking over a new squadron asked Oswald to go with him, which he did and was posted to 4 Squadron of the British Air Force of Occupation. He was first in France, then in Holland and finally in Germany. He expected to be in the R.A.F. for at least another two years.
Flight-Liuet. Chan married last year a Hong Kong girl, Miss Doris Frith, daughter of Chief Sanitary Inspector Frith. They have a baby daughter. His last letter to his brother was written in October.
