My great-uncle, Reginald Ellicott, who has died aged 94 from cancer, enjoyed a distinguished postwar career in the RAF, rising to the rank of squadron leader.
Reg was Anglo-Indian, a distinct minority community in India that left in large numbers after the turbulent British withdrawal from the country in 1947. Born in Karachi, he was the son of Archibald Ellicott, an excise inspector, and his wife, Vivienne (nee Ellicott; they shared a surname as they were cousins), a civil servant. From 1940 the family lived in Bombay (now Mumbai) where Reg attended Christ Church high school. They sailed for Liverpool in 1949, settling in Clapham, south London, later that year.
Reg joined the RAF in 1951, and completed his officer and navigator training. He was posted to 139 Squadron at RAF Hemswell in Lincolnshire where, as a pilot officer he flew the Canberra light bomber. In 1953, he saluted the newly crowned Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, leading a flypast of Canberras as part of the Coronation celebrations.
At a dance at RAF Hemswell Reg met Freda Ormsby. They married in 1955, and moved to RAF Marham in Norfolk, where Reg flew Valiants, high-altitude jet bombers, and later the Victor and Vulcan bombers. All were part of a new V Bomber Force capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear bombs.
The cold war period was a perilous time for Reg and other aircrew. 139 Squadron was part of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, and took part in regular quick reaction alerts (QRAs) that required crew to be airborne within minutes. Siren alerts announcing QRA scrambles were a regular feature, and Reg would have to fly eastwards towards the USSR, with a live nuclear bomb load, not knowing whether the operation was an exercise or a real operation. Only when crew received the coded “Return to base” was it made clear it had been an exercise.
In November 1956, Reg flew in Operation Musketeer, an attempt to seize back control of the Suez canal from Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had nationalised it. He flew a Valiant out of Malta for the operation. Later he undertook secret work using radar to track incoming missiles. His task was to warn senior staff and politicians in the event of a hostile ballistic missile launch.
Reg and his family moved around for service. He was in East Yorkshire (1970-72), Hong Kong (1972-74), at Strike Command in High Wycombe (1975-77), on an exchange tour in Jever, Germany (1978-80), and, finally, at North Yorkshire RAF Fylingdales (1981-84). In 1989, he retired to Stilton in Cambridgeshire.
A warm, modest and intelligent man, Reg was never happier than when surrounded by his family.
Freda died in 2021. Reg is survived by his daughters, Sharon, Kate and Charlotte, his grandchildren, Luke, Holly, Sam, Izzy, Alice and Ed, three great-grandchildren and his great-nieces, Juliet, Karen and me.
