Photo of David in later life
War Log Archive
Page 123
‘We’re paid to be civil, not servile’
It may seem a long haul from bombing Berlin in a Halifax to dishing out dinner in a Dsk, but that is in fact the journey taken by David Cleary Senior Check Steward serving with East Africa Airways.
To make good its claim of being ‘a friendly airline’, EAA flying crews must work as a friendly team. Just as the pilot must put you down at your point of destination with the best of skills, so also must the men and women in the cabin treat you to all the comforts of modern air travel…
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Cleary continued “and when the new lot came it was just as bad. By this time the Sales Manager and the other chap were beginning to get interested and I was more than just beginning to get worried, so I went back to the galley and watched the steward at work. He filled the cup from one flask and then added a fair dollop of cream. I took over. He had been mixing his cream with turtle soup.” In 1955, David Cleary left the BOAC and joined East African Airways in its Dakota days, flying the one haul down to the Union and Portuguese East…
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The Daily Telegraph, Monday October 9, 1967
Pathfinders meet old foes
Memories of “old, unhappy far-off things, and battles long ago” were revived in a spirit of good-will in a German Air Force officers’ mess at Sobernheim, West Germany, at the week-end. Members of the RAF Pathfinder Force, now in jobs ranging from company director to postmaster, were guests of the Luftwaffe Fighter Pilots’ Association at the headquarters of 42 Fighter Bomber Wing…
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News cutting continued
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Extra travel cash refused to Pathfinders
Air Cdre E M Donaldson – Air Correspondent
Only 13 of the 14 members of a party from the RAF Pathfinders’ Association were able to leave London last night on the association’s 21st anniversary visit to West Germany. Their chairman, Mr Dennis Wooley, a famous wartime bomber pilot had to stay behind because the Bank of England had refused to waive the £50 currency limit for foreign travel. Mr Wooley, who works for the Bank himself, had already spent £50 abroad this year…
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Official Programme of the Victory Celebrations 8 June 1946
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Atticus
Path Masters
Dave “Shag” Cleary’s was an odd superstition. Most of Pathfinder Force had their own private good luck charms to protect them against the special danger of their task, and Dave Cleary always flew on missions with a pair of his girl friend’s knickers in his pocket. It was his only comfort in the rear turret of the Halifax during the cold black hours before they reached the target, staring at blackness around and above him and, most of all, below him, where the fighters came from as the bombers lumbered in front of the moon. Pathfinder Force was the nucleus of RAF squadrons, formed in 1942 to lead and direct with flares the previously haphazard night bombing of German cities. For 30 years it has been commemorated by a small downstairs club in Mount Street, Mayfair. But now these premises are to be vacated. The Pathfinder Club merges this week with the Sesame Club, which is devoted to the Arts…
