Peter W. Lake

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Peter Lake was born on 2 September 1920 in Salford, Lancashire. His mother would not marry his father unless they had servants, so the family moved to Jesselton, Borneo, where they could live a more luxurious life. His father worked there as a paymaster for the British North Borneo Company. His father was an ex-air force man and served as an observer with the Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. After his paternal grandfather’s death, his uncle became a Barnardo Boy, one of the many orphans sent from England to Canada. The move established the Lake family’s first roots in Canada. His uncle later served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I.

After returning to England in 1929, Peter’s family faced financial hardship. His father had lost their money, and his mother was left with no choice but to rely on others to help care for their child. Peter did not attend any formal schooling until he was ten years old. From the age of 10 to 13, he attended boarding school before finding work at a poultry farm, where he earned money to support his household.

In September 1940, at twenty years of age, Peter was living with his mother in Cornwall, England, and noticed a Royal Air Force recruitment advertisement for air crew, “as soon as I saw it, I filled it in,” he claimed. Peter saw himself as a protector, having looked after his mother and sister for so many years. When the opportunity to serve arose, it was only natural that he continued along the path to provide for his family and protect their skies. 

By October, he had gone to Plymouth and was accepted for air crew training as a pilot navigator. He was eventually sent to Portsmouth, “which was very badly bombed at that period in time,” he said. He proceeded to London by train on 12 January 1940, “that night when I arrived in London there was a full-blown air raid going, the guns were going, the bombs were falling, shrapnel was coming down,” he explained. This was Peter’s first time experiencing the horrors of war firsthand. As Peter traveled through the stations of London’s underground, the platforms were littered with families taking shelter. When he arrived at his destination, an incendiary bomb dropped into the bedroom, just feet away from him. This was his first close call with death. 

Peter completed his initial training at No. 1 Receiving Wing at Babbacombe. Here, he was finally kitted out in uniform. He recalled plenty of physical training exercises and drilling while in the initial training phase of his Air Force career. He also studied the mathematics and theory needed to be a pilot navigator. He failed his examinations to become a pilot navigator and was interviewed by Flight Lieutenant Wright to determine his future. Wright told him that he would be put down for wireless operator/air gunner training. Peter figured becoming an air gunner would be “the next best thing” besides becoming a pilot. What he underestimated was the complexity of the wireless operator training. He figured he was going to be placed in the turret of a Boulton Paul Defiant as an air gunner. Instead, he was sent to Blackpool, where he started his wireless training and learned Morse code. Initially, Peter admitted he was slow at interpreting the “dit do da dits to writing,” and failed his first exam. After retaking the course a second time, he passed the requirement of eight words per minute. Peter was sent to No. 2 Radio School at Yatesbury to begin training in flight. He started with wireless sets of the Bristol Blenheim and Handley Page Hampden bombers. 

Peter was sent to a highly secretive Wireless Intercept Station (Y-Station) at Felixstowe, where he worked underground in wireless telegraphy (W/T). Y-Stations were crucial in signals intelligence gathering and directly fed intelligence to Bletchley Park to be decoded and interpreted. The station at Felixstowe supported communications between coastal command aircraft, naval vessels, and shore installations while simultaneously monitoring and intercepting enemy naval and air force radio transmissions in the North Sea region. They also had high-frequency direction finding (HF/DF) capabilities that were able to locate German U-boats and surface vessel positions while the enemy transmitted wireless messages. Peter observed the workforce of the station transmitting and receiving messages on teleprinters. He was not allowed to touch, only watch. The purpose of the posting was to show Peter how things worked on the ground and the operations of a typical wireless station. If he were to go operational as a wireless operator, he would likely be in communication with a similar station. He was also posted to guard duties at the station, which were particularly bitter during the winter months. After his guard duties, he would bring a bottle full of hot water to bed with him to warm up. He contracted a short stint of Bronchitis during this posting, but was able to recover quickly.

Following his time at  Felixstowe, Peter was sent back to Yatesbury for further training in the air. Most of his in-flight training was completed on the Percival Proctor, a single-engine, low-wing monoplane that could seat three to four people. The plane was a popular choice to facilitate the training of wireless operators. He only received gunnery training after he had perfected transmitting and receiving. His gunnery training was a four-week course carried out at No. 1 Air Gunners School in Pembrey, Wales. After completing the air gunner course, he finally received his wings.

 Peter was then sent to Turnberry, Scotland, where he was given the choice to fly in the Vickers Wellington bomber or the Bristol Beaufort bomber. Peter chose the latter. He reasoned that flying in the Wellington would mean bombing masses of people, while the Beaufort was an aggressor, equipped with torpedoes and bombs meant to torment Axis ships, “a bit more lively,” he said. The Beaufort had a four-man crew, two air gunners, a navigator, and a pilot. The pilot and navigator assigned to Lake’s Beaufort were Australians. He had no choice in who his crew would consist of, but he felt comfortable with the matchup. He found a sense of safety in their slightly older age, and he had previously enjoyed the company of the Australians he had befriended in Borneo.  

On one occasion at Turnberry, Peter had volunteered to serve as a wireless operator during a pilot’s first night flight on a Beaufort. As they were coming toward the runway for a landing, the klaxon horn roared, indicating that although their landing gear had been deployed, it had not locked into place. If they were to land, it would be a catastrophe. The pilot revved the engine as the plane almost fell into a stall, the engine sputtered improperly, and finally kicked in at the last possible moment. The pilot pulled up and cleared a hospital by just thirty feet. 

Another time at Turnberry, a pilot had recognized Peter. It was a man who had taken the same pilot course roughly a year prior. Peter was a bit shocked that the man had remembered him, but was pleased to see a familiar face. After a bit of catching up, the pilot asked Peter to join his crew. Peter asked permission to do so, but was denied as he already had one. A short time later, it was his pilot friend’s turn to complete a daytime circuit. The plane experienced engine trouble after taking off from the short runway and crashed nose-first into the water. The entire crew was killed. If Peter had been granted permission to join the crew, he would have undoubtedly perished. 

Peter eventually took part in Royal Air Force Operations in the Middle East and North Africa with 203 Squadron. The squadron served mostly in coastal reconnaissance, patrol, and anti-submarine warfare. He was assigned to a Martin Baltimore bomber with his new squadron. Nearly all of his operational missions flew out of Benghazi, flying around the Adriatic, the heel of Italy, the Mediterranean, and the Aegean Sea. A few of his flights also departed from Misrata, Libya. Peter’s first operational flight was on 15 April 1943 over the Aegean Sea. He quickly discovered that most operations would be flown at low altitude, below 5000 feet. 

On time, during an operational sortie out of North Africa, Peter and his crew took off from their runway southbound. While still over their tent lines, the starboard engine faulted. With a full tank of gasoline, they needed to avoid a crash landing. The port engine was just strong enough to carry the aircraft with winds acting in their favour. The pilot gained enough control to turn and make a landing. An ambulance picked them up, brought them to a new aircraft, and they continued their mission.

 Their faulty aircraft was sent to a maintenance unit for a couple of days, where they proclaimed nothing was wrong with it. The bomber was sent back to operational service immediately. Unfortunately for the aircraft’s next crew, the engine failed once again. This time, the plane had made it further from the runway and was forced to crash in the desert. Since they were on an operational mission, they too had a full tank of gasoline. The aircraft crashed and burst into flames. Two wireless operators were unable to evacuate the plane and burned along with it. 

On another occasion in Benghazi, Peter and his friend were in their tent when a Bristol Blenheim was having engine trouble. The aircraft undershot the runway, destroyed an olive tree, bounced over their tent, and crashed into a Martin Baltimore aircraft. The Blenheim went up in flames. Luckily, because they were only twenty to thirty feet away, Peter and others at the base were able to pull the men from the wreckage alive, “if he had just come to the tree next to the one he hit, he would have taken me and my tent away,” he claimed.

In November 1943, the squadron moved to India, where they converted to flying Vickers Wellington aircraft and flew coastal patrols. In October 1944, the Wellingtons were replaced with Consolidated Liberators, and in February 1945, the squadron began to fly anti-submarine patrols from Ceylon. After the Japanese surrender in the summer of 1945, the squadron performed transport duties. 

Peter estimated that he survived close calls with death sixteen times during the war, “not from enemy action directly, but indirectly.” The last close call was in October 1945. After the war, he asked his mother how she coped with the danger of having a son in the air force. She claimed, “I never worried, I knew you’d be alright.” He served two tours, flying in 61 combat missions.

Peter was discharged from the air force in January 1946 and moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to work as an agricultural district officer for the British Service, teaching local communities farming techniques. His district looked after 49,000 Africans in 6,000 square miles of Northern Rhodesia. While in Rhodesia, he met Margaret, a nurse, and married her in 1957. They welcomed their first son, William, in 1959. 

The couple returned to England in 1960 and lived in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. Their son Geoffrey, was born in 1961. Peter worked at his father-in-law’s clothing outfitters’ business but found the transition from lord-like status in Rhodesia difficult. 

The family eventually had the opportunity to move to Canada, where they sought greater economic opportunity. The Lake family made the move to Victoria, British Columbia, in 1972. There, they purchased a clothing store called John McMasters’ Fine Clothes, located at 1012 Fort Street, which they ran until the 1980s. 

Peter was a proud member of the Vancouver Island Aircrew Association and enjoyed gardening, traveling, and spending time with friends. He spent his final days at Broadmead Veterans’ Memorial Lodge and passed away at age 104 on 19 October 2024.