Extracts of e-mails from 'Mr. Kerry Doyle' including Photo's.

No' 70 squadron communications flight; my father was involved with the flight and was in Habbaniya throughout the battle, I remember him recounting several amusing stories, one in which a very irate flight sergeant was promising a medal to anyone who would run and close the gates in the face of incoming fire, plus the responses he received! My father was an LAC1, a fitter, and I believe he was in the crew of Sgt. W. Thornley, He recounted sadly that Wally was a later killed while flying a Hudson. If it is of any interest I have a number of photographs of the period, showing Valentia's of the flight, with some good detail.
There are four photos, one shows three Valentia's parked, on the back in pencil is written '70 Sq'n, com flt, Iraq., my assumption is that it was taken in Habbaniya. Of the others, one is an interior view of a Valentia, showing, amongst other gear, a spare propeller. The other two, show a Valentia being loaded/unloaded, and my father with another crew member, these shots show canvas water bags tied to the outside of the fuselage to keep them cool, an interesting detail.
August 2004.
Two things he mentioned come to mind; one was the locating and subsequent bombing of a gun emplacement, the Iraqi's were wheeling it in and out of concealment when it was spotted by an incoming Vickers Vincent, the pilot landed bombed up and had a crack at the gun, another was the bombing of a position using a large bomb constructed ad hoc by the engineers, the bombing was carried out by a Valentia of com flight, it was aimed by "the number one eyeball" sight and apparently when the crew eventually manhandled it out of the door it landed smack on target!
My father also mentioned being on the aircraft that transported the Amir Abdullah, he mentioned that there were two aircraft assigned to that particular operation, and that the second was sabotaged.
As to Sgt Wally Thornley, all I can recall my father mentioning was that Wally had been killed while flying a Hudson, he apparently crashed on a landing and the plane went up in flames with non of the crew surviving. I got the impression the accident happened while Wally was still serving in the in the middle east.
April 2006.
I had another recollection of an incident my father described. It concerned a plane of the Comm' Flight, of which he was a crewmember, flying all the way to somewhere in the Caucasus on 'Something Special'. they had two civilians on board and the crew were issued with special ID which showed no rank and clearly stated they were not to be questioned, If I remember correctly, the regular pilot, Wally Thornley, was replaced by the CO.

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Here are the photo's included with Kerry's  E-mails: -