In September 1940 Harley was promoted to flight lieutenant and given command of the RAF Station at Alor Star in Malaya. 62 Squadron flew on what Harley later described, as the first and only operation that it carried out as a unit, when he lead eleven Blenheims to bomb the Japanese invasion fleet. Against the odds, all of 62 Squadron’s aircraft and crews returned to Alor Star safely but approximately half-an-hour after they had landed and while the Blenhiems were still being rearmed and refuelled, the Japanese attacked the airfield. A force of about twenty-seven enemy aircraft bombed Alor Star completely destroying at least three Blenheims and rendering another three damaged and unserviceable. As the Japanese invasion spread Harley finally escaped from Java on 2 March aboard the ‘Tung Song’ , it was one of the last ships to leave.

Devotion to a Calling: Far-East Flying and Survival with 62 Squadron RAF PDF

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