Reginald Woolgar, RAF gunner who ditched at sea and narrowly escaped King David Hotel bomb – obituary

Woolgar: in Mandatory Palestine in 1946, he was on his way to attend a meeting at the King David Hotel when it was blown up

Flight Lieutenant Reginald “Jimmy” Woolgar, who has died two weeks before his 104th birthday, was an RAF air gunner who survived a ditching in the English Channel and went on to complete 42 bombing operations over Germany.

On the night of February 14 1941, Woolgar and his three companions took off in their Hampden bomber of 49 Squadron to attack Mannheim; it was their 23rd operation. As they left the target, one of the aircraft’s two engines failed, and they steadily lost height on the return flight. After five hours, the remaining engine ran out of fuel and the pilot ditched the bomber in the English Channel.

The crew managed to release the dinghy and spent a very cold night before a searching aircraft found them in the afternoon floating near the Isle of Wight.

A Royal Navy motor launch was dispatched to pick them up and take them to Gosport. The sailors told Woolgar and his comrades that they had been heading towards a minefield. Woolgar later said that the incident cost him “one of my nine lives. I used six of them in the RAF.”

His ditching qualified him for the Goldfish Club: he was the oldest surviving member.

Reginald Louis Arthur Woolgar, known as Jimmy in the air force, was born on March 21 1920 at Hove. He was educated locally and on leaving school began training as a surveyor. Shortly after the war began in 1939, he joined the RAF.

Having trained as a wireless operator/air gunner, Woolgar joined 49 Squadron at Scampton near Lincoln in September 1940. The squadron operated the twin-engine Hampden bomber.

His first target was Berlin, which was attacked by 129 bombers on September 23/24, a “unique raid for this period of the war” according to The Bomber Command War Diaries by Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt.

Woolgar: ‘I used six of my nine lives in the RAF’

Woolgar later attacked targets in Hamburg, Kiel and the industrial Ruhr, as well as making sorties to lay aerial mines in estuaries and the approaches to enemy ports. While over Oslo fjord, his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire, one bullet hitting his gun sight. On landing, he discovered holes in his sheepskin flying jacket.

As an experienced air gunner, Woolgar attended a course at the Central Gunnery School before becoming an instructor at a bomber training unit. He was commissioned and became the unit’s gunnery leader.

In the spring of 1944, he joined 192 Squadron, a special duties squadron in 100 Group, equipped with the four-engine Halifax. The squadron’s task was to fly with the main bomber force and locate and identify the enemy’s radar and signals units. This allowed intelligence officers to survey and plot the German radar chain, allowing specialist electronic equipment to be developed which could “jam” the enemy radar system.

He flew numerous sorties along the French coast, seeking data on the emerging threat of Hitler’s “terror weapons”, the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket. The Prime Minister Winston Churchill place a high priority on these missions. After flying 20 operations as gunnery leader, Woolgar was awarded the DFC.

At the end of the war, he left for Palestine and joined 38 Squadron at Ein Shemer.

Equipped with the Lancaster, the squadron was employed in maritime surveillance during the Palestine disturbances. Woolgar had a lucky escape on July 22 1946 when he was approaching the King David Hotel to attend a meeting when a bomb exploded, killing 91 people including other attendees of the same meeting.

He left the RAF in 1947 and, while working for the Hove Corporation as a valuation officer, he completed his exams to become a chartered surveyor. He secured a job with the city planning department of the City of London, dealing with the Barbican and St Paul’s areas and the adjacent war-damaged surroundings.

He became the senior valuer and, during his 14 years in the appointment, he identified a site in Blackfriars to house the Mermaid Theatre, the life’s work of the actor Bernard Miles; in May 1959, it became the first new theatre to open in the City of London since the time of Shakespeare.

Woolgar later joined St Quintin Chartered Surveyors as a senior partner, and also became chairman of Town & Country Building Society, retiring in 1973.

Woolgar was a strong supporter of the Sussex Branch of the Aircrew Association until it disbanded.

He was 17 when he met his future wife, Doris, at the Regent Dance Hall in Brighton in 1937 and they were married on August 30 1942.

His wife and daughter survive him.

Reginald Woolgar, born March 21 1920, died March 8 2024

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