Congratulations to our Norfolk Branch member Alan Barkes Centenarian Rockape (06 Jan 2021), on his 100th birthday. One of RAF Regiment’s first paratroopers and also South East Asia Comd middleweight boxing champion. Per Ardua.

“I joined the RAF in 1940. After training in the UK, I was posted to Beachy Head as an anti-aircraft gunner. Later we were sent overseas to Bombay via the Suez Canal. We were posted to newly formed RAF Regiment HQ in Secunderabad, where I joined 2846 Squadron and was then posted to Burma.

Here we engaged with the Japanese enemy in the jungle in the Magwe area. There was bitter fighting and dreadful conditions. Sometime later all squadron were informed that there was to be a Parachute Regt formed and that volunteers were needed. Together with LAC Fallow I volunteered. After short training at Chaklala with 6 daylight jumps and one at night, we were deemed qualified! We were now 2810 Squadron under the leadership of Sqn Ldr Sullivan.

We were then called on parade and addressed by Air Chief Marshall Sir Keith Parkes and Lord Louis Mountbatten and told to remain there and be prepared to parachute into the Malayan jungle with other troops and that there would almost certainly be bitter fighting as it was intended to retake Singapore.

The following day we boarded the aircraft but we were amazed to hear that the war was over as the Americans had dropped the h bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This meant we no longer needed to engage with the enemy.

Later the Sqn was flown to Kalang airport in Singapore where we took over from the Japanese. I was an amateur boxer before the war so while waiting to be demobbed I took up boxing for the Regt. I fought at the Happy World in Singapore and became South East middleweight champion. I was de-mobbed in 1946.”

(NatSec- 06/01/2021-Norfolk Branch)