Instead, he mutters a blessing under his breath to his “Lucky Irons” before every meal.
He’d been walking towards the mess hut along with other air crew when he realised he’d forgotten his “irons” – the cutlery he’d been issued with when he arrived at the RAF base in Malaya.
After collecting them from the barracks, he’d set out to catch up the others, just as a lone Japanese bomber dropped its payload on the men and blew them to smithereens.