Edward Alfred Doughty

Edward Alfred Doughty was born in Hambledon on 1st May 1922, the younger son of Edward and Sarah Doughty of The Stores in the High Street, the village shop run by the family. He grew up in the centre of village life alongside his older brother Leonard, both belonging to a generation whose adulthood was shaped entirely by the Second World War.

He volunteered for aircrew service in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and trained as a pilot under the Empire Air Training Scheme. This vast international training programme sent young airmen to Canada, Australia and other parts of the Commonwealth where safer flying conditions allowed large numbers of pilots to be prepared for operational service. Edward was posted to Ontario, Canada for advanced training on the Avro Anson, the standard twin engine trainer used to teach navigation, instrument flying and multi crew operation.

On 23rd June 1942, while flying near Fingal in Ontario, his aircraft entered thick cloud and went into a high speed dive before breaking up in the air and crashing at Bedford Farm near Willey Road, Wallacetown. There were no survivors. He was twenty years old and was buried in St Paul’s Anglican Church Cemetery at Mount Hope in Ontario.

His death occurred more than a year before the loss of his elder brother Leonard, killed in operations over the sea in 1943. Together the two brothers represent a double sacrifice from a single Hambledon family, one dying in training far across the Atlantic and the other in active operations over the ocean.