Heide, Lee

Lee Heide was trained in Canada as a navigator and flew overseas with Ferry Command in June, 1941. In England he was assigned to a Beaufort OTU and, with an RAF crew, trained on torpedo operations. Sent to the Middle East, the crew went by boat to Nigeria, their aircraft crated in the hold, and then flew across the heart of Africa, down the Nile River from Khartoum to Cairo, and thence to Malta. Heide survived the blitz on Malta for a year with heavy losses to his squadron. Converting to Beaufighters near Tunis, he and his pilot were shot down and forced to ditch near Elba. After five days afl...