A military funeral was held for a 100-year-old war veteran from Newquay as the RAF bid farewell to one of the last in a generation of Far East coastal command crew.

The funeral of Mervyn Thomas was held at St Mawgan Church where family members were joined by members of RAF St Mawgan to celebrate his incredible life of service. 

RAF St Mawgan personnel endured the pouring rain as pallbearers and a lining party led the family of Mervyn as his coffin was borne into church to honour the World War II aviator who flew in the Burma campaign.

Also in attendance were standard bearers from RAF St Mawgan and the RAF Association carrying the Standards of the RAF St Mawgan Branch and Cornwall County.

The padre opened the service by thanking the uniformed personnel of the RAF for honouring a dedicated past member of the RAF, as all present paid their respects in remembering a devoted husband, loving father, grandfather, great grandfather and uncle.

Mervyn, who was joined in August by the RAF St Mawgan station commander to celebrate his 100th birthday, enlisted in the RAF as a wireless operator in 1941 on his 18th birthday. 

He went on to spend the majority of his 27-year career in the RAF within coastal command, flying iconic aircraft such as the Lancaster, Wellington, and Shackleton all over the world. 

On one mission in 1942, his crew was tasked to deliver a new Mark3 Wellington all the way to Bombay in India and join the coastal command unit there.

They routed through Gibraltar, Libya, Egypt, Persia (now Iraq) but on landing at RAF Habbaniya, the pilot was disorientated by a heat haze and crash landed, breaking the aircraft in two.

Unscathed, the crew were able to hitch a ride to Bahrain via Baghdad where they picked up another Wellington, which had been repaired from a previous accident, and continue their journey. The crash did cause Mervyn to lose his front teeth!

It was in India in 1943, after completing a jungle survival course, that Mervyn joined No. 355 Sqn at RAF Salbani, a long-range bomber Squadron flying regular sorties into Thailand and Burma in support of Operations against the Japanese. 

After 30 missions into enemy territory, Mervyn was posted close to RAF Poona to help set up an Army rest camp for servicemen returning from Burma.

Many former prisoners of war from the Japanese camps passed through the unit, allowing them some time to decompress before returning home. 

Mervyn was finally repatriated to England in 1946 and left the service, but the civilian world didn’t suit him and seeing an advert for ex RAF personnel to re-join, he did so, and in 1950 was posted to 203 Sqn, at RAF St Eval, flying Lancasters in Coastal Command.

It was here at RAF St Eval that he met his “Cornish Maid” Eleanor, who was working in the station NAAFI during the day and the Astra cinema in the evening; the two were married in St Mawgan Parish Church in December 1951.

Mervyn went on to complete another 17 years with the RAF, based at RAF St Mawgan, RAF Kinloss and as far away as Penang in Malaysia, before retiring in 1968. 

Wg Cdr Helen Simpson, the station commander at RAF St Mawgan said: “I was so sad to hear that Mervyn had passed away, it was only a few months ago that we met to celebrate his 100th birthday. 

“He told me then that he spent a further 20 years at RAF St Mawgan as a civil servant after leaving the RAF, which is incredible really, and so I’m grateful to be able to be here to remember him and support his family at this difficult time.”

Reverend (Wg Cdr, retired) Andrew Turner who conducted the service said: “Whilst we gather to mark a sad occasion, it is fitting after such a long association with the station that personnel from RAF St Mawgan provided such a superb support to the service in the parish church of the village which gave the station its name and where this special couple were married.”