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Relentless Skies - The Most Efficient Airman

Air Vice-Marshal Don Bennett CB CBE DSO FRAeS is best known as the Australian commander of the Royal Air Force's elite Path Finder Force in the Second World War. His drive, determination and passion for excellence saw him play a principal role in prosecuting the bombing campaign against Nazi Germany.
Yet, the full story of his life has never been comprehensively explored. Few can recount his exploits as a pioneering aviator, or know why he was regarded as the most technically brilliant airman of his generation. Fewer still know the man's background, interests, passions and obsessions, or what drove him to his many aviation achievements.

Operation Exodus - the forgotten story of The Long March and the world’s largest airlift of people - Thursday 3rd April 2025 18.30

During nine weeks at the end of the Second World War in Europe in early 1945 more than 354,000 British, Commonwealth, and Allied former Prisoners of War (POWs) were repatriated by air in what was – and still is – the world's largest airlift of people.

The airlift involved many types of aircraft flown by crews from the RAF, RAAF, RCAF, USAAF, Polish Air Force, and French Air Force, a key element being the 72,319 former POWs flown by Lancasters of Bomber Command in Operation Exodus.

On what will be the 80th anniversary, aviation historian Mike Ingham recounts in this illustrated presentation the little known story of the forced evacuation of POWs on treks of 500 miles on foot, liberation, flights out of Germany, and eventual return home to England by air.

The evening starts with a delicious hot supper in The Hub Café at 18.30.

'Join Mark Aedy as he talks about his new book From Biplanes to Fast Jets: A pilot’s life in the Royal Air Force 1942–1973, a biography of Ken Aedy, a man whose flying career traversed a huge transformation in technology from biplanes to fast jets during the time of his service in the RAF.

Ken joined the Royal Air Force in 1942, aged eighteen, having had his medical in the Long Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground. He was taught to fly in Oklahoma in 1942 and 1943, returning to the UK on the converted Queen Mary troop ship. He first went solo on a Tiger Moth, a biplane, and subsequently transferred to heavy bombers, learning on Wellingtons before becoming operational in Lancasters during the Second World War. He also dropped food supplies to the Dutch in Operation Manna and flew returning former Prisoners of War back home to the UK. He was still only twenty years old when the war ended in May 1945.

Ken elected to remain in the Royal Air Force after the war. He was posted to Egypt at the time of Israel’s independence in 1948 and subsequently to Singapore in 1950 where he also met and married his wife. He also participated in the lead up to the Berlin airlift and in the first ever Battle of Britain fly-past over Buckingham Palace. In the 1950s, he transitioned onto jets including the Meteor, the Hunter and, his favourite, the Javelin. He served in Germany and several stations in the UK, prior to being posted to Cyprus in the mid-to-late 1960s during the emerging Middle East crisis.

It is not the story of a hero, but rather the story of an ordinary man’s experiences throughout an extraordinary century of geo-political turmoil and rapid technological advances. A heartwarming, amusing and at times harrowing tale, featuring stunning photographs, paintings and diagrams of the planes he flew and key events he witnessed.