Eric Simms

Who was Eric Simms?

Eric Arthur Simms, DFC was an English ornithologist, naturalist, writer, sound recordist, broadcaster and conservationist, as well as a decorated wartime Bomber Command pilot/ bomb-aimer.

He was born on 24 August 1921, the youngest of three brothers, in 1921 in London, where his father was head gardener at the private gardens in Ladbroke Square.

He won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School and in 1939 began to read history at Merton College, Oxford, where he also took up bird ringing and joined the University Air Squadron, and, without completing his studies, was sent for aircrew training in Canada and the United States in 1941. He was called up, joining the Royal Air Force in 1941 and by 1943 Leading Aircraftman, and was then commissioned as a pilot officer on probation in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 19 March 1943, serving as a bomb aimer and second pilot in Lancaster bombers, in which he flew 27 raids over Germany. On 14 November 1944 he was awarded Distinguished Flying Cross, the citation praising his "skill and determination which have been an inspiration to the crews with which he flies" and a "complete disregard for danger in the face of the heaviest enemy defences".