A bohemian soul who led a life of adventure, the aviator Murray Anderson used an instructor’s mnemonic for flying the Spitfire, “Praftu — petrol, radiator, airscrew, flaps, trim, undercarriage,” as a quasi-religious mantra that he repeated like a prayer for protection while airborne.
He was in the air for much of the Second World War on missions vital to the prosecution of the war — a photo-reconnaissance pilot at the controls of an unarmed pale-blue Spitfire flying six-miles high in daylight. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross twice.
After the conflict ended, Anderson just kept flying. He suffered a restlessness born of a childhood in India, a broken family, and a need for affection that ensured that his every step would be sideways. As a civilian pilot, he took command of aircraft in the Middle East, India, Burma and Nepal, ferrying refugees and Haj pilgrims amid the upheavals of the postwar years, before finding peace in a small terraced house overlooking the sea in Kent.
“There is a God-shaped hole in me,” he once said. In spare moments, his chosen reading was the life of Christ and the philosophy of Spinoza. He had a terror of flying in the dark and once imagined a dust storm as the prelude to the Second Coming.
On the outbreak of war, Anderson joined the Royal Tank Regiment. Disliking this, he switched to the RAF. As a photographer of the enemy’s cities, industrial and military sites — even Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” at Berchtesgaden — Anderson flew using dead-reckoning, with a magnetic compass, wristwatch, map and a calculation of wind-speed written on a card stuffed down the side of a flying-boot for reference.
A mission to photograph Chemnitz in Saxony, 600 miles from his base in Oxfordshire, in November 1941, took five and a half hours. He was told: “Don’t pee in the cockpit . . . it condenses on the canopy, freezes, and you can’t see out.” Between 1941 and 1943, he flew 131 photo-reconnaissance sorties, sometimes from nearly eight miles up.
“Bombed areas required flying a pattern to obtain a photographic mosaic, which could take up to 20 minutes,” he recalled. “While flying up and down over a target you were shot at by anti-aircraft guns.” His wing was holed at 28,000ft over Hamburg in August 1942. For his “courage, skill and devotion to duty”, he was awarded his first DFC. His photo-reconnaissance in support of the Allies in North Africa in early 1943 won him a second.
Having photographed drop-zones in France, he was invited by an old school friend, Hugh Verity, to join No 161 (Special Duties) Squadron, which ferried agents between England and France. One of those he transported was Eileen Nearne, “Agent Rose”, a wireless operator who survived incarceration in Ravensbrück concentration camp (obituary, Sept 15, 2010).
“He finally found peace in a terraced house facing the sea in Kent
His refusal to fly a seven-hour trip to Mâcon in Burgundy, which would have seen him over enemy territory at dawn, led to his reassignment. Flying P-51 Mustangs with No 65 (East India) Squadron from Bayeux in France, he completed a further 70 sorties, dive-bombing bridges and river traffic, before being sent to the Far East to fly Dakota transports.
Murray Crichton Bell Anderson was born in Norwood, south London, the son of Alexander Vass Anderson, a captain in the Royal Engineers (RE), in 1919. One brother, Lindsay (obituary, September 1, 1994), became a film director; another, Sandy, died in 1958 of polio contracted while serving with the Royal Navy in Japan.
Murray was told of his parents’ divorce while at prep school. His mother remarried, and his stepfather, Major Cuthbert Sleigh, RE, became a father-figure. The boys went to Cheltenham College. He ascribed his ability to adapt easily to the rolling and pitching of flying to his early prowess as a gymnast. He was also a talented artist.
In 1959, he married an Indian girl, Mary Tappo, in Bihar. They had two children: Alexander, known as Sandy, who became a smallholder in Yorkshire; and Jennifer, who worked in stage design. The marriage ended in divorce. He returned to Britain in 1967 — but kept on flying.
On being obliged to retire from Dan Air at the age of 60, he worked for Skyways Air Freight. Having made his home in Hythe, Kent, he married Jean MacEwan, a music teacher, in 2004. His stepdaughter, Helen, is an author and translator. His stepson, Neil, is a writer.
A man of direct manner and endless curiosity, he ferried more passengers about in his later years, this time elderly ladies of the district in an old Skoda car. He also wrote a memoir — Saint Praftu.
Murray Anderson, aviator, was born on December 7, 1919. He died on March 22, 2016, aged 96
