Clifford (Cliff) Bowen trained on Course 12 at Falcon Field starting on 20 September 1942 and graduating on 8 April 1943.



He subsequently flew Halifax and other bombers over Germany and Nazi occupied Europe, and was fortunate enough to survive the war. He married Beryl Dixon, a WAAF radar operator.



After the war, Cliff worked as an optometrist/optician in Leeds, where his son John was born. Cliff and his family emigrated to South Africa in 1947, where his son Derek was born in 1949 and his daughter Gwenda in 1953.



Ironically and sadly, Cliff was killed as a passenger in a private flying accident, in a Tiger Moth in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in February, 1961. His son John was just 13 at the time, but remembers his father's fond recollections of his ten months at Falcon Field and has his father's photo album of his time in Arizona and his log book.