100-year-old Royal Air Force veteran will join UK memorial service for the first time

LONDON — Michael Woods has visited his wife, Mary, every day since she moved into a nursing home two years ago.

But on Sunday, the 100-year-old Royal Air Force veteran will skip the daily get-together so he can fulfill another duty — honoring the men he served with during World War II.

For the first time since he left the RAF in 1947, Woods will take part in Britain’s national Remembrance Day service, joining thousands of veterans as they march past the Cenotaph war memorial in central London to honor those who died during the world wars and all the conflicts that followed.

“It’s a great privilege for me to do this,” said Woods, a mechanic who kept Lancaster bombers flying during the war. “And I suppose I’ll never do it again.”

The annual ceremony is a solemn event marked every year when the king and envoys from the Commonwealth nations that fought alongside Britain in the two world wars lay wreaths at the Cenotaph. It culminates when up to 10,000 veterans, many with medals gleaming on their chests and regimental berets on their heads, parade past the memorial.

Until now, Woods has watched on television from his home in Dunstable, 30 miles (50 kilometers) away. Mary always watched with him.

Woods had a lot on his mind before. For many years, he was busy with his family: two daughters, a son, eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. And, more recently, he was looking after Mary, his wife of 68 years.

But there was something else holding him back as well. He didn’t feel he deserved the honor, as he was “just” a mechanic working on the 12-cylinder Rolls-Royce Merlin engines that powered the Lancaster bombers. He changed his mind after he connected with other ex-service members through Blind Veterans UK, the charity that has helped him deal with macular degeneration and glaucoma.

He felt it was time to remember the men who didn’t come home after they roared into the sky aboard planes he had certified as airworthy. Each Lancaster carried a crew of seven, most in their early 20s, so the losses — so many at once — were hard to bear.

“It’s very, very upsetting when a Lancaster takes off and it doesn’t return,” Woods told The Associated Press.

“I couldn’t forget it if I wanted to,” he added. “It’s just imprinted on your mind, you know.”

The RAF’s Bomber Command had the highest attrition rate of any Allied unit during World War II, with 44% of aircrew members killed in action, according to the International Bomber Command Centre. Some 55,573 of the 125,000 who served on the aircrews died during the war.

Adrian Bell, CEO of Blind Veterans UK, said he’s met many World War II veterans who describe themselves as mere cogs in a massive machine. But that’s what it took to defeat fascism. Everyone was needed.

So come Sunday, Woods will be marching.

With the stubbornness to retain his independence that seems to have come with turning 100, Woods insists he won’t use a wheelchair because he has never used one before and isn’t going to start now. Besides, his son, Eddie, will be there to act as a guide and his buddies from the charity will be nearby to offer emotional support.

He will be an inspiration, Bell said.

“I think the most important thing is the fortitude of a man who is 100 years old, who fought in the Second World War and beyond, who is going to be there physically on Sunday and marching as a tribute to those who lost their lives and as a sort of a sign of hope and a sign ... that there is life after all of these things,” Bell said. “That’s the embodiment of something that I think is really important.”