Couple who met at wartime dance among oldest surviving WWII veterans

A couple in Ceredigion are among the oldest surviving veterans of World War Two.

Both John and Adelaide Martin served in the RAF - John as a bomber pilot and Adelaide as a mechanic ensuring aircraft were airworthy.

Both now almost 100 years old, they are among only a very tiny number of couples in Britain who both served in the war.

Their story is celebrated in a special new programme for ITV Cymru Wales called Greatest Generation.

The couple met at a wartime dance - and were to be married weeks after the war ended.

But their romance had almost ended before it had really begun, as John was shot down on only his third mission.

“We were just about ten minutes away from Berlin, which was the target, and that's when these cannon shells whipped through the aircraft passed my arm,” he said.

John’s Lancaster bomber had been hit by a German night-fighter aircraft and was quickly on fire.

The blaze was blocking John’s escape route.

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“I really felt these were my last seconds, but, at that moment, the aircraft must be blown to pieces and I can remember, you know, flying through the air.”

A dazed and terrified John managed to open his parachute and land safely, but he was immediately taken prisoner. Adelaide learned somewhile later that he was safe.

In the meantime, Adelaide worked among an all-women team to repair and service aircraft.

“They were quite special, I think,” she says. “Conscientious, good friends with each other. We’d get up in the morning, sit in the cockpit, run the engines up and talk about our lives. You might even say we became a family.”

The couple’s story is one of several featured in the documentary which also meets a member of the Land Army who served on farms around Wales and a man who witnessed not only the Battle of Britain but the heroic defence of Malta.

Greatest Generation will be broadcast at 9pm on June 7 on ITV Cymru Wales.