PICTURE this...you are 18, frozen to the core as you grip the Browning machine guns which you hope will discourage German night fighters from swooping in too close.

You feel pretty exposed ‘hanging out there’ in the cramped perspex-encased tail end gun turret of a Halifax bomber, with anti-aircraft fire exploding all around, as your pilot steers in for a run over industrial targets 20,000ft beneath you.

Down there, the ground is glowing red from earlier high-explosive ‘deliveries’ from chums on other planes in your squadron.

That was the view from hell that Arthur Young looked down on.

It was a spectacle he endured for 30 missions... the maximum number of sorties on a total tour of 30 (the maximum allowed) as a tail-end Charlie.... among the bravest of the brave in Bomber Command.

And Bomber Command itself picked up the highest level of casualties in the war.

Out of every 100 bomber crew personnel, 76 never made it to 1945.

Arthur was one of the lucky ones... and he knows it.

That’s why he has been making a special pilgrimage to the Dutch town of Dronten with other former bomber men, to pay their respects at the site of a downed Lancaster in woods outside the town.

He has just returned from the most recent ‘mission’, when the local townspeople gave their guests a warm welcome.

Arthur was even profiled in the local Dutch newspaper.

When the trips started, there were more than 114 of them crossing the Channel, but today that number has dwindled to 14.

Now Arthur (85) fears that with the passage of time they may not be able to keep going across much longer.

“I served with 77 Squadron based at Full Sutton near York, after enlisting at 18,” Arthur, a former pupil of Whiston Central School, proudly recalls.

“Probably the most dangerous mission I flew on was the night we bombed Duisburg in the Ruhr.”

The Ruhr was the industrial powerhouse of Nazi Germany and the Allies massed overwhelming bomber attacks to crush the flow of material to the German war machine.

After the fighting subsided, Arthur moved to a slightly less hazardous role within the RAF... pen-pushing as a clerk before demob. He later worked as a buyer.

Today he enjoys recalling those glory days from his sheltered accommodation in Thatto Heath.

It’s now more than 60 years since the last bombs rained down on Nazi Germany.

Still, Arthur’s memory of those nerve-jangling missions burns as brightly as the pride in his heart which comes from knowing that his RAF comrades’ actions helped topple the loathsome fascist regime.

Fact file: Halifax Bomber

Length: 71ft 7in (21.81m)

Wingspan: 104ft 2in (31.74m)

Height: 20ft 9in (6.32m)

Maximum Speed: 309mph (498kmh)

Ceiling: 22,000ft (6,703m)

Range: 1,260 miles (2,032km) with max bombload

Powerplant: Four Bristol Hercules 100s of 1,800hp each

Payload: 12,000lbs (5,448kg)

Defensive Armament: 4 x .303in Browning machine guns in mid-upper and tail turrets.