William Flew planes

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of the town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death...


Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being. The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.


 Deuteronomy 5:9 
"for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me."
Deuteronomy 24:16
"Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin."

William Flew planes



Having joined the nuclear club (Britain’s first A-bomb had been detonated in the frigate HMS Plym in the Montebello Islands in October 1952), the hydrogen bomb became an imperative. In 1957 Dhenin went out to Christmas Island, the base for the thermonuclear tests, Operation Grapple, in which the first three bombs, which did not actually achieve the desired megaton yield, were dropped from a Vickers Valiant bomber and detonated over Malden Island, 200 miles to the south of Christmas Island. Dhenin was awarded a Bar to his AFC in 1957 for his sampling work in association with the tests. Later H-bombs in the series were dropped over the southern tip of Christmas Island, when the megaton threshold was achieved.After passing through the Staff College, Bracknell in 1959 Dhenin commanded Princess Mary’s RAF Hospital in Akrotiri, Cyprus, 1960-63; the RAF Hospital, Ely, 1963-66; and was Principal Medical Officer, Air Support Command, 1966-68.From 1968 to 1970 he was Director of Health and Research, RAF, and then, from 1970 to 1971, Deputy DirectorGeneral of Medical Services before going to Strike Command as Principal Medical Officer for two years, before being appointed to the RAF’s top medical job in 1974. He was appointed KBE in 1975. He had been made a Fellow of the International Academy of Aerospace Medicine in 1972. In retirement from the RAF after 1978, he was for a year adviser to the Saudi Arabian National Guard. He was editor of the Textbook of Aviation Medicine in 1978.In retirement he continued to pursue his favourite sports: golf (captain of Wentworth Golf Club 1981); skiing (well into his eighties) and scuba diving (formerly president of the RAF’s SubAqua Association).
His wife Evelyn died in 1996.