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A WW2 veteran from County Durham has returned from a commemorative visit to Malaysia to retrace the steps he took during his service.

Raffaello Moscardini, 89, from Stanley, served with the RAF as a wireless operator, helping to guide damaged or lost bombers and fighter planes safely back home to their bases. As the 69th anniversary of VJ Day approaches on August 15, Raffaello is just one of many Second World War veterans who have made, or are about to make a commemorative visit to places where they served after having received a grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Heroes Returnprogramme.

Raffaello was born in the UK to Italian parents and his family faced difficulties when Mussolini entered the war on the side of the Nazis.

He explained: “My two older brothers were called up to fight in 1939 when war broke out – I was only 15 then. But when Mussolini entered the war my father was arrested and taken to the Isle of Man for a few weeks. Because we lived near the coast, my mother had to move away to Hexham – the reason given was that she could have helped guide in an invasion force. I still lived with my older sister who taught at my school. My mother and father were interviewed and came back home after a few weeks. It’s strange – my father and mother had to be taken away for a few weeks because they were Italian – yet my oldest brother Osvaldo ended up fighting at El Alamein and Monte Casino and Alfredo was at D Day.”

When called up aged 18, Raffaello volunteered for the RAF and passed the exams with expectations of flying. However, these prospects were soon dashed when he was called in front of three officers. He recalled: “They said ‘we have some bad news for you’ and I knew what they were going to say. They said ‘you can’t fly in any aircraft’ – it was because of my dual nationality. So I became a wireless operator.”

Raffaello was based in Chivenor near Barnstable in Devon before being moved to Scotland, specialising in high frequency direction finding. He said: “If airplanes were shot up and were struggling to get back, or if they got lost, they’d press a Morse key which emitted a signal and I could tell them where they were and direct them back to their base. I never found out whether they got home safely or not.

“I remember doing one 11pm to 8am shift one night and coming back to my billet and telling the lads what a busy shift it had been. I went to bed and when I woke up I found out that it was D Day.”

Raffaello was then posted abroad to India, arriving in Bombay where, instead of acting as a radio operator, he performed training exercises and manoeuvres in preparation for a seaborne assault. He recalled: “We had no idea where we were going – but we knew it was for an invasion. I was part of a six-man unit and we had three lorries, learning how to drive a lorry off a landing craft and onto a beach. As it turned out our lorries were put onto a different ship.

“I was on a ship full of British troops and some Indian soldiers. We arrived at a beach at Port Dixon in Malaya at night. We got into landing crafts and headed to the shore. The bows went down and we were met by chaos. There were hundreds of people being dropped onto the beach but no one knew what was happening. It turned out that the atom bombs had been dropped while we were at sea and Japan had surrendered. There was no resistance. Everything was up in the air. We didn’t know where to go. We had to hitch a lift in to Kuala Lumpur to find the three lorries.”

At Kuala Lumpur, Raffaello helped set up a wireless station and while there attended Mass every Sunday. He heard about French order of nuns who ran an orphanage which included some Italian nuns.

He recalled: “I used to go to visit them every Sunday and speak to the nuns in Italian. Most of the children in the orphanage were Chinese. The impression I got at the time was that the Chinese didn‘t like people dying in their home and would bring their very sick children to the nuns at the orphanage. Sometimes the nuns asked if I would baptise a child that they thought was going to die.” 
  
Raffaello made a Heroes Return funded trip back to Malaysia in June this year with his son Carl and son-in-law John. They visited the site of the orphanage, now a girls’ school, and the former airbase, now the site of a museum to the Royal Malaysian Air Force. They also visited the Royal Selangor Club in the heart of Kuala Lumpur which was used as the NAAFI during the war.

Raffaello said: “I visited these places during bad times and it’s really nice to visit during the good times.

“I’m certainly no hero – but my brothers were. They were in battles and lucky to survive the war – many others didn’t and it’s important to remember them.”

The Big Lottery Fund has extended its Heroes Return 2 programme to enable veterans to apply for funding to make second trips. The programme deadline for closure will now be end of 2015.
This will ensure Second World War veterans from the UK, Channel Islands and Republic of Ireland who have already been funded since the programme relaunched in 2009 will have a second opportunity to apply for a grant towards travel and accommodation expenses to enable them to make trips back to places across the world where they served, or make a commemorative visit in the UK. For details contact: Heroes Return helpline: 0845 00 00 121 or visit www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/heroesreturn

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours media contact: 07867 500572
Website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Twitter: @biglotteryfund #biglf
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BigLotteryFund

Notes to editors 

• The Big Lottery Fund is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by the National Lottery.
• The Fund is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. Since its inception in 2004 it has awarded close to £6bn.
• In the year ending 31 March 2013, 28% of total National Lottery revenue was awarded to projects. Since the National Lottery began in 1994, £31 billion has been raised and more than 400,000 grants awarded.