Bomber Command pilot and deputy director of Ninewells Hospital

Born: July 27, 1923;

Died: September 16, 2017.

DR Jack Boswell, who has died aged 94, was a former RAF Bomber Command pilot who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for his combat actions in Wellington, Halifax and Mosquito bombers over France and Germany during the Second World War. Those actions were vital in helping allied ground troops push towards Berlin and end the war.

After the conflict, having graduated as a medical doctor at St Andrews University, he became a highly-respected and much-loved house surgeon at Arbroath Infirmary, a pathologist in Gloucester and later at Maryfield Hospital, Dundee. He went on to join the North East Blood Transfusion Service at Dundee Royal Infirmary (headed by Dr Charles Cameron) and became deputy director of the city's new Ninewells Hospital until his retirement in 1988.

Jack Boswell was born on July 27, 1923, in Dargaville, known as the kumara (sweet potato) capital of New Zealand, on the North Island. His parents were recent English expats Frank and Florence Boswell, Frank from Norfolk and Florence from Great Yarmouth. Frank, who had become a dairy farmer in New Zealand, survived the bloody 1915 ANZAC campaign in Gallipoli, made known to later generations by the song And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, written by Scot Eric Bogle of Peebles and made famous by The Pogues.

The growing depression during the 1920s hit the family dairy farm hard and they came back to England when Jack was two. He went to Norwich Grammar School and Norwich Technical College before enrolling at the University of London, only to see his studies interrupted, like so many, by the outbreak of war.

After volunteering for the RAF, he was sent for flight training to Ponca City, Oklahoma, as part of the British Flying Training School Programme run by pilots of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and civilian contractors.

During a five-month course, he trained in Fairchild PT-19 monoplanes, P-40 Warhawks and PT-17 Stearmans biplanes made famous after the war as crop-dusters or by wing-walking daredevils.

In their eulogies at Kirkcaldy Crematorium, his family recalled that a flying instructor once told him: "Boswell, you're stirring that (joy) stick like a Yuletide pudding!" His hardened pioneer flight instructors left him with his own unconventional, un-RAF way of flying and he often later broke formation just to survive.

Back in Blighty, he was assigned to RAF 78 Squadron, 4 Group, Bomber Command. In September 1941, on the orders of Churchill after the Blitz of London, Glasgow, Coventry and other targets, the squadron flew its first bombing raid against Berlin. With the rank of Flying Officer, Jack Boswell flew Halifax, Wellington and Mosquito bombers against the Nazis. His squadron was involved in the first "1,000-bomber" raids against Cologne.

His family recalled that on one raid over Germany, in which his squadron suffered major casualties, he aborted his bombing mission to save his crew and dumped his bombs into the sea to help them get home. They made it back despite an inexplicable compass failure - inexplicable until his ground crew realized the service pistol in his bomber jacket had deflected the compass.

After the war, Mr Boswell studied at and graduated from St Andrews. He also crossed paths with a beautiful young nurse, O'Linda Watt Murray from Carnoustie, who invited him to a nurse's dance. She recalled him standing all over her toes on the dance floor and putting her on the wrong bus at the end of the evening. Nevertheless, Jack used to walk between Arbroath and Carnoustie to court her and they married on November 15, 1952 and had their first child Irene (now Irene Deacon of Upper Largo, Fife) in 1954, a son Ian in 1955 and a second son, Colin, in 1958.

In the mid-1960s, Jack and Linda became informal foster parents to Raphael, a Malaysian boy who became like another son, part of the Boswell family. In their eulogies, Mr Boswell's family said: "he was a fantastic dad, a real softie at heart who loved playing with his family, always keen to be involved and often full of nonsense. He was over the moon when his three beautiful grandchildren Elaine, Lyndsey and Scott, and two beautiful great grandchildren Kiera and Lucas were born.

"Jack never ever acted his age; he was always up to mischief and definitely gave any sport or challenge a go ... having a go on a skateboard and having a go on the human gyroscope. He truly could turn his hand to anything, especially his woodworking, and anything he did build was absolutely solid like the hi-fi cabinet that needed a crane to lift, and regrettably wouldn’t fit through the door so had to be brought in through the window. He enjoyed photography from a child onwards and took thousands of photographs."

Mr Boswell also loved canoeing (sometimes upside down in rapids in a canoe he built in his bedroom), snorkelling, cycling, hostelling, swimming off Carnoustie beach and especially skiing at Glenshee.

Dr Jack Boswell died at Leven Beach Care Home, Fife. His wife O'Linda (née Murray) died in the same home in January this year. He is survived by their children Irene, Ian and Colin (and their spouses), grandchildren Elaine, Lyndsey and Scott, and great grandchildren Kiera and Lucas.

PHIL DAVISON