Obituary - Bob Forsyth, Bomber Command navigator and architect

Died: July 5, 2018

BOB Forsyth, who has died aged 96, had the key role of navigator on Lancaster Bombers in the RAF’s famous Bomber Command Pathfinder Force, flying raids over German cities in the last year of the Second World War. On returning to Scotland he tackled a different challenge as an architect designing schools in the central belt.

The youngest of a family of four, Bob (known to many as Robbie) was born in the east end of Glasgow and brought up in Dennistoun. After the premature death of his father he had to leave school at 14 and became apprenticed to a firm of Glasgow architects, working in the office by day and earning his architecture degree at night school.

When the war started he was sent to a small aircraft factory in Edinburgh, which designed parts for the Lancaster. A short flight in a Tiger Moth biplane so enthused him that he was soon volunteering for the RAF himself.

He was sent for training to South Africa under the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. There at Queenstown he was taught how to navigate by dead reckoning using an aeronautical chart, magnetic compass, an accurate watch, trip log, protractor and of course, pencil and paper. Landmarks below were crucial.

He was later assigned as Flight Sergeant to No 156 Squadron at Upwood in Cambridgeshire, from where he took part in hazardous raids to the heart of Germany, dropping both target markers and bombs before guiding the plane back home under heavy fire from the ground. By the time the war was over, he had spent more than 600 hours cramped in a Lancaster in daylight and in the pitch-black night lit only by enemy ack ack fire.

In the last days of the war he took part in Operation Manna, dropping life-saving food supplies to starving Dutch citizens in Rotterdam. He always said he was glad his war ended that way. He was equally proud to be in Operation Exodus, flying home grateful airmen, infantrymen and Royal Navy personnel who had been liberated from prisoner of war camps.

In August 1946, as part of Operation Goodwill, he flew a Lancaster all the way to Los Angeles to attend the 39th anniversary of the formation of the American Airforce. With only primitive tools like the magnetic compass and bubble sextant, the flight across the Atlantic from St Mawgan airfield in Cornwall – stopping overnight in the Azores – required all his navigational skills.

After the war he worked as an architect in the education department of Glasgow Corporation. It was there he met his future wife Jean, with whom he was to enjoy more than 60 years of marriage.

He was particularly pleased to work on Smithycroft Secondary School in Glasgow, built to replace his old school, Onslow Drive. His innovative circular design broke new ground in architecture for schools at the time.

He attended the Glasgow School of Architecture and was awarded the B.Arch (Strathclyde) in 1952. Under Strathclyde Regional Council he became depute director of architectural and related services, being promoted to senior depute director in Glasgow before his retirement. He was at various times president of the Glasgow Institute of Architects, vice-president of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and on the council of the Royal Institute of British Architects in London.

Whilst studying for his degree he was a member of the Royal Technical College sailing club and of their football club, which won the Scottish Amateur Cup in 1953 at Hampden Park –a feat, as he liked to point out, which hasn’t been achieved since.

His beloved wife Jean died in a car accident in 2013. He bore her loss with customary grace and dignity. Supported by their three daughters, Hazel, Heather and Sheena, and by wider family and friends, he continued to live in his own house in the village of Uplawmoor and pursued his many interests.

Among these was genealogy, to which he applied himself with typical meticulousness: he managed to trace his family back to 1666. I got to know him when he offered to help with my own family history, which shared a branch of his. He trawled the archives for weeks and sent me a stream of beautifully inked research papers.

I have often thought of Bob Forsyth as a poster-boy for a positive and fruitful old age. He insisted on keeping busy and active, was always immaculately turned out and had a curiosity that never seemed to dim. Quick to master the internet, he was still firing off emails and texts on all manner of subjects at the age of 96.

I received a constant stream of entertaining messages – always about something different. In the second-last one, just over a month ago, he was still game for something new: “ I took delivery today of the romantically named quingo, an electric-operated scooter, which will allow me to scoot along to the Church on the pavement, making it a lot easier than relying on lifts.”

His last email came the day after. It was to tell me he had admired my dress on the telly. It was typical of Bob Forsyth, with his bright, sharp eyes, to be noticing things to the end.

Hopefully that ability to age well will one day help others to do the same. Bob was a member of the 1921 Lothian Birth Cohort, who sat national tests in 1932 as 11-year-olds and have subsequently been undergoing a regular battery of physical and mental examinations at Edinburgh University to measure how they age and deduce why the ageing process differs.

In this, as in everything, from Lancaster Bomber to architect’s office, Bob Forsyth was immensely proud to play his part.

SALLY MAGNUSSON